After a relatively poor voter turnout at the Catalan parliamentary election on May 12th, the prospect of another appointment with the ballot boxes - this one to choose the new composition of the European Parliament, on June 9th - may seem like an unattractive second course: voting again for the same old parties, and this time to send them off to the distant and often-unknown politics of Brussels. So why not turn the equation around - not just for Catalans but for all European voters - and ask where successful candidates from local lists on June 9th will end up going in terms of the large European Parliamentary groups that most MEPs join up to, alongside representatives from some or all of the other 26 countries of the Union. In some cases, these groupings are obvious or well-known, but on other occasions, European politics creates strange bedfellows. So, in which European Parliament groups will the Catalan candidacies find their homes?
Together for Catalonia (Junts)
We begin with the exception. On July 9th, the Catalan pro-independence party Junts will appear on the ballot as Junts i Lliure per Europa ("Together and Free for Europe"), with a candidacy that will be headed by current MEP Toni Comín, after the exiled Catalan president (and Junts founder) Carles Puigdemont, opted to seek a return to the presidency of the Generalitat instead of repeating as an MEP. While the Junts representatives in the last European Parliament (Puigdemont, Comín and Clara Ponsatí) were successful in raising the profile of both their party and Catalan independentism, they did not achieve this through integration into one of the European Parliamentary groups, but on the contrary, they remained apart, as members of the Non-Inscrits (NI). This is an extremely heterogeneous set of representatives who do not maintain any link between themselves, beyond having a budget and a joint secretariat. In the legislature that is now ending, there were around fifty Non-Inscrit MEPs, members of parties as different as the Communist Party of Greece on the extreme left; the Hungarian Civic Union of the ultra Viktor Orbán; Reconquista, the brand under which xenophobe Éric Zemmour ran in the 2022 French elections; and Italy's centrist 5 Star Movement.
Catalan Republican Left (ERC)
The European candidacy of pro-independence ERC, headed by the sitting MEP Diana Riba, is standing under the brand Ara Repúbliques ("Now Republics"), a broad coalition of parties from around the Spanish state, since it also includes names from EH Bildu (Basque Country), the BNG (Galicia) and Ara Més (Balearic Islands). The MEPs who are elected from ERC ranks will join the Eurogroup of the Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA), a left and centre-left space that balances environmental protection with regionalism and the defence of the right to self-determination. For this reason, among its members are the majority of the ecological parties on the continent, such as the 'greens' of Germany - where they are now in Olaf Scholz's government with the SPD and the liberal FDP; those of Austria - where they govern in coalition with the conservative Sebastian Kurz - as well as environmentalist parties from Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden. The group also contains regionalist parties such as Let's Make Corsica, the Democratic Union of Brittany or the Russian Union of Latvia. Curiously, it currently also has MEPs from the 'pirate' parties in Germany and the Czech Republic.
Catalan Socialists (PSC)
There are no prizes for guessing that the PSC, headed by current MEP Javi López, will become part of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D). This is one of the two major groups of the European Parliament, and includes social democratic and centre-left positions. In fact, the S&D currently has MEPs from 26 of the 27 states of the European Union. Indeed, its most prominent national government is that of Spain, where the Spanish Socialists (PSOE) head the executive. But it also has a prominent presence in other countries, such as in Germany - where Olaf Scholz heads the coalition government of the SPD with the Greens and Liberals - and in Denmark - via Mette Frederiksen, who governs with two conservative and liberal parties - while it recently left power in Portugal, where António Costa lost to the right after almost a decade. The group also forms part of the liberal government in Poland that ousted the Law and Justice ultraconservatives.
People's Party (PP)
Nor is there any mystery in the fact that the PP, with Dolors Montserrat as lead Catalan candidate, will be part of the European People's Party (EPP), the other main family of the European chamber, which is made up of the large parties of liberal conservatism typical of the centre-right and the right on the continent. In fact, the EPP surpasses its S&D rivals, because it has a presence in all 27 member states of the European Union, and also wins the battle in terms of national government strength: the parties that make up the EPP lead the executives in Portugal - where they took over from António Costa's Socialists - in Greece - beating Syriza in 2019 - in Poland - where Donald Tusk unseated the ultra-conservatives of Law and Justice - and in Austria. As well, they are the junior coalition partner in the government of Ireland. This group's controversy over its pacts with the extreme right also extends to national executives, because the component parties of the EPP form part of the government of Giorgia Meloni in Italy, they govern in Finland in coalition with the xenophobes of the Finns Party and in Sweden their accession to power depended on the abstention by the populist Sweden Democrats.
Comuns-Sumar
However, it is over on the left where the most curious groupings are found, at least from a Catalan point of view. In Catalonia, the alternative left candidacy of the Comuns-Sumar, led by Jaume Asens, is part of Sumar's broad state coalition. The MEPs who are elected will end up - all, except for those of United Left (IU) - in the family of The Greens/European Free Alliance (The Greens/EFA). Yes, that's right: despite being in a completely different list, these representatives will end up in the same Eurogroup as ERC, EH Bildu, BNG and Ara Més. As previously explained, this is a left-wing and centre-left space that combines environmentalism and the defence of regionalist interests, and its national particularities can be seen a few paragraphs above these lines.
Podemos
On the other hand, for Catalan voters who wish to avoid the The Greens/EFA group, there is another option: Podemos, for whom the former Spanish equality minister Irene Montero is standing as candidate. The MEPs elected from Podemos ranks will join The Left in the European Parliament (GUE/NGL), a clearly left-wing family with elements of the extreme left, that is to say, some MEPs take anti-capitalist positions. In most member states, these parties have little presence in national executives. In some cases, they did better in the past, as in the case of Spain - where Podemos has not maintained its presence in the government of Pedro Sánchez and has lost strength -Greece - where Syriza led the country between 2015 and 2019 - and Portugal - where the Left Bloc and the Portuguese Communist Party had been part of the socialist António Costa's coalition. In contrast, Ireland's Sinn Féin and Jean-Luc Mélenchon's La France Insoumise are optimistic about their prospects, while Die Linke in Germany is in bad shape.
Vox
There is the option - unlikely, if you are a reader of ElNacional.cat - of voting for the far-right Spanish nationalist party Vox, whose list is headed by Jorge Buxadé. His candidacy will end up in the group of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), which has an extreme-right tendency, with party ideologies that are marked by conservatism, nationalism and economic liberalism. In the European Parliament, Vox is in the same family as the Brothers of Italy - which, through prime minister Giorgia Meloni, currently heads the Italian government - the Law and Justice ultraconservatives - who were recently expelled from the government in Poland - and the Nordic xenophobes and populists of the Finns Party and the Sweden Democrats. They do not form part of Identity and Democracy (ID), another Euro parliamentary group that is located even further to the right - with an emphasis on anti-immigration rhetoric - and which includes Matteo Salvini's League and Marine Le Pen's National Rally, architects of the recent expulsion of Alternative for Germany after the pro-Nazi comments of its leader.
Ciudadanos (Cs)
And, finally, mention should be made of the Ciudadanos candidacy, whose options for obtaining representation are practically non-existent, but which still currently retains some MEPs. And one of them, Jordi Cañas, is the leader of the party list in Catalonia. In the unlikely event that he is elected, he will end up in the Renew Europe (RE) family, a centre and centre-right group whose ideological foundations are in social and economic liberalism and the defence of the Union project. Curiously, the MEPs of now-defunct Catalan nationalist party CiU had been part of this group in the past, and those of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) are still there. In terms of the group's power in national governments, the most prominent is that headed by Emmanuel Macron in France with his party La República en Marche. Furthermore, the situation in Germany should be highlighted: RE group members FPD are a minority partner in the executive headed by the socialist Olaf Scholz; then there is Ireland - where Fianna Fáil leads a government with Fine Gael - and the Netherlands - where Mark Rutte's VVD party lost its mandate and has now agreed to make the xenophobic populist Geert Wilders into the new Dutch president.