All eyes on far-right eurosceptics in poll
THE European Parliament elections that start today have never been so hotly anticipated, with many predicting this year’s ballot will mark a coming-of-age moment for the eurosceptic far-right movement. The elections, which run to Sunday and take place in all of the European Union’s 28 nations, have never had stakes so high.
Europe’s traditional political powerhouses – the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) and centre-left Socialists & Democrats – are poised to lose influence and face their strongest challenge yet from populist, nationalist and far-right parties, determined to claw back power from the EU for their own national governments.
The clash of basic values – between Europe growing more united or more divided – has put the continent at a historic political crossroads.
French President Emmanuel Macron, champion of the closerintegration camp, says the challenge at the polls is to “not cede to a coalition of destruction and disintegration” that will seek to dismantle the unity the EU has built up over the past six decades.
Facing off against Macron and Europe’s traditional parties are Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, French far-right leader Marine Le Pen and a host of other populist, right-wing or far-right leaders who have vowed to fundamentally upend Europe’s political landscape.
Nationalist leaders from 11 EU nations stood together in Milan last week – a show of unity unthinkable in previous years from a group once considered to be on Europe’s political fringe. Salvini then declared “the extremists are in Brussels”, the home of EU institutions, for wanting to retain the status quo.
“We need to do everything that is right to free this country, this continent, from the illegal occupation organised by Brussels,” Salvini said.
Europe’s far-right and nationalist parties hope to emulate President Donald Trump in the 2016 US election and what Brexiteers achieved in the UK referendum to leave the EU: disrupt the powers that be, rail against an out-of-touch elite and warn against migrants massing at Europe’s borders ready to rob the continent of its jobs and culture.
Standing with Salvini, Le Pen promised the far-right would “perform a historic feat”, saying they could end up as high as the second-biggest political group in the EU Parliament.
Predictions show that is still extremely ambitious. Projections released by the European Parliament this month show the EPP bloc losing 37 of its 217 seats and the Socialists & Democrats group dropping from 186 seats to 149.
As for the far-right and nationalists, the Europe of Nations and Freedom group is expected to win 62 seats, compared to 37 currently. Such statistics, though, could be irrelevant as soon as Monday if national parties start shifting to other EU-wide political groups in the 751-seat European legislature.
Orban’s nationalist Fidesz party is now in the EPP’s ranks, but has been suspended for its anti-EU stance and anti-migration invective. The Hungarian prime minister might well bolt after the election to a new radical-right group, perhaps to be formed by Salvini, Le Pen and other nationalist leaders. For many of the EU’s half a billion citizens, memories of war have vanished and the EU’s role in helping keep the peace for 75 years, a feat for which it won the Nobel Prize, is overlooked.
Yet Europe was body-slammed by the financial crisis a decade ago and struggled through a years-long debt crisis that saw nations like Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Cyprus get bailouts and produced recessions that slashed the incomes of millions.
Europe’s high taxes, stagnant wages and gap between rich and poor are still a sore point, highlighted now by weekly protests by France’s yellow vest movement demanding more help for hard-pressed workers.
EU nations have also not been able to forge a common approach to migration, fuelling inter-bloc tensions, and its impotence in quickly containing a migrant influx in 2015 has propelled a surge of support for far-right and nationalist parties. “We have a crisis of the European Union. This is a matter of fact,” Macron acknowledged. Experts say he’s right.
“A lot of people fear that things potentially are moving, or have already moved in the wrong direction,” said Janis Emmanouilidis at the European Policy Centre think tank. “A mix of multiple insecurities is pushing people towards those with easy answers.”
Until now, EU elections were marked by voter turn-out slumps, dropping to just 42.6% in 2014, but that could well change this year.