Legitimacy, expertise and compromise. Far-right vice-presidents and rapporteurs in the European Parliament’s Committee on “Constitutional Affairs”

The majority of COMINST/AFCO members are MEPs with a strong academic and political background and experience of European institutional issues. But they are not exclusively federalist; on the contrary, far-right MEPs have been able to acquire the legitimacy to hold leadership positions there by activating their willingness to compromise and then accumulating political capital internally. Based on an ethnography of the European Parliament, this article first examines the election of MEPs from the Mouvement pour la France and the Dansk Folkeparti to the vice-presidency of COMINST/AFCO. It then describes the effects of the handling of compromises by far-right MEPs, who are able to seize parliamentary reports and co-author amendments to the European Parliament’s Rules of Procedure.