BRUSSELS — The European People’s Party will focus on winning back traditional territory in continental powerhouses like Italy and France, said Andrej Plenković, Croatia’s prime minister.

“We would like to do more to strengthen the EPP parties in the big countries,” he told POLITICO in an interview after a meeting of EPP leaders in Brussels. “This is key.” In Germany, the Christian conservative CDU-CSU alliance “is doing very well,” he pointed out.

“And we would like to see that Spain comes along,” he added — its center-right Popular Party has been leading polls ahead of a snap election scheduled for later this month.

But in Italy, although the Christian democrats who contributed to the birth of the EPP had run the country for almost 50 years since the end of World War II, the post-fascist Brothers of Italy recently surged in popularity and is now governing together with other right-wing parties. The EPP, represented in Rome by Forza Italia, is now only at around 7 percent nationally, with the party’s future uncertain after founder Silvio Berlusconi recently passed away.

Similarly in France, the far right has gained strength over the center-right Republicans, which represents the local branch of the EPP at around 9 percent. There, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally is at 27 percent.

“We need to work a lot to reestablish the [EPP’s] strength in France and in Italy,” Plenković emphasized. “This is the political objective.”

Plenković is a darling of the conservative EPP. Well connected among parties throughout the group, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel was close to him. After the previous European elections, he was also instrumental in securing European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s position.

As the largest party grouping in the European Parliament, the EPP has played a key role in selecting who will fill top jobs in EU institutions.

With the right-to-far-right grouping of the European Conservatives and Reformists gaining ground in countries like Italy and Finland, EPP leader Manfred Weber is leading a push for the center right to team up with the ECR — or at least some parts of it such as Italy’s Brothers of Italy — along with the liberal Renew group after the elections. This could alter the EPP’s current alliance with the center-left socialists.

But Plenković was very reluctant to speculate on a possible alliance with ECR after the elections. Instead, he insisted on the need for his party to regain ground in big countries like France and Italy. “We need to focus on our own strong results.”

“We didn’t discuss any politics in terms of post-European Parliament 2024 elections,” he said in the interview ahead of the European leaders’ summit last week.

Championing the EU

After the last European election in 2019, Plenković was one of two top EPP officials — along with Latvian Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš — who negotiated the deal that brought Ursula von der Leyen to the helm of the European Commission.

In his interview, he dodged questions as to whether the former German defense minister will keep her job as Commission president after the European elections of June next year — an outcome many officials in Brussels are expecting, although von der Leyen has not yet announced an official bid.

Asked whether the assumption she will stay is correct, he stressed: “She is an excellent European politician, a member of the EPP who did a great job in the very tough times.”

“If she stays, she’s going to be very good for Europe,” he said.

A key negotiator in Croatia’s EU accession talks, championing EU causes is baked in for the leader of Croatia, a country that emerged from the disintegration of former Yugoslavia after the Balkan Wars of the 1990s.

He said that despite rising tensions between Serbia and Kosovo, he’s not concerned about instability in the region because “the international community [is] strongly engaged in the dialogue” and “both countries are interested to go forward toward the European Union.”

A career diplomat and the longest-serving prime minister in Croatia’s history, with more than six years in office, he is very keen to talk about his country’s success since it joined the EU 10 years ago.

He pointed out how Croatia obtained candidate status in one year, which he called “light speed.”

A decade after it entered the EU club, Zagreb also joined both the Schengen passport-free zone and the eurozone on the same day, January 1 this year — a first in the history of enlargement, he boasted.

He described joining the Schengen Area as “a big success,” as Croatia joined ahead of other countries that are still waiting.

As to the Croatian economy: “employment, never higher in history; unemployment, lowest since 1982.” Croatian GDP growth in the first quarter of 2023 is at 2.8 percent compared to the eurozone’s 1 percent, he also stressed.

The one cloud in Plenković’s rosy picture is an indictment in December 2022 by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, accusing former Croatian EU Funds Minister Gabrijela Žalac of corruption, which prompted scrutiny of his ruling conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party.

But he brushed this off, saying he’s not worried about a spreading bribery scandal.

Ahead of European election, Croatia’s EU success story combined with Plenković’s prominent role within the EPP ranks have fueled speculation that Plenković could seek a top post at an EU institution.

His response: “I’m fully focused on my job as a prime minister and winning third-time elections in Croatia.”