It’s not only local embarrassment that the EPP brass is hoping to avoid. Politically it would be a non-starter for European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Germany’s Chancellor-elect Friedrich Merz and EPP President Manfred Weber to have their grand plans for Europe overshadowed by street protests and potential indictments of the party’s Valencia representatives.
On the other hand, shifting the event to Madrid could prove ruinously expensive for the EPP, which is largely funded by European taxpayers, and especially for the Partido Popular, which is co-hosting the event.
“If our Spanish colleagues prefer to have it in Madrid, we are ready to support this,” a senior EPP lawmaker said, adding there will be “penalties” for canceling contracts at the last minute.
The contretemps is the latest in a series of internal dustups in a party that dominates EU politics and steers the bloc’s policymaking institutions.
Last-minute change
The leader of the center-right EPP’s Spanish affiliate, Alberto Núñez-Feijóo, appeared set on holding the big party in Valencia, even after floods struck the region last October to claim the lives of 224 local citizens.
But cracks began to appear in Núñez-Feijóo’s resolve last week. During a meeting with journalists he revealed that a potential move away from Valencia was being discussed, allegedly because Spanish lawmakers needed to be in Madrid for a session of the country’s parliament that had been on the books since January.