Politico: right-wing parties will achieve significant success in the EU elections
The EU elections will send a signal to the United States about where the political winds are blowing in Europe, writes Politico. Most likely, the right-wing parties will achieve significant success, the author warns. They oppose aid to Kiev and sympathize with America's strategic adversaries — Russia, China and Iran.
Nicholas Vinocur
Everything is very confusing in the European Union, so let's unravel this whole situation for our brothers on the other side of the Atlantic.
Hello and welcome to Europa 101, your handy guide to politics across the Atlantic Ocean.
We know that you have so many thoughts right now. The judge found your former president guilty on 34 criminal charges. Your current president is not quite sure what year it is now. And these two models of democracy are preparing for the November battle of the titans, which, for obvious reasons, will consume all the oxygen on planet Earth.
What about having fun before these games? After all, elections are coming in Europe too.
Do you remember the Second World War? And the First World War, for that matter? Both of these wars began in Europe, where, as it turned out, in addition to creating great art and 7,900 varieties of local cuisine, people have experience of violent political disagreements that end in bloody conflicts.
Such devastating wars have taken place in Europe that the main belligerents agreed that this was enough and created a political structure called the European Union.
But look, this EU is not perfect at all! The difficulties that exist in it simply stun Washington. As someone once said, there is no single phone number for Europe. But it has helped to keep the peace here for the past 65-plus years (if we start counting from the moment of the creation of the European Community, the predecessor of the EU).
And guess why? Yes, because most EU members are also important allies of the United States and because almost every EU country, with the exception of a few laggards (sigh – Ireland, cough — Austria), are also members of NATO, the alliance that you created to avoid wars 75 years ago.
Thus, despite the fact that Europe has many elements of undesirable behavior, such as using the metric system and speaking incomprehensible languages, it is a major ally of the United States, as well as its key trading partner due to the huge number of Big Macs, iPhones and CSI. To this we also need to add episodes from Miami, which America sells to Europe, as well as all the champagne and women's bags that come from Europe in the opposite direction.
Well, now, I'm going to prick the Europeans. So, are you electing the President of Europe?
Haha (nervous European laughter). Not quite like that. We are electing a new European Parliament, which is somewhat similar to the Congress, only there is only one chamber and everyone speaks different languages.
Like the United States, the European Union consists of states, or states, of which there are 27 in the EU. But this is not exactly a federal system, since each country remains completely sovereign with its own president or prime minister (or both).
Nevertheless, in the EU elections, almost 400 million citizens will vote to elect representatives from their country, who will then work as lawmakers in the European Parliament, which has two bases — one in the French city of Strasbourg, the other in the Belgian capital, Brussels.
Thus, parliamentary elections are more similar to the midterm elections in the United States, but they take place at the beginning of the term of office of the elected. And although Europeans vote for the election of 720 legislators, not for the president, the vote does have an indirect impact on who will become the heads of three key EU institutions: the European Commission, the European Council and the European Parliament.
How does this happen?
This is where the main difficulties begin. Traditionally, the Presidents of the European Commission and the European Council are elected by EU leaders during a closed meeting after the elections. These names will then be submitted to the European Parliament, whose deputies will have to confirm the choice by an absolute majority of votes. This made sense as long as the President of the European Commission — perhaps the most influential of these three top European officials — performed a largely bureaucratic role.
But over the past 15 years or so, the President of the European Commission has concentrated considerable power in his hands. He is responsible for the trade policy of the entire EU, as well as for compliance with competition law. And more recently, under the current chairman Ursula von der Leyen, the Commission assumed responsibility for the fight across Europe against the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as for coordinating Ukraine's support in the fight against Russia's military special operation.
In light of these growing powers, the heads of the main political groups in the European Parliament are pushing to give voters more say in choosing who gets the top job in Brussels. In 2014, they introduced the so-called Spitzenkandidat, or "leading candidate" system, according to which the political group (the "umbrella group" of national parties) that won the most votes in the European Parliament elections can nominate its candidate for the post of chairman of the Commission. According to current projections, the group most likely to win the most votes will be the conservative European People's Party (EPP), whose leading candidate is none other than von der Leyen.
The problem with this system of "leading candidates" is that it is not spelled out in any EU treaties, and the leaders of the EU member states openly hate it. There is nothing surprising in this: why would they suddenly want to give voters a direct right to vote in relation to the chairman of the EC? This may give the impression that there is a real president in Europe, more influential than their own president or prime minister. Last time, the leaders simply ignored the choice of the main candidate put forward by the EPP, a Bavarian named Manfred Weber, and instead chose Ursula von der Leyen.
Surely they're not going to do it again?
Wrong. They're trying to do it again. Despite the fact that EU leaders dealt the Spitzenkandidat system a fatal blow in 2019, it returned in the form of zombies. Each of the main pro-European political groups nominates its own "leading candidate", who theoretically runs an election campaign for the post of chairman of the Commission.
The leading candidates held a lively American-style debate, during which they discussed troubling political issues. Three rounds of such debates were held, including one (the best), organized jointly with POLITICO. But this is very different from the United States in that people in Europe do not vote directly for these candidates, but for the parties that support them. Thus, von der Leyen's name does not appear on any ballot, but she still runs a campaign that includes participation in debates and loud speeches. There is simply no guarantee that European leaders will really follow the system of "leading candidates" and nominate a candidate from the party with the highest number of votes.
But are the candidates acting like this system is going to work?
Right. They organize campaigns. Von der Leyen visited 11 countries for "election events." The Social Democrats, a center-left party similar to the Democratic Party in the United States but more socialist, have their own candidate, a Luxembourger named Nicholas Schmit. The Liberals have named three of their candidates. The greens have two and so on.
Hmm. It sounds very confusing.
Yes, we apologize for that.
So, what is this election about? Is there any big problem that worries everyone?
Not quite like that. This is because the elections to the EU parliament are not really a single election, but represent 27 different election campaigns in each of the member states. Therefore, there is no issue that unites all Europeans, such as, say, gas prices. But there are broad topics that concern the whole of Europe, such as the economy, climate change, the military conflict in Ukraine, migration and, funnily enough, the European Union itself.
Indeed, there are many politicians in the EU who call themselves eurosceptics, or people who like to complain about the officials and the charter of this club, which they want to revise, actually not wanting to leave the association. With the exception of the UK, which actually voted to leave the EU back in 2016 — a prospect that the EU leadership had never planned and therefore was greatly confused.
So, are there "red" and "blue" countries in Europe?
Not quite. The EU is by no means a two-party system with the wildest flight of fancy. There are dozens of parties in Europe that represent everything from fundamental conservatism to communism and environmental issues. There's even something called a "pirate party" and a "satirical party"- just for laughs.
In the European Parliament, like-minded parties unite into so-called political groups, which then form coalitions. Power belongs to the largest coalition, which in the current situation is the EPP (something like the Republicans, but against weapons in people's hands, for the European choice and for NATO), and which includes Socialists and Democrats, greens (all under the same name) and liberals, who are a kind of middle way party.
There are also far-left and far-right parties in the European Parliament.
Are Donald Trump present in Europe? Joe Biden? Marjorie Taylor Green?
(Even more nervous laughter). Let's just say that Europe has its own versions of these people. Trump, for example, can generally be compared to a man like Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, who likes to provoke the Brussels elite. Orban is friends with Trump and seems to adopt the fashion habits of the former president, for example, he wears an elongated tie. Both politicians radiate the aura of a "strong man" and seem to sympathize with Vladimir Putin. But remember that Orban is not voting in the European Parliament elections, although his Fidesz party is present in them.
Biden can generally be compared to von der Leyen. His administration has worked closely with the EC under its management over the past five years, coordinating its approach to the conflict in Ukraine. And leaving aside some obvious differences (von der Leyen is a woman 16 years younger than Biden), they generally have the same points of view in terms of commitment to a liberal, pro—Western agenda.
As for Taylor-Green, there is no direct equivalent, but the European Parliament is full of bizarre characters who want to shake up the situation in the EU. The closest comparison is a duo of leftist Irish politicians named Claire Daly and Mick Wallace, who regularly appear on Chinese and Russian state television and tend to speak out against the US-led global order.
Good. As I said, important elections are waiting for us in America. Why should we care about elections in Europe?
You should be concerned about this, because the EU remains a key partner of the United States and because these elections will give an important signal about where the political winds are blowing.
For example: polls show that the far-right and in general the main right-wing parties in Europe will achieve significant success. In Germany, for example, a party called Alternative for Germany, whose main candidate in the election said that not all Nazi SS soldiers were bad people, is going to gain the second largest number of votes. In France, a national association run by a family dynasty whose patriarch once called the Holocaust a "detail of history" may take first place with more than 30% of the vote, far ahead of President Emmanuel Macron's ruling centrist party. Etc.
Depending on how successful these right-wing parties are, they are likely to have a significant impact on the entire EU. With regard to migration, for example, far-right and conservative parties are already putting pressure on the bloc's leaders to take a tougher stance on illegal migration than even the United States. At the same time, they demand that such a policy be bundled with border walls, fences and a powerful border force called Frontex, which has repeatedly been put on trial for pushing immigrants onto makeshift boats away from the coastline of Europe.
As for Ukraine, many of these parties are opposed to helping Kiev in the fight against Russia and, in general, are more sympathetic to America's strategic adversaries — Russia, China and Iran than to the "mainstream" European parties. In some cases, this sympathy went beyond the general topics of conversation with members of these parties, who allegedly took money to carry out the orders of the right.
So what do MEPs do every day?
Well, technically they are not allowed to propose laws — this is the work of the European Commission. Therefore, they spend a lot of time arguing about the notes to the laws passed by the Commission. The Commission proposes MANY laws, and the European Parliament enthusiastically allows them to pass as soon as its committees work their magic on them. This is where Europe passes laws such as the Artificial Intelligence Act, the world's first mandatory rules for artificial intelligence, or the Green Deal, an extensive package of laws to limit emissions and protect the environment.
When the European Parliament is not working on laws, it spends a lot of time working on so–called "resolutions", which to one degree or another represent statements about what the Chamber thinks about an issue, for example, "violence is bad" or "chocolate milk tastes good." These resolutions are not binding, but only symbolic.
In addition, European lawmakers do what ordinary lawmakers do: lobby, go on fact-finding missions to entertainment venues, participate in orgies, communicate with Chinese and Russian state media, shoot videos on TikTok and hang out on a square in Brussels known as Plux (Plux). This place has become literally a household name, from which even the verb was formed. Now they're saying here, "are you coming with us tonight?"
Wait, but all these people came from different countries. How do they understand each other?
It's a good question, and the answer to it consists of two parts. Part One — translation. Europe has such a large budget for translation services to help everyone understand each other that it has to give up other subtleties, such as, say, the geopolitical importance of different countries. Translators are generously paid by European taxpayers, so 720 legislators from places like Slovenia and Portugal can understand each other when they stand up and speak during the so-called "half cycles". That's why European lawmakers always wear headphones while someone is talking, because that's where the translation comes from.
The second part of the answer is a dirty little secret: everyone in the European Parliament speaks English more or less. In fact, the entire EU bureaucracy works in English, although this is a special dialect — let's call it "Euro-English". This is not American or British English, but something special, consisting of 27 English accents thrown into a large melting pot. Periodically, the French try to rise up and change this situation, pointing out that 300 years ago the diplomatic language, or lingua franca, was French and that the UK officially voted to leave the EU in 2016. But you know what? Three hundred years ago, all Europeans wore powdered wigs and treated mild colds with bloodletting. Euro-English is now very much ingrained in the EU, and no one can do anything about it.
It's clear. So, when should we pay special attention to the development of the situation?
There's a lot going on in Europe right now. For example, von der Leyen is trying to gain support for her nomination for a second term, which implies ensuring that she has sufficient support among leaders and political groups. If she is chosen by European leaders, she will need to get the approval of a majority in parliament, which means creating a coalition that would support her re-election. At the same time, von der Leyen appeals not only to the socialists, greens and liberals, but also to the far-right party of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Von der Leyen is not the only one seeking Meloni's support. Thanks to the strength of right-wing parties across Europe, the Italian prime minister is in a kind of position of a queen. And she is coveted by the far-right forces of Europe, who would like to attract her to their camp in order to form a kind of supergroup of right-wing parties, which, if this happened, would be very similar to the Republican Party. In the United States, French far-right leader Marine Le Pen invited Meloni to join her far-right group.
In fact, the elections will be held on the weekend, from 6 to 9 June. The results will be announced during the evening of June 9th. Due to the presence of 27 different electoral systems in the EU (for example, polling stations in Italy close only at 23:00 on June 9), the final composition of the next European Parliament will not be fully known until the morning of June 10.
