The reshuffle will test coalition-building in the Parliament: the EPP can still choose between a centrist majority and majorities assembled with parties to its right, and the negotiation is over who controls that choice.

1. S&D positioning and negotiating objectives

S&D’s customary claim to the presidency has limited traction in this chamber. A Socialist candidate could not build a majority without EPP support, and Metsola could look to ECR and further right if challenged, so the group is weighing conditional support rather than a contest it would lose. Metsola has her own reason to accept: re-election by the EPP, S&D and Renew keeps her a president of the pro-EU centre, while dependence on PfE or ESN would tie the office to a right-wing majority and complicate her prospects for the Commission presidency in 2029.

The exchange would cover vice-presidencies, quaestors and committee bureaux as well as policy — concessions on the single market, the next budget, and files where the EPP legislated with right-wing majorities, most clearly the Returns Regulation and the Omnibus I sustainability package. Barley’s possible candidacy maintains pressure meanwhile.

S&D has not agreed its conditions.

• Spain ties cooperation to stronger cordon enforcement, reflecting lost trust in Weber and a domestic contest with a PP increasingly reliant on Vox; on that view a personnel deal without policy guarantees changes nothing.
• The German SPD wants a structured compromise, and may accept Barley’s withdrawal if S&D priorities are protected.
• The Italian PD wants Meloni and Salvini contained.
• Northern and western members defend climate and social legislation.
• Central and eastern members weight defence, Ukraine and industrial security.

These differences favour a short list of named priorities over a coalition programme. Those priorities are affordable food and housing, quality employment, clean energy at fair prices, European defence and industrial sovereignty, and control over large technology companies — which makes committee responsibilities on the budget, employment, industry and the internal market as important to the group as the vice-presidencies.

2. EPP negotiating strategy and internal divisions

A personnel-only agreement would give the EPP the presidency and a predictable distribution of offices without limiting its legislative choices: it could keep working with S&D and Renew on institutional and external files while drawing on ECR, PfE or ESN votes on migration, environmental simplification and parts of competitiveness. S&D wants the opposite — deeper policy cooperation that limits the EPP’s ties to the right and preserves its own influence despite shrinking numbers. The EPP’s priorities are competitiveness, lower regulatory costs, defence and Ukraine, with room for environmental simplification and a more restrictive migration policy, which is why it resists being bound across the full agenda.

The German delegation is the strongest supporter of a structured arrangement. Niclas Herbst and René Repasi, who lead the CDU and SPD delegations, have proposed a formal EPP–S&D deal on the German coalition model, settling trade-offs across files in advance and running a common candidate for president; the AfD’s rise gives both parties an interest in containing the parliamentary right. Delegations facing 2027 elections are likelier to resist:

• Spain’s PP governs with Vox in several regions and may seek the same nationally next year.
• Italy’s Forza Italia governs with Fratelli d’Italia and the League and runs against the Partito Democratico in 2027.
• Poland’s Civic Coalition governs with the left but stays cautious on migration, climate and sovereignty before elections expected in late 2027.

The negotiation is therefore about scope. A short list of protected files gives S&D a return while leaving the EPP other options; a broader programme offers stability but meets resistance from members who expect the electoral balance to keep moving right. The Commission favours consolidation — a formal EPP–S&D–Renew agreement would secure the programme, the next budget and future confidence votes, reduce PfE and ESN leverage, and stop individual alliances with the right becoming an alternative majority.

3. Renew’s role in centrist coalition negotiations

Renew backs continuing the EPP–S&D–Renew majority and has joined S&D in demanding an end to EPP cooperation with PfE and ESN. A German-style deal negotiated mainly between the two largest groups would leave it in a supporting role once the presidency and main committee posts are divided, so it wants a trilateral agreement from the start. Its leverage is policy, not a claim on the chair: the June Cork Declaration calls for lower energy costs, fewer single-market barriers, completion of the Savings and Investments Union, a more flexible budget, stronger defence and continued support for Ukraine — letting it work with the EPP on competitiveness and with S&D on investment, institutional reform and the rule of law.

The French delegation gives Renew a strong interest in the cordon sanitaire, reflecting a politics in which mainstream parties have used electoral agreements to keep Rassemblement National from power; the 2027 presidential election will test that. Dutch and other northern liberals are more open to cooperation with the right, but are a minority. Renew can accept Metsola, but will demand guarantees that the EPP does not swap the centrist majority for PfE and ESN when talks become difficult. It wants to remain a broker, not a supplier of votes.

4. ECR strategy and internal divisions

ECR faces a harder landscape than in 2024, and its Italian delegation is the most exposed to polarisation between the EPP-led centre and an emerging PfE–PiS–ESN front. Fratelli d’Italia built its European strategy on engagement with the EPP, support for Ukraine and a working relationship with von der Leyen, and Fitto’s position as a Commission executive vice-president gives it a direct interest in preserving that access while seeking changes on migration, climate and the budget.

PiS did not follow that approach and supported efforts to remove the Commission; in January 2026 ECR allowed a free vote on a motion of censure because it could not agree a group position. Its moderate wing broke away in July, Mateusz Morawiecki resigned as ECR Party president, and the remaining leadership is moving further right and becoming more receptive to Bardella’s attempt to connect PfE with conservative nationalist parties outside his group — though Russia, Ukraine and EU integration still divide them.

At home, Vannacci’s new party, Futuro Nazionale, is taking support from the League and challenging Meloni’s prospects for a stable right-wing majority after 2027, presenting her relationship with von der Leyen, support for Ukraine and acceptance of EU compromises as evidence the government is insufficiently right-wing. That makes the reshuffle important for Fratelli d’Italia: offices would let Meloni argue that engagement produces influence, while exclusion would strengthen the case for confrontation. The Italian delegation therefore needs ECR to stay close enough to the EPP to obtain posts.

5. PfE strategy and prospects for institutional influence

PfE is pursuing a gradual strategy and benefits whenever the EPP uses its votes, because each agreement makes cooperation on the right less exceptional and weakens the cordon sanitaire. Bardella is courting PiS and other ECR parties to connect the conservative and nationalist right without an immediate merger.

The 2027 French presidential election could change that. If Marine Le Pen or another RN candidate wins:

• PfE would include the governing party of one of the EU’s largest member states.
• Parliament could keep the cordon in formal terms, but the EPP and others would cooperate with that government in the Council while excluding its political family in Parliament.
• PfE would use the contradiction to demand vice-presidencies and committee positions, and Bardella could adopt a Meloni-style strategy — hard positions on migration, climate and sovereignty alongside negotiation with the EPP.
• It could attract MEPs or whole delegations from ECR, particularly those favouring confrontation with the Commission or expecting PfE to be the larger vehicle in 2029.

That would press hardest on Fratelli d’Italia, whose claim to be the acceptable partner on the right depends on PfE staying outside the settlement. Meloni would then choose between defending ECR as a separate conservative and Atlanticist pole, arranging with PfE, or negotiating a broader consolidation of the right. The January 2027 reshuffle may settle the offices for this term, but the French outcome could reopen it and start a wider realignment before 2029.