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BRUSSELS – Voting for the European Parliament elections begins on Thursday and will run for four days, with a record turnout expected across the 27 European Union member states.
But a high turnout would not be an indication of approval of the EU in its current form: opinion polls also suggest a surge in support for far-right and eurosceptic parties, which could portend political shockwaves that will reverberate around the world and potentially even affect Britain.
A significantly shift in the European Parliament to the right would reduce the willingness to cooperate. “Right-wing governments, as the UK knows all too well, are inward-looking governments,” said Rebecca Christie, a senior fellow at the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel. “Since Brexit, the EU has consulted the UK a lot less on just about everything.
“And if the EU really gets caught up in a battle over European values and a tug-of-war between the national government and, say, Viktor Orban in Hungary, then the UK just disappears.”
Turmoil in the EU could complicate negotiations and cooperation on everything from migration to trade to security.
Europa Erectus, which compiles national polls, predicts that far-right parties could win up to a third of the 720 seats in Parliament, up by a third since the last elections in 2019. The think tank European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) predicts that eurosceptic populists will top opinion polls in nine EU countries, including Austria, Belgium, France and the Netherlands, and come second or third in a further nine.
While they are unlikely to win a majority in the next parliament, they could disrupt and derail the EU’s legislative agenda for the next five years, including the next round of climate change legislation and foreign policy.
A report released in January by the US think tank, the Atlantic Council, stated:Show more–Action RequiredHe added that a “new phase” had begun between the UK and EU on climate change and that “an EU-UK partnership based on accelerating the clean energy transition would be a logical step forward.”
“The key question is whether the centre will hold, or will extremes disrupt it and stop us from progressing?” said Sean Kelly, an Irish MEP from Fine Gael, which is in the European People’s Party (EPP) group.
“Decisions are always difficult, but they could become even more difficult. The far-right cannot control events, but they can delay things. And they are financing the war in Ukraine, Green Deal. “
The rise of the far-right in Europe could have significant implications for Ukraine, which is now facing renewed Russian aggression and desperately seeking more weapons and aid. Many far-right MEPs have questioned whether the EU should support Kiev, and some have openly called for a Russian victory.
The UK played a key role in the Western response According to scholars writing for Engage, a project that examines challenges in global governance, Russia’s aggression has spurred new cooperation across Europe.
They warned that if the US were to re-elect a Trump administration, UK and EU leadership would “be even more important in maintaining and coordinating Western efforts”, and said that with increased populist representation in Europe, the UK’s role would “be even more valued in European capitals where populist governments do not have influence”.
Former British National Security Advisor Peter Ricketts recently said: POLITICO “Any change in the European Union’s foreign policy will necessarily Implications for UK national security” But he said the EU and Britain had so far been broadly aligned on key issues.
Fabian Zurich, chief executive of the European Policy Centre (EPC), expects relations between the UK and the EU to improve once a new government is formed in London in July and does not believe the European Parliament elections will have a major impact.
But he suggested a strong far-right result could galvanise British nationalist politicians such as Nigel Farage’s Reform Party. “There will inevitably be claims from the British far-right that a strong election result is a sign that Europeans want a different Europe,” he said.
These political shifts come as voter anxiety spreads across Europe and mainstream parties struggle to provide stable leadership amid turmoil from the pandemic to wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. The rise of far-right populists such as Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, Marine Le Pen in France, Orbán in Hungary and Giorgia Meloni in Italy reflects growing dissatisfaction with the EU’s handling of issues such as immigration.
Wilders, who won last year’s Dutch elections on a strong anti-immigration message, is now seen as the architect of the country’s next coalition government. Meloni’s Italian Brothers party holds a large lead in the polls. Le Pen’s far-right National Rally is leading with a third of the vote, more than double President Emmanuel Macron’s Free European Union party. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has the highest approval rating of any party in Germany’s ruling coalition.
For the far-right, this means moving the EU away from centralized bureaucracy and back to traditional values. “Europe is at a crossroads and these European elections represent a choice of the path we want for the future,” said Susanna Ceccaldi, a member of the European Parliament for Italy’s far-right League party. I“We want to build a Europe of sovereign, free and strong states that make Europe stronger, a Europe of peoples and territories that nurture their roots, traditions and cultural identity.”
Ceccardi said there was a backlash against mainstream political groups who have supported the policies of Ursula von der Leyen, the conservative president of the European Commission. “There are those who want a centralized superstate, a United States of Europe, that erases people’s differences and spreads cancel culture, woke ideology, false multiculturalism and eco-terrorism. It’s a Europe of bureaucrats, a Europe of unelected elites,” she said.
If the far-right parties were to unite, they could become the largest party in parliament, surpassing mainstream political groups such as the conservative European People’s Party (EPP), the centre-left Social Democrats (S&D) and the liberal Renew Group.
A key question after the election will be how the parties will work together. The far-right parties in the European Parliament have often been mired in infighting and are currently split into three political factions, but there have also been attempts to form a broad nationalist alliance.
In a sign that the political center is already shifting to the right, Ms. von der Leyen is trying to lure Mr. Meloni into the conservative European People’s Party (EPP) group, a risky strategy: EU leaders are expected to reappoint Ms. von der Leyen as European Commission president in July, but the powerful center-left Social Democrat (S&D) group and the Greens have warned that a confirmation vote in parliament could fail.
Europe is facing crucial choices about its future – and where it goes will matter for Britain.