In February, the party’s workers’, seniors’ and women’s wings pushed a resolution calling for stronger social protections, skills and youth employment support. Austrian, Finnish, German and Swedish delegates came out against it, accusing it of being “poorly framed”, as “its focus on social justice sends the wrong signal given EPP priorities on competitiveness and productivity,” according to meeting minutes.

Other lawmakers pushed back, arguing the party could not abandon the social dimension. The leadership postponed the vote, and the resolution quietly disappeared from the next meeting’s agenda.

“It has not become easier,” said Radtke of trying to strengthen the EPP’s social focus. “If we are not willing to deliver on workers’ rights, on social issues, then we cannot claim to be Europe’s last people’s party.”

The far right’s culture wars are also reverberating inside the EPP, where longstanding tensions over feminism, gender and reproductive rights are shifting in favor of the conservative camp.

In Parliament, the EPP has traditionally backed strong sexual and reproductive rights while allowing national delegations a free vote on abortion, said veteran gender equality MEP Pietikäinen. Now, as some delegations harden their positions, consensus is eroding and more issues — including gender budgeting, which examines how public spending affects women and men — are left to free votes. “Now it has been more difficult,” she said.

A report on gender inequalities in health descended into pandemonium at an EPP group meeting last plenary, as Irish, Polish and Luxembourgish lawmakers urged colleagues to back it, while Spaniards called it “crazy” and Croatians denounced its “gender ideology” as “radical” and “extreme.”