For Europe’s centre-left, it was the night from hell. Liberals and Greens took a beating in many countries and lost dozens of seats as nationalist and Eurosceptic parties grabbed nearly a quarter of the seats in the European parliament. The centre-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) slipped just below their existing total thanks to unexpectedly strong scores in Italy and Spain.
Worse still, France, the EU’s pivotal power, saw the biggest far-right gains. That prompted President Emmanuel Macron to call a high-risk snap election that could clear the way for Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration National Rally to sweep into government within a month.
Le Pen’s vow to close France’s borders to migrants and oppose any eastward enlargement of the EU could paralyse decisions in Brussels. Barring a democratic miracle, Macron may be a lame-duck president “cohabiting” with a hostile hard-right government by this time next month.
Yet at European level, this grim result for EU progressives could still yield a positive result for their main priorities of resisting Russian aggression in Ukraine, keeping the EU on course towards climate neutrality, and making the green transition socially fairer and more affordable for working people – if they play their cards right.
While all eyes are on the rightist victories in Paris, Rome, Vienna and Budapest, the far right’s multiple internal divisions, and the refusal of mainstream parties thus far to make common cause at EU level with Eurosceptic populists, offer the centrist and centre-left parties a pathway to limit the damage.
If they band together and don’t let themselves be picked off individually, a coalition of losers could set their terms for re-electing centre-right incumbent Ursula von der Leyen as European Commission president. Her European People’s party (EPP) will once again claim the crown after topping the poll with 186 seats so far, but it needs to find at least another 175 votes from allies to secure her second term. The centre-left can deliver those votes, at a price.
The challenges facing Europe over the next five years remain the same – war on its doorstep, threats to liberal democracy and the rule of law from outside and inside the EU, accelerating global warming and economic competition from China and Europe – and they cry out for action through a centrist, pro-European consensus rather than the paralysis or dismantling of the EU that nationalists seek.
As the second largest force in the new legislature, the Socialists should take the lead and offer the liberals and Greens talks on a joint policy platform that they can take into negotiations with the EPP.
Their priorities should be: 1) no backsliding on implementing the European Green Deal legislation to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050; 2) targeted social measures to ease the transition for households that cannot afford thermal renovation, heat pumps or electric vehicles; 3) new rules to make all EU budget allocations conditional on respect for rule of law and democracy criteria; 4) support for further collective European borrowing to finance major defence, climate adaptation and digital infrastructure investments; 5) support for military and reconstruction aid to Ukraine and the immediate opening of EU enlargement negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova.
Von der Leyen, a German Christian Democrat, will be under pressure from some of her own EPP backers to slow down the green transition to give farmers and energy-intensive industries more time to adapt, and potentially to roll back environment protection legislation. She could find allies for this among the nationalists of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, led by Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni. But allying with the ECR would not give von der Leyen a secure majority. Besides, any such alliance would blow up the liberal Renew Europe group, with Macron’s MEPs sure to walk out on her.
Meloni, whose culturally conservative Brothers of Italy cemented their dominance at home, would be sure to demand concessions on her signature issue of migration, going beyond the EU migration pact, which was sealed before the election but is not yet in force. Her government is one of 15, including Poland and Social Democrat-led Denmark, that have demanded new proposals from the commission to permit the removal of irregular migrants to “safe third countries” where their asylum requests would be processed by European officials. Italy’s own deal, to send some asylum seekers to a camp in Albania pending a verdict on their applications, is seen by some as a pilot scheme.
This issue could be the toughest for the centre-left to swallow in negotiations with the EPP, but it reflects widespread voter hostility to uncontrolled migration that swelled the vote for the hard right across Europe in this election, including from former leftwing voters.
Despite her pre-election flirt with Meloni, von der Leyen does not have a plausible path to a second term with a rightist coalition. She needs the Socialists. That gives the chastened centre-left bloc crucial leverage if it can corral the Greens and the liberals, both of whom are licking their wounds.
The Greens have been influential junior partners in governments notably in Germany, Sweden, Spain and France, but in Brussels they have long been more comfortable acting as a high-moral-ground opposition, although they voted for most Green Deal legislation after fighting to toughen it up. Having lost almost a third of their seats amid a voter backlash against the cost and constraints of climate protection policies, the ecologists would do well to join the coalition if they want to retain influence.
It’s ironic that six years after Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg launched the Fridays for Future youth protest movement against the lack of action on the climate crisis, more young voters appear to have chosen the far right than the Greens.
As for the liberal Renew group, they will have to face up to their many contradictions after heavy losses in this vote. Big-spending dirigistes in France, austere small-government liberals in Germany, they no longer have much in common, especially since the Dutch liberal VVD party just joined a governing coalition forged by hard-right anti-Islam crusader Geert Wilders. They are united only by their desire to play a pivotal role in European politics, with the money and power that brings.
So the losers all have an interest in banding together to avoid the worst. The dogs may bark, but the caravan must go on its way.
Paul Taylor is a senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre
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