The European Parliament (EP) elections held on 6-9 June seem to have caused great repercussions both in and outside the EU. The debate revolves mainly around the rising ‘far right’ in Europe. The rise of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) as the second party in Germany and the National Rally (RN) as the first party in France has revived fears of a return to the Europe of the 1930s.
However, while the ‘centre-right’ European People’s Party (EPP), which we can call the former EP centre, has also increased its strength, the balance of forces within the EP has remained almost the same. Moreover, in some countries we observe a decline of right-wing forces, let alone a particular rise in the ‘far right’.
At this point, rather than the rise of the far right, we may be heading towards a hybrid regime where the centre and the right are more intertwined, where political differences are policed by militarisation and centralisation, and where the election results in the UK and the US will also have an impact.
Journalist Ben Wray, editor of Brave New Europe, also analyzes the balance of power in the EP after the elections and emphasises that he does not expect a radical and rapid change in Brussels’ policies. In his view, the EU will become more militarised, austerity will return to the continent and the anti-EU discontent of the European people, including the working class, will grow.
In this context, according to him, it is important not to exaggerate the rise of the ‘far right’, as all mainstream politicians already sound like ‘far right’ politicians.
It seems that the balance of forces in the European Parliament have not changed so much, but some important EU countries like France and Germany face substantial national changes. What would you expect for the EU after the elections?
To briefly summarise the result of the election, the far-right is stronger and the Greens and liberals are weaker, but the overall balance of power is not radically altered in the European Parliament.
The far-right has made significant advances in western Europe, especially in Germany and France, while sliding back somewhat in Scandinavia and central Eastern Europe. Overall, the two far-right groups in the European Parliament have 13 seats more than they did in 2019.
This slightly underestimates the strength of the far-right, because German far-right group AfD also gained six seats (up to 15) and is non-aligned. If you combine all of the far-right forces together, they have a similar strength in the Parliament as the second largest group, the centre-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D).
The Greens and liberals were the big losers from this election, with both parties losing between a quarter and a third of their seats in the Parliament. The largest group, the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), has grown marginally, by nine seats (to 185), winning more than a quarter of all the seats in the Parliament. The smallest parliamentary group, The Left, has pretty much stayed where it was, dropping just one seat to 36.
Overall we can say that the European Parliament will take on a more right-wing flavour following this election, with two possible majorities forming.
One majority is what could be described as ‘the radical centre’: those committed to policies which maintain the neoliberal and atlanticist status quo. This consists of the EPP, S&D and the liberals. In combination, these parties still have a majority in the Parliament as they did in 2019, although that majority is narrower than it was previously.
It was this radical centre coalition which voted for Ursula Von Der Leyen, who is a German centre-right politician and thus part of the EPP group, to be President of the European Commission in 2019. Von Der Leyen has already indicated since the vote that she will try to hold this coalition together for her re-appointment to a second term as President which requires the support of the Council (the member-states) and a majority of the Parliament. That might be complicated this time for Von Der Leyen due to her avid support for Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, which some Social Democratic parties in Europe are unhappy with, and corruption question marks which surround her.
The second possible majority is a right-wing alliance combining the EPP, the far-right forces in the Parliament and the liberals. Von Der Leyen has been cultivating such an alliance in recent years, building an alliance with Italian far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, especially on the question of refugees and border controls.
The problem here is that the two far-right groups are themselves divided over a number of key issues. For example, the group around Meloni is much more pro-Nato than the ‘Identity & Democracy’ group, which includes the French far-right party, National Rally, which has a different perspective on Ukraine. Other important dividing issues including EU enlargement and Europe’s relationship with China. The liberals will also not want to be seen holding hands with the far-right very often, so that’s another crack in this potential coalition.
What I think you will see is that Von Der Leyen, or whoever becomes the next President of the European Commission, will try to take advantage of these two different possible majorities in the European Parliament as and when it suits the EU machine to do so. When it is in there interest to move closer to the far-right the Commission will do it, in fact it already has done it on many issues. But the radical centre majority will be the most prominent one.
In conclusion, the EU will go on largely as before, becoming more centralised, more militaristic, and the return of austerity to the continent is also likely in coming years. That will only increase the discontent of millions of EU citizens, especially the working class, towards the EU.
Do you think, on major issues, such as the support of Ukraine, migration pact or the Green Deal, can the EU change its course immediately?
Let’s take each issue in turn. In Ukraine, the EU is a supporting actor in the conflict, largely following whatever diktats come from Washington. The United States and Russia hold the key to the Ukraine war. The US Congress has stepped up arms and funding to Ukraine and this has been followed by increased support from within Europe. NATO is also moving its red lines so that Ukraine can attack Russian territory with NATO weapons and logistical support. All of this is very dangerous escalations but it’s unlikely to be enough to stop Ukraine from losing the war. At some point there is going to have to be a peace deal negotiated which is likely to not be favourable to Ukraine, but surely it would be preferable to never-ending slaughter.
In any case, under Von Der Leyen’s leadership, the EU is becoming increasingly militarised and I suspect this will continue regardless of how the Ukraine war ends. Von Der Leyen’s whole campaign for a second term at the head of the European Commission has been about rearming Europe, playing up the idea that we are on the precipice of a third world war. This is extremely reckless but unfortunately there is not currently the sort of anti-war movement in Europe that is needed to stop this drive to imperial conflict.
On migration, the EU believes that its policy of externalising the EU’s borders by paying handsome sums of cash to Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia and all the other countries on its southern border is the right one because it means the EU doesn’t have to get its hands dirty with the ugly business of repressing desperate migrants and refugees. But the problems which drive people to migrate towards Europe – including climate breakdown and war – are only getting worse, so the movement of people from the global south to global north will only grow.
On the Green Deal, it’s interesting to compare and contrast now to the last European elections, in 2019. At that time, there was a youth movement marching all across Europe for climate action, Greta Thunberg was on all of our TV screens and it seemed like no politician could ignore the importance of the climate issue. Fast forward five years, and despite the problem of climate breakdown only intensifying, the political climate is completely different, and mainstream politicians are not only ignoring their prior climate commitments, they are publicly campaigning to scrap net-zero policies in an attempt to win back voters from the far-right.
In this context, the EU has already severely watered down its Green Deal proposals, which in any case were not nearly ambitious enough. I would expect that this watering down will continue further given the election result. With China making rapid advances in clean energy technology and emissions reductions, Europe is quickly moving from a climate leader to climate laggard, a shift which will further entrench Europe’s position as a declining and increasingly irrelevant force in the world.
It is a common analysis that the “far-right” is now leading Europe. Is there really a rise of the ‘far right’ in Europe, including in the United Kingdom? What should we expect from the British and American elections?
On the one hand, it is important not to exaggerate the rise of the far-right. Not only is their electoral support not close to a majority across Europe, but as a political force they are incoherent and inconsistent, with no clear programme to transform the continent.
On the other hand, it is evident that the far-right is leading Europe currently in the sense that it is dominating the debate to such an extent that the centre-right increasingly takes on all of the political talking points of the far-right as their own. On immigration and attitudes towards Muslims and the Islamic religion, many centre-right politicians sound just like far-right politicians today.
We see this in the UK, where Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s big election campaign promise is to ‘stop the boats’ – migrants trying to cross the English Channel – and to send the migrants who do cross to Rwanda. This could easily be the words of a far-right politician. In the United States, Donald Trump has managed to fuse the far-right and the centre-right together through his domination of the Republican party.
It’s very clear that the Labour Party will win the election in the UK in July. It’s likely to be a historic defeat for the Conservatives, one of their worst in modern times. The problem is that Labour under Keir Starmer’s leadership does not represent a genuine alternative to 14 years of Conservative rule in Britain, in which time living standards have fallen significantly.
In the United States, it is very difficult to say at this moment who will win the election. US President Joe Biden has massively discredited himself with his handling of Israel’s barbaric war in Gaza. But I’m not sure many Americans have changed their mind about Trump four years after he lost the Presidency to Biden in 2020. Whoever wins, the contest between two geriatric politicians shows how hollowed out democracy is in the United States, and neither the Democrats or the Republicans represent the socialist, working class politics which Americans desperately need.
