EU parliament voting begins
EUROPEANS started voting in four days of elections to the EU parliament that will influence not just Brussels policy for the next five years but, to some extent, the very future of the Union project itself.
In 2014, nationalists hostile to the EU doubled their presence in the assembly, topped the poll in Britain and went on to win a 2016 referendum there that yanked out one of the bloc’s biggest members. Almost.
Five years on, polls show eurosceptics gaining again. But Brexit is yet to happen, and may not; Brussels’ fiercest enemies will still struggle to top 20%; and the far-right goes into the weekend hit by scandal over its Austrian flag-bearer’s videotaped collusion with a supposed Russian oligarch’s niece eager to buy favour.
Others who want to halt or reverse federalist trends, if not scrap the EU altogether, also face headwinds. Some who are tasting national power must also face disillusioned supporters – notably Italy’s co-rulers the League and 5-Star. The European project is facing a list of challenges, including unprecedented transatlantic slights from a US president who fetes Europe’s populists, border rows over migrants and an economy hobbled by public debt and challenged by the rise of China.
But parties seeking collective continental action on shared issues such as trade, security, migration or climate change should still dominate the chamber, albeit with a smaller overall majority. Mainstream parties pushing closer integration of the euro currency zone’s economy are struggling to capture the imagination of a public jaded with political elites.
Centrist French President Emmanuel Macron again flourished the standard he has raised for Europe, calling yesterday for co-operation from conservatives, socialists and Greens to face down a caucus of anti-EU forces.
Matteo Salvini’s League may pip the Christian Democrats of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the bloc’s power broker beset by nationalists to | AP her right, to become the biggest single party in the 751-seat chamber.
The anti-EU Brexit Party could also finish in first place in Britain – though the circumstances surrounding the election there are verging on the absurd. Britons were to kick off the voting yesterday two months after they were supposed to have left the EU.
Yesterday, hundreds of EU citizens trying to cast their vote for the European Parliament elections in the UK have been turned away because of administrative mistakes, a campaign group said. Britain was not supposed to be taking part in the elections for the European Parliament as it was due to leave the bloc on March 29. However, the rejection of the divorce deal that Prime Minister Theresa May struck with Brussels meant Brexit was delayed until October, requiring the vote to go ahead.