Left-wing “turbo-Europeans” are trying to turn the bloc into a modern-day Soviet Union, an Italian MEP has claimed in a caustic assessment in which he accused them of being “misbehaving children”.

Nicola Procaccini, the co-chairman of the European Conservatives and Reformists group in the European Parliament, also warned the very sovereignty of the EU27 member states was at stake, stressing: “This is what the 2024 elections will be about.”

Mr Procaccini was speaking the day before new proposals are put before the assembly in relation to the controversial Spitzenkandidaten system for choosing the President of the European Commission – currently Ursula von der Leyen of the European People’s Party.

The draft report calls for all European political parties to announce their candidates for the top Commission job at least 12 weeks before election day on June 6.

It also provides for the parties to agree on a joint candidate for the Commission presidency directly after European elections, and before the European Council can make its own proposal. The treaties which bind the bloc together do not provide for a Spitzenkandidaten system and the right decide lies with the Council itself, while the Parliament can only give its consent.

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Consequently the ECR Group sees the move as an attempt to centralise power within the EU and further limit the influence of the Member States.

Speaking in Brussels, Mr Procaccini said: “We live in strange times. One in which it falls to us European Conservatives and Reformists to preserve the Union’s founding treaties and defend them against the attempts at reform that are often proposed here.

“This is nothing new, at least for us Italian right-wing conservatives, who have been supporters of the European Union since 1957, when those who now pose as turbo-Europeans coveted the Soviet Union and voted against the ratification of the Treaty of Rome. And it is probably no coincidence that the left today is trying to recreate the dirigiste, absolutist, anti-democratic model that was typical of that political system.”

In accordance with 1992’s Treaty of Lisbon, it was up to the European Council, and not MPs, to appoint the President, Mr Procaccini said.

He continued: “Parliament can only accept this or not, but it cannot arrogate to itself tasks that it does not have. It is quite clear that the attempt to reinstate this House’s role in determining the leadership of the European Commission stems from the knowledge that the majority of the 27 states of the Union are now led by the centre-right.”

He and his colleagues “would have defended what is written in the Treaties even if it were the other way round”, Mr Procaccini insisted.

He said: “Because we believe in a Europe of nations. The Europe of the founding fathers, not the Europe of their misbehaving children. We believe in the confederal union of the peoples of Europe. United only to do together what they could not do alone.

“The exact opposite of the federalist project that has been worked on in recent years and today. A project that works towards the dissolution of what is most precious to European citizens: a country to call home.

“This is what the 2024 elections will be about. And we will see who wins.”

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