It is said that the EU thrives on crises. These are what spurs it on to the ultimate goal of wider and deeper integration. But yesterday’s European election results may be a crisis too far. Unlike its predecessors, this election has returned nine or so large Eurosceptic national parties intent on arresting the march towards ever-closer union. The nationalist and identitarian right, while by no means a majority in the new European parliament, is in a commanding position to seriously influence the EU’s future direction. According to the Bertelsmann Foundation’s European expert, quoted in Le Monde, the EU is entering ‘its most decisive phase in its 70 year history’.
In the EU’s three largest founder members, the nationalist right is in a commanding position
This is no mere preoccupation of academic political scientists. This morning, financial markets shadowed general anxiety about the health of the European project: the euro slumped against the dollar and pound sterling, European bond interest rates tightened and stock markets plunged. France’s CAC40 dropped 2.37 per cent at the open as the Europhile President Macron acknowledged the defeat of his pro-European party, recognised the stunning triumph of the nationalist Rassemblement National, and dissolved the country’s National Assembly. Belgium’s prime minister resigned after the triumph of Flemish nationalists. Governmental coalitions elsewhere have been weakened. In the EU’s three largest founder members – France, Italy and Germany – the nationalist right is in a commanding position. So what happens next for the EU?
360 million EU citizens may have elected 720 MEPs, but now begins the real politicking about the institution’s immediate future. President Macron has already warned that ‘Europe is mortal’, confronted as it is by war in Ukraine, the Israel-Palestine conflict, China’s diplomatic and commercial pressure and clear signs that Brussels is losing the economic race to keep up with Washington and Beijing.
Though the radical right has increased its strength from 160 MEPs to some 200, it is split between parliamentary groups in the Berlaymont: the ECR, ID and non-aligned. Discussions have been underway for months to find some kind of alignment to maximise their influence. But the PPE grouping of the moderate right remains the largest group, as it has been since 1979, and will tend to side with the Social Democrats giving their coalition over half of all seats. Add to that the Renew group of centrists populated by Macron’s acolytes, albeit now reduced, and nearly two thirds of the parliament will be dominated by the traditional parties. This is the coalition that Ursula von der Leyen covets for her re-election as president of the EU Commission.
However, in practice, these groups form a fragile coalition because they are divided on major policies such as the Green Deal, immigration, the EU budget and the amount of collective debt it should carry. Were the coalition to support von der Leyen, she will have to be nominated by a two thirds majority of heads of state and governments and then ratified by at least 361 of the 720 MEPs. In 2019, she squeezed in by a mere nine votes.
Then comes the divvying up of the Commission’s top jobs. A Brussels dinner is scheduled for 17 June to provisionally decide on the important ones: president of the Commission, president of the European Council, EU High Representative for foreign affairs. But this is a veritable balancing act between politics, geography and gender. It is worsened by the EU’s wish to place one of its favourites as Secretary General of Nato (Holland’s liberal Mark Rutte is touted), as well as keeping an eye on whom MEPs elect as president of the European Parliament. 18 July MEPs will vote on the new president of the Commission.
On 27 and 28 June the EU’s future policies will then be drawn up and passed to the Commission for implementation over the next five years. The bolstered presence of the nationalist right will doubtless influence immigration, European defence and how to finance it. The liberals and social democrats, meanwhile, may have their call for a new €100 billion loan to finance Ukrainian rearmament contested. Interestingly, the PPE and some fifteen member states wish the EU to externalise the processing of asylum seekers’ claims to non-EU states along the lines of the UK’s Rwanda policy, which may elicit irony given a Labour government’s wish to collaborate with the EU on immigration.
Given the EU election results and the upheaval created by President Macron’s dissolution of the National Assembly, this timetable could come unstuck. Meanwhile, China, Russia and much of the Global South will be enjoying the sorry spectacle of a friable EU bloc at one of those turning points in history where crisis does not have a positive outcome.
Lisa Haseldine speaks to Katja Hoyer about the AfD’s EU elections victory:
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