The European Union held the parliament elections this year across all of the member states of the EU. The results have been historic and expected and the ramifications are being felt across the major nations that make up the European Union. Pubic opinion has shifted and will continue to do so. Europe is facing a very new age as the era of migration and the death of socialism on the continent continues. The old consensus is breaking up and the future of the European Union looks more uncertain than ever.
The dramatic events are reminiscent of UKIP’s success in 2009, 2014 and 2019 in these very same elections. The barometer of where Europe is socially has always been the European Union. Britain’s growing euroskepticism culminated in UKIP coming second in 2009 and then winning both the 2014 and 2019 European Elections, propelling Brexit into the foreground and fundamental constitutional change, albeit resisted like mad by the governing party: the Conservatives. Is Europe going through Britain’s 2014 moment 10 years later? Probably.
To sum it all up, in France the National Rally, historically euroskeptic, associated with rightist nationalism, won 32% of the vote compared to the incumbent party headed by President Macron who limped into second with 15%. It is now looking almost certain that National Rally leader Marine Le Pen will be the next French President. Macron, who is the first president not to have a majority in the French Parliament since the early 90s, has today called for fresh parliamentary elections after dissolving parliament in a shock call for 3 weeks from now. Macron will probably be the first casualty of these elections as the EU’s second largest country prepares for a move to the right.
In Belgium, the right-wing Flanders parties won a majority, forcing the Belgian Prime Minister to resign. The future of Belgium is now more uncertain as the separatist right-wing Flemish parties achieved the highest ever vote share.
Italy, currently run by the Brothers of Italy party, a rightist party led by Georgia Meloni, did what has not been seen for a long time and achieved stability after the European Elections, getting the highest share of the vote in Italy and entrenching her position in Italian and European politics.
In Germany the current chancellor Olaf Shultz’s SPD came third, well behind the first place conservative CDU, second place going to the rightist AfD who achieved around 15% of the vote. Shultz, whose own national approval rating has him hanging on to power with no real popular support, will remain in power but with German provincial elections likely to see the AfD winning in east Germany the pressure on the federal Government will only grow, especially with the largest economy in the EU still in recession.
Austria saw a massive rise for the FPO, the far-right party that achieved the largest share of the vote there. The already right-of-centre national government has struggled to deal with the issues it was elected on and looks in desperate trouble as its voter base looks to be deserting the centre for the more rightist options.
In Spain, Luxembourg, Portugal and even Ireland the right improved their vote share, though the Socialists seemed to match or outpace the right. Chega, Vox and the Irish Freedom Party have all made significant gains. Only in countries like Poland did the incumbent manage to stave off the challenge from the right but only by a mere percentage point.
The reaction of the European Union has been typically defiant. Ursula Von der Leyen, the EU Commission president, defiantly stated she will continue as the most powerful person in the EU bloc and fight back against the ‘far right’ for the next 5 years. Whilst she can do this as she is not herself elected and the EU Commission president does not have to in any way reflect the EU Parliament, the EU Parliament will conduct itself away from the cosy globalist liberal consensus that has dominated European politics for the last 40 years. With Hungary due to take on the 6 month rolling presidency of the EU Council, another body of the legislative branch often used by the Commission to bypass the EU Parliament, the euroskeptic Victor Orban, President of Hungary, is going to really find many natural allies in the next door EU Parliament.
There are so many reasons for the rise of the right, fuelled as mentioned before by the rise of rightist sentiment in the youth of the EU. The era of mass migration from the Middle-East and North Africa, the revolt against Woke and the social liberal establishment consensus, and the utter feeling of disconnect between the governors and the governed has fuelled pro-nationalist sentiment where people find the only way they can get their voices heard is through national institutions staffed by parties that want to put the nation first. We will not, to be clear, start seeing Frexit, Italexit and Gexit, but we will see the political tide turning away from internationalism and globalist politics and economics. The European project has been seen to favour the multinationalits, and it has, and has been seen to be incapable of coping with the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean Sea and the border with Turkey. This, as well as the horrendous pressure from Russia to turn more inward with suspicion than outward with conciliation is forcing voters to only realistically see the right as the solution to the problems brought by the decades of the social liberal consensus and the ramifications.
There is war on Europe’s borders and it is attritional. Iran is funneling money to its proxies to cause havoc in countries all over the middle-east and Europe. Violent Islamism is making cities all over Europe so dangerous. Police line the streets during big events, especially the Olympics due to be held in Paris in a few weeks time. China is pursuing aggressive economic expansion by undermining western influence in Africa, the Caribbean and Asia. America, tearing itself apart over the choice between a senile old man with no idea what he is doing and a man sympathising with conservative isolationism, is losing its grip on the influence it has historically had over Europe since the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Neo-Marxism stupidly called ‘Woke’ politics has so offended the traditional communities across Europe that there is significant push-back on the toxic views emanating from America. This move to the right for Europe was, taking all of that into consideration, inevitable. The fact that it has happened so much and so fast is a result of the immense hubris of the establishment parties and movements in thinking that the right could never rise again. They will, they are, they will continue to do so in their own national ways.
There is horrendous doubt that the right-wing parties will work together. As mentioned in a previous article: “The European Barometer”, right wing parties famously struggle to work together because of their different views on ‘conservatism’ and what right wing means; it’s incredibly dependent on the country they are from. There is also a misunderstanding about what the right wing actually is in Europe. It’s not small state, free market, Ronald Reagan-style right wingers. These are big state, high protectionism right-wingers, with economic policies far closer to the economic left than the right. But there is a growing sense of the resurgence of national identity; a characteristic to be protected. So, naturally, it is hard to work together with people working in the interest of that national identity. A right winger in France has little in common with a right winger in Italy. So what will happen next will not be a huge chorus of right wingers from European countries singing from the same hymn sheet. What we will see is a grapple between what European Unity actually means. There is no doubt that on the continent Europe wants to work together versus the likes of Russia, China and America in some cases. The point of contention is just how much ceding of national sovereignty that requires. Here, we will see the battleground.
The European Union was always going to find it difficult to carry on, and it looks like with the rising tide of the right, the future of the EU bloc is looking less and less certain. It is becoming far less coherent, far less unified and the bickering inside has reached loud proportions. Will it disintegrate, relying on America to once again come to the rescue? Maybe. Will the citizens of Europe continue to see the right as the answer to national problems? Most likely. Will this come at the expense of international political movements like the Greens? Yes, we have seen that in the election. There is just no appetite for the old regimes that have led to a world that is far less certain and far more dangerous than in was in the 2000s. The voters are trying to chart a new course. The establishment regimes will resist. But, like in Britain, is it only a matter of when, rather than if? The EU is looking more unstable now than ever before. Has it reached the point of no return?
The voters decided; probably.
This article first appeared on the TDL Times. For more information, articles and more please visit www.theTDLTimes.com.
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