EPP moves to expel Slovenia's Grims over far-right ties

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The leadership of the center-right European People’s Party in the European Parliament on Thursday proposed expelling Slovenian MEP Branko Grims over his contact with far-right lawmakers and for failing to follow the group’s voting line on key files.

“The group’s leadership has put forward a proposal to expel Grims from the group, with a vote set to take place on Wednesday in Strasbourg,” EPP spokesperson Pedro López de Pablo told POLITICO.

Grims is a member of Janez Janša’s Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS), but has long been seen as an outlier within the EPP, often aligning with parties further to the right and breaking ranks with his own group. Most notably, he signed a motion of censure against the European Commission, which fellow EPP member Ursula von der Leyen leads.

The group “deplores the conduct of MEP Branko Grims and his lack of commitment towards the Group’s objectives and political priorities, which was shown by the repeated cooperation with the far right to the detriment of the Group line,” reads a draft resolution to be voted on by EPP lawmakers on Wednesday, obtained by POLITICO .

The group also “strongly regrets that MEP Branko Grims failed to serve the will of the Group in public and failed to meet the Group’s working practices and standards during crucial votes with reference, inter alia, to Rule of Law-related reports and Motions for Resolution,” the resolution reads.

In mid-May, Grims co-organized an event titled “Towards a right-wing majority in the EP” alongside members of the far-right Patriots and Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) groups in which participants vowed to break the center-right’s longstanding firewall against cooperating with those parties, drawing the ire of the EPP leadership, which had denied him authorization to participate and forbidden him from using the EPP logo.

The resolution also condemns Grims’ claims that the Digital Services Act enables “censorship” and his call to abolish the Court of Justice of the EU. It further notes that, during the Hungarian election campaign, he endorsed Viktor Orbán over EPP-affiliated Tisza leader Péter Magyar and has repeatedly co-signed written questions to the Commission drafted by lawmakers from the ESN group.

The EPP has repeatedly relied on support from far-right groups to pass legislation, including on migration and measures to cut red tape for businesses.

While the group insists it has not systematically negotiated with the far right and merely benefited from its votes, that claim came under scrutiny in March when it emerged that EPP and far-right officials had actively coordinated on the returns regulation through a WhatsApp group. The revelation angered German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said the practice had to stop and held EPP leader Manfred Weber responsible.