EU voters deny centrist majority, boosting social liberals, far right
BRUSSELS — Europeans dealt a blow to the continent’s traditional centerleft and center-right politicians in elections for the European Parliament on Sunday, depriving them of a majority for the first time in favor of a fractured slate of pro-EU lawmakers, with small gains for the farright.
Voters turned out in droves — the highest participation in 25 years — for the opportunity to take a shot at the parties that have steered Europe’s consensus-driven policies for decades.
Far-right leaders were on track for their best Europe-wide result ever, but it was only an incremental gain over their result from 2014, suggesting that despite years of tumult, voters might not be ready to give up on the European Union or to embrace leaders who want to weaken it from within the organization. Voters boosted Greens and other pro-European Union leftists, showing that voters who abandoned traditional parties were searching for new blood but not a fullscale political revolution.
The vote followed a tumultuous period for the 28-nation, border-erasing European Union. In the five years since the last elections for European Parliament, the continent has been rocked by repeated terrorist attacks, a refugee crisis, Britain’s decision to leave the bloc and the lingering pain of the global financial crisis.
With more than 400 million eligible voters, the European Parliament elections are the second-largest exercise in democracy in the world, behind India’s national elections. After decades of slipping participation, turnout this year was sharply higher — about 51 percent, up from 42.6 percent in 2014. The spike indicated new passions — and new anxieties.
The biggest wellspring of far-right support appeared to be Italy, where Interior Minister Matteo Salvini’s League party vaulted into first place after a year in which he campaigned across the country on a fierce platform of turning back migrants and weakening the European Union.
But his plans for a European-wide raid of fellow euroskeptics will now have to be scaled back. Most of his potential partners made small gains, if any. They were never expected to take a majority of Parliament; now it’s unlikely they’ll be strong enough to be a blocking minority.
Instead, Greens and other pro-environment, socially liberal parties might have been the surprise of the election, surging to second or third place in France, Germany, Finland and elsewhere.
The result is a European Parliament in which the centrist parties failed to reach a majority for the first time and will have to draw support from lawmakers with less orthodox views of how to run Europe. The centrists dropped from 53 percent of Parliament to 43 percent.
In Germany, where the Greens surged to second place, according to initial results, party co-leader Robert Habeck told broadcaster ARD that concern for the planet’s future had “played a dominant role” in the campaign and that voters were punishing the government for its “hesitancy” in confronting the issue.
The legislature has a voice in some of the biggest issues facing the European Union. It approves senior EU officials, signs off on Europe’s massive budget and delves into gritty lawmaking, as in the sweeping data privacy rules that went into effect last year and whose reach extends far beyond European borders.