Europe is voting at a crossroads, with the risk of certainly empowering the far right

A Europe that is moving increasingly to the right. This will be one of the great conclusions of this election night in which it is expected that the European People’s Party will oppose as the first group without many changes and that the sum of the extreme right (divided into ultra-conservative and ultra-right) will be the second force. Surveys predict a slight decline in the Social Democrats and a considerable decline in the Liberals and the Greens compared to the composition of the European Parliament that emerged from the 2019 elections and in which their emphasis was decisive in ending the existing two-party rule until then in the EU.

Since then, the landscape has changed significantly across the continent and this will have an impact on the balance of forces in the next distribution of European power. The extreme right, which at the time only ruled Hungary and Poland, now rules Italy, forms part of Finland’s executive and supports Sweden’s executive, which was in the hands of the Social Democrats five years ago. In the Netherlands a coalition is about to be formed under the leadership of the populist Geert Wilders’ PVV.

These changes in the government will also bring a change in the color of most of the commissioners, who are appointed by the member states. For example, until now the commissioner for the economy was the Italian socialist Paolo Gentiloni, but it will be the government of the far-right Giorgia Meloni that will propose a name for the future Community executive, although it will have to obtain the approval of the European Parliament. And so with all the countries and only five in progressive hands, among them Germany, which would theoretically be left without a portfolio in the event that Ursula von der Leyen is again president of the European Commission.

The circles of the extreme right have practically disappeared across the continent. Although the European People’s Party was tempted to look to its right already in 2019, encouraged by Silvio Berlusconi – whose party now governs with Meloni’s – and by Viktor Orbán – who was expelled from this legislature for persistent violations of the rule of law -, it maintained a coalition with the social democrats with the support of the liberals. However, during his tenure he has maneuvered with the extreme right to try to overthrow some of the initiatives of von der Leyen’s government, such as the nature restoration law.

Everybody Loves Meloni

Now the EPP and von der Leyen have opened the doors to the extreme right, for which they have set only three conditions: it must be pro-European, anti-Putin and respect the rule of law. Despite the measures against the rights of women or LGTBI people, the person they particularly look up to in the EPP is Meloni. “I offer to work together,” von der Leyen made clear in the election debate. However, the socialists and the liberals have warned that they will not give their support if the equation to go ahead with the vote in the European Parliament includes a consensus with the extreme right.

To be elected president, von der Leyen must be nominated by the leaders of the 27 and supported by at least 361 MEPs. In principle, the PPE, the Socialists and the Liberals will pass the threshold of 50% of the seats, but the candidate must consolidate a majority as it is a secret ballot, so there could be leaks in these groups. For example, the French Popular Party has already announced that they will not support German for a second term. In 2019, despite the fact that the three majority forces had a total of 444 seats, von der Leyen received a favorable vote of 383, only nine more than the necessary majority. Now that the Socialists and Liberals are going to lose their strength, German wants to guarantee more support and this is where she looks to her right, despite the fact that the Greens do not rule out supporting her if she maintains an ecological agenda.

But von der Leyen’s is not the only proposal Meloni has received. French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has offered to create a ‘supergroup’ of far-right parties to gain more power in the European Parliament, where until now they were divided into two groups. The proposal was preceded by a break with Alternative for Germany as a supposed sign of moderation between Le Pen and Matteo Salvini. Both the German Militant and the National Rally are outside the EPP’s perimeter because of their closeness to Vladimir Putin, whom Meloni has shunned since coming to power.

Discontent due to pandemic, war and green agenda

In fact, polls predict that the far right will win in only a handful of countries where voting is scheduled, and will come in second or third in at least nine. Currently in Holland, which was one of the countries where the far right was expected to win, a coalition of Social Democrats and Greens has taken the opposition into first place with eight seats compared to nine in the last legislature, although the PVV D has gone up from one to seven MEPs on voting day, which was Friday, according to exit polls.

What is causing this rise of the far right across the EU? “It varies from country to country and from voter to voter, but of course we can find some trends and a common phenomenon,” Pavel Zerka, a researcher at the European Council on International Relations (ECFR), told elDiario.es. In recent years and decades, centrist parties, whether centre-left or centre-right, have become more similar to each other on issues such as the economy.

Czerka, who collaborated on a study of the European Parliament’s right-wing A new political map: getting the European Parliament election done right, Explains that they found “dissatisfaction” with the way the pandemic, aid to Ukraine and the green agenda were managed. “In times of Covid, by questioning politics such as mass vaccination or imprisonment, the radical right showed that they were an alternative. And this helped them build their popularity and visibility,” he explains, without forgetting that they have relied on social networks. “People are skeptical about the way green legislation is implemented in the EU, and most people believe that the EU has gone too far and has not paid enough attention to the cost of living,” he adds.

“Memories of war and Covid place a premium on parties on the right, which are more credible when they talk about order, sovereignty or defence, than parties on the left that talk more about social solidarity or a green agenda,” concluded Political Scientist.

Low ambition

The EU intends to focus exclusively on security and defence once the electoral period has passed. Boosting the arms industry has been one of the main objectives of the European Commission in recent months. The other big challenge ahead, and for which the leaders of the 27 have already done their homework, was to boost the competitiveness of the club, which lags behind its main rivals: China and the United States. The big paradox is that these emerging powers are mostly eurosceptic – they are committed to limiting the EU’s powers as much as possible – and ultra-nationalist.

A greater presence of the right and the extreme right in the European Commission will inevitably translate into less ambition for some policies at a time when the green agenda has become one of the domains of conservative forces or others are being toughened, such as immigration policy, which has already suffered a huge setback. For example, the migration and asylum pact that Brussels put on the table four years ago, with its mandatory distribution of refugee quotas, is far from the consensus of governments and the European Parliament, which accelerated its approval for fear that the next legislature will be even worse.