Right-wing parties are likely to make significant gains in the European elections. But will they really become more powerful in Brussels? This will also depend on the decisions of the election losers.
In which political direction is the EU heading after the devastating Corona pandemic and the start of the cruel Russian war of aggression against Ukraine? With the elections in Germany and around two dozen other EU countries this weekend, the decision-making process on the composition of the next European Parliament ends.
On Sunday evening it will become clear what kind of politics the approximately 360 million EU citizens eligible to vote want for the next five years. Will they become more left-wing, green, social democratic, liberal, conservative or right-wing?
Le Pen and Meloni on the rise
Right-wing parties in particular are likely to be celebrating in the evening. In France, according to polls, Marine Le Pen’s right-wing nationalist party Rassemblement National could become by far the strongest political force and win twice as many parliamentary seats as President Emmanuel Macron’s “Besoin d’Europe” electoral alliance. The Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the Party for Freedom (PVV) of the Dutch right-wing populist Geert Wilders, as well as the Austrian FPÖ and the German AfD can also hope for significant gains.
But are the gains enough to bring about a shift to the right with noticeable consequences? This is doubtful because right-wing parties are unlikely to gain much more than 200 of the 720 seats in the European Parliament, even if they make unexpectedly strong gains. According to current forecasts, the Christian-conservative EPP family of parties, along with the German parties CDU and CSU, can hope to become the strongest political force with around 180 seats. Theoretically, it would be possible for them to agree to a collaboration with the Social Democrats and Liberals, as they did in 2019, who, despite significant losses, were still forecast to gain 140 and 90 seats respectively.
Together, the party families would have a comfortable majority – and this could be further stabilized by including the Greens. They were recently predicted to gain around 50 seats, which would mean a significant loss of around 20 seats compared to the 2019 election result.
Unity looks different
Another argument against a clear shift to the right is that the right-wing parties have not yet managed to form a powerful, unified alliance. In the legislative period now coming to an end, Le Pen’s RN belonged to the right-wing ID (Identity and Democracy) faction, while Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia belonged to the rival ECR (European Conservatives and Reformists). The ID also recently excluded all German AfD MEPs. The background to this was, among other things, controversial statements by the AfD’s top candidate Maximilian Krah about the SS and a China espionage scandal involving one of Krah’s employees.
The Frenchwoman Le Pen is currently lobbying Meloni for a merger in order to form the second largest group in the European Parliament after the election. However, it is uncertain whether this will happen. One reason is that Meloni is also being courted by the powerful EPP. Its leader Manfred Weber (CSU) repeatedly stresses that the EPP wants to work with all parties “that are pro-constitutional, pro-Europe, pro-Ukraine”. And lead candidate Ursula von der Leyen says of Meloni: “She is clearly pro-European, against Putin (…) and pro-constitutional.”
The allure of power
Meloni’s argument for at least loose cooperation with the EPP is that it would mean she would be close to the centre of power in the EU. The EPP currently has 13 of the 27 heads of state and government at EU summits, making it by far the most influential political force there. If Meloni enters into a close alliance with Le Pen, however, this would likely be inconsistent with cooperation with the EPP – Le Pen is still demonised by the EPP as being anti-EU, close to Russia and right-wing extremist – despite the EPP’s efforts to distance itself from her father Jean-Marie Le Pen.
For Ursula von der Leyen, who is seeking a second term as President of the EU Commission, the situation is both an opportunity and a risk. After the European elections, the first step is for her to be proposed as a candidate to the Parliament at an EU summit with a qualified majority. This means that in addition to the 13 EPP heads of state and government, at least three others from large member states must vote for her.
Von der Leyen needs partners
The second step is to unite the majority of members of parliament behind her in a secret ballot. To do this, von der Leyen and the EPP could rely on forging a stable alliance for her election by involving the Greens, Social Democrats and Liberals. If the Greens do not play along, votes from Meloni’s party could help to secure re-election. One danger, however, is that flirting with Meloni or other right-wingers could mean that Social Democrats could also refuse to support von der Leyen.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) recently said during the election campaign that when the next commission is formed, “it must not rely on a majority in parliament that also requires the support of right-wing extremists.” He probably intentionally left open whether he included Meloni’s party in this. The Chancellor’s Office had previously said that Scholz greatly valued the cooperation with Meloni at the EU level.
Rumors about Draghi
Von der Leyen’s advantage is that none of the other top candidates for the Commission presidency are given a serious chance of being nominated by the heads of state and government. These include the Luxembourg Social Democrat Nicholas Schmit and the German Green politician Terry Reintke. There is only some speculation that Macron could propose the former Italian head of government Mario Draghi as an alternative to von der Leyen.
At the same time, however, it is hard to imagine that Parliament would ever again accept a candidate who was not previously nominated by a party family. In 2019, this meant that von der Leyen had to wait until the last second for her election in Parliament and in the end only received nine more votes than she needed.
Major shift to the right could come in 2027
Finally, von der Leyen can also hope that the Greens in particular will have to ask themselves what resistance to the CDU politician could mean for the achievement of their own political goals. Von der Leyen was recently accused of having scaled back her ambitions for environmental protection because of the Europe-wide farmers’ protests. At the same time, however, top Green politicians admit behind closed doors that from the Greens’ point of view there are probably no better, realistic alternatives to von der Leyen. The 65-year-old is considered by the Greens to be a committed and committed climate activist who has made significant progress in the EU on this issue in recent years.
Against this background, the likelihood of a major political shift to the right is low. However, the EU could experience one if Le Pen succeeds in winning the presidential election in France in 2027. For the first time, the EU’s second-largest economy would then be governed by someone who is clearly right-wing.