Renew breaks with the Socialists, and the Brotherhood file starts moving toward the Council
The European Parliament’s 8 October resolution on “Islamist entryism” passed with a majority that does not match the Commission’s usual one. The week since has been a reaction chain — Cairo, Washington, an NGO push — not a legal development.
The Parliament adopted file B10-0424/2026, tabled by the European People’s Party, in Strasbourg on Thursday 8 October by 381 votes to 167 with 15 abstentions, figures consistent across at least six outlets and attributed to the Parliament’s own legislative records. The structural point belongs to CERIF’s roll-call analysis, which notes that on this text “the usual majority supporting the Commission (PPE-S&D-Renew) does not form.” Hungarian Conservative, a partisan outlet and the only source we found for the number, reports that 62 of 67 Renew Europe MEPs backed the resolution; the European Jewish Press reports Socialists, Greens and other left-wing members voting heavily against. The cleavage is confirmed by multiple outlets. The Renew figure is single-sourced and should be checked against the roll call before anyone charts it.
The endorsements arrived fast and from interested parties. The Egyptian Gazette’s evening brief of 9 October carried the line “Egypt backs EU Parliament call to list Muslim Brotherhood,” though we have only the item, not the ministerial statement behind it. On 11 October, Egypt Today reported that Massad Boulos, senior adviser to the US president for Arab and African affairs, welcomed the resolution, and that the European Conservatives and Reformists group is pushing for formal designation; we found no State Department transcript or wire confirmation. On 12 October, EU Reporter carried the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy calling on the European Council to act. That is an advocacy statement from a body whose research sits in the resolution’s intellectual lineage. There is no indication the Council has scheduled anything.
Assessment: This desk’s standing caution from 18 September — that Europe’s Brotherhood bans remain announcements — applies directly here. A resolution calling for a strategy is not a designation, and nothing in it binds a member state. What changed on 8 October is arithmetic, not law: Renew’s defection is the mechanism by which this file stops being an EPP-ECR position paper. Treat the Boulos line as claimed until a primary US statement surfaces, and treat the Middle East Forum’s report that the Parliament “expels” FEMYSO the same way — the resolution names the organisation, which is a different act. The euroislam analysis states the real constraint plainly: sanctions require evidence, verifiable criteria and procedural safeguards.