The shift to the right throughout Europe is incontestable after the elections to the European Parliament. The ultra tide hits hard, but, paradoxically, the attack causes less damage in the European Parliament – the great coalition between the center-right, social democrats and liberals continues to add up, even more so if the greens join – than in national politics, with the Franco-German axis very, very touched. These are five quick reads of last night’s results.
Europe goes right
The turn to the right is somewhat stronger than expected; The center is barely holding on, but it is holding on. The European PP wins the elections and can sustain the grand coalition (which has more than 400 deputies, above the 361 essential in a chamber with 720 seats), but there are also numbers to cook a right-wing alliance, after the winks undisguised contributions from Ursula von der Leyen to the Italian Giorgia Meloni.
More paradoxes: political science manuals clearly state that large coalitions do not work anywhere, because liberal democracies need strong oppositions; Otherwise, the extremes end up growing. And the extremes have already grown a lot in Europe: the extreme right already figures in the Government of eight countries, and may end up forming a single group that would be the third largest in the European Parliament.
Nationalist populism is a relatively new phenomenon, but at the same time very old; Only one thing is certain with these parties: they are corrosive, divisive by nature. Be careful with them: the electoral results are very ambiguous, and the reading that maintains that the center has withstood the ultra tide is optimistic. In the Nordic countries the ultras are on the decline; In the Iberian Peninsula they are well below the average weight. But they have had an impact like a tunnel boring machine in the center of Europe. And let alone in the big club countries. Post-fascism is the first force in France. The first force in Italy. And the second in Germany. The option of a right-wing coalition – center-right plus extreme right, which would mean a shock of the first magnitude – is on the table.
Macron plays it
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“Macron has become a Sánchez,” a European source said with some reticence on Sunday night. Le Pen has swept France with 33% of the votes, almost 20 points more than the French president’s party, and Macron’s response has been to press the nuclear button, with the call for legislative elections. That is a high-risk bet that does not always turn out well: it worked for Sánchez in June, but Aragonès failed miserably in Catalonia weeks later. Macron intends to mobilize the center, but his speech has lost its luster; he is a lame duck in Paris and Brussels. He may be forced into cohabitation with the extreme right with an uncertain outcome. France is a very, very polarized country, and Macron has seen his leadership undermined just when leaders are needed most in Europe: the Franco-German axis is at its weakest.
Scholz, the sick man of Europe
Germany is going through an oceanic crisis, with a change in its economic model after having outsourced security to the United States, energy to Russia and its commercial position to China. The Government coalition is faltering, with internal struggles and a very poor result, below 30% in the European elections, adding social democracy, liberals and greens. Macron is already a lame duck, but Scholz is also limping: his leadership is highly disputed and the center-right is already threatening with a question of trust. The CDU dominates in the West, and the extreme right in the East; The parties that support Putin are around 25% of the votes.
In the midst of continuous brawls over economic policy, fiscal policy and practically any issue that is put on the table, the result of the European elections seems like one more nail in the coffin of Scholz and his coalition. Bad news for Von der Leyen: an unwritten rule in Brussels says that when a country is in crisis, candidates from that country have more difficulties, although perhaps with the Germans that rule is less firm. The big positions in the EU will be decided on June 27: more bad news for Von der Leyen, because with the French legislative elections in their first round, practically no French centrist party can have incentives to support her. That would throw her into Meloni’s arms: the earthquake, in that case, is guaranteed.
Meloni, the great desired
Meloni is the extreme right presentable in Europe, judging by Von der Leyen’s winks in the campaign, and that despite the policies she has applied at home, from immigration to gender and family. She does not do poorly in her first exam, although the Italian results are extremely blurry. Meloni and his Brothers of Italy are consolidated with almost 30% of the votes, but the rightward movement of their League partners has not gone well: Salvini is in a very delicate position. For the Italian Government, furthermore, the difficult part begins now. He has to deal with a very large public deficit and that will force him to approve cuts if she does not want Brussels to get nervous and the market to raise its ears with the infamous risk premium.
There is an extreme right that feels comfortable with the chainsaw of draconian adjustments. Meloni is not that type of extreme right. One thing is certain: he is gaining weight in Brussels. He may tip the balance in favor of Von der Leyen, and he may end up choosing to lead a single group of ultras that is equally powerful and dangerous. He has good cards in his hand, and he has shown that he knows how to play them. For now; In politics he is always of the moment.
Spain and the contradictions
The results of the European elections are full of contradictions; They often say that contradictions are interesting, but perhaps in excess they can end up being stomach-churning. In a context of noise and mud, and trying to generate a state of permanent exceptionality, the PP wins the elections with four points and 700,000 votes ahead of the PSOE, but that translates into only two more deputies than the socialists. Two seats: it is Feijóo’s second bitter victory after that of 23J; This may even be a little more bitter, despite Sunday’s triumphalist speech.
Feijóo’s rhetoric of exceptionality and urgency does not quite work. Sánchez emerges with quite a few feathers from the electoral super cycle of recent times – and very reinforced in Catalonia – and the bets on a long term in office are rising. Feijóo is going to hold on, but the PP has not, by any means, swept aside a PSOE that is clinging to 30% of the vote after five tortuous years in power (and half a dozen elections in a few months). The extreme right is also rising — and the Alvise phenomenon is breaking out with force — but it remains below 15% of the votes, well below the European average.
The only real novelty of the electoral supercycle that has just been left behind is the collapse of the independence movement in Catalonia: good news for Sánchez. The other conclusion is that for the PP there has been much more noise than nothing. And, even so, the President of the Government does not have it all with him. The shift to the right is evident in these elections. Except for Catalonia and some other enclaves, the map turns blue very clearly. The PSOE has difficulties in Madrid, in the Valencian Community and in Andalusia: in three of the four great vote barns of that green dog that is Spain. Sánchez is still there despite the continuous destabilization maneuvers, but his situation is precarious: an unstable balance. Added to this are the difficulties that the space on the left of the PSOE is going through, evidenced this Monday with the resignation of Yolanda Díaz as coordinator of Sumar. This party’s dog-eat-dog confrontation with its former Podemos colleagues predicts a period of instability on the left flank of Spanish politics.
And one more paradox to finish: despite the instability, the collapse of the German Social Democrats leaves as the undisputed leader of the European center-left a President of the Government who has demonstrated a natural fondness for international politics in general and European politics in particular. After his failure in the May elections, after the erosion that the amnesty has caused among his own forces, after his controversial position on Israel, after his controversies with Milei, and above all after the destabilization of institutional life of recent times, with an unbearable noise that goes from the police to the judiciary and vice versa, there seems little baggage to extend the legislature longer than what some promised.
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