Europe’s coming round of national elections could put far-right or nationalist populist parties in power across four of its largest countries at the same time, a prospect columnist Nathalie Tocci describes as a dramatic “Trumpian tilt” for the continent.
Writing in the Guardian, Tocci points first to Spain, where prime minister Pedro Sánchez called a snap election for next month after an alliance of the conservative People’s party, the far-right Vox and the Catalan pro-independence party Junts blocked his housing reform package in parliament. If the socialist leader loses that gamble, Spain could fall to a conservative/far-right coalition that currently leads in the polls, she writes.
Tocci counts nine countries heading to the polls within the coming year: France, Italy, Poland, Spain, Finland, Greece, Estonia and Slovakia. Among them, she argues, the four biggest — France, Italy, Poland and Spain — might see far-right or nationalist populist parties confirmed in office in Italy, returned to power in Poland, or elected for the first time in France and Spain.
Europe, she notes, has been moving right for some time, with far-right parties joining coalitions in various countries at various moments. Centre-right and far-right groups can now muster a majority in the European parliament, coalescing especially around an anti-climate and anti-migration agenda. That tilt has slowed European integration, according to Tocci, though its policy effects have not matched the speed and radicalism seen in the United States under Donald Trump.
Her explanation is that the rightward shift has not been uniform. She cites the Netherlands, where Geert Wilders’s far-right Freedom party was punished at the polls last year and the liberals staged a comeback; Hungary, where Viktor Orbán was ousted in a landslide and the country’s slide into authoritarianism is now being reversed; and Sweden, where support for the far right slipped and the Social Democrat-led opposition bloc scraped a victory. Even so, she stresses the far right’s rise remains a continent-wide trend, pointing to Alternative für Deutschland’s recent win in eastern Germany as a shock felt across Europe.
Should Marine Le Pen reach the French presidency, Giorgia Meloni be confirmed as Italian prime minister — possibly at the head of a coalition further right than the present one — Law and Justice return in Poland, and a conservative/far-right government including Vox take office in Spain, the face of Europe would change dramatically, Tocci warns. Add several smaller countries electing similar governments, she writes, and the result would still fall short of a qualified majority able to steer EU policy — but it would form a blocking minority, foreclosing any ambition of deeper integration in finance, energy, defence and technology.
Numbers are not the only factor, in her account. These leaders would galvanise and radicalise one another, propped up by Maga America and Silicon Valley’s algorithms. The common view outside Italy that Meloni has mellowed in power is partly explained, she argues, by the company she has kept — figures such as Emmanuel Macron, Donald Tusk and Sánchez. Replace them with Le Pen, Jarosław Kaczyński and Alberto Núñez Feijóo, backed by Vox’s Santiago Abascal, and Meloni would behave more in line with her true political instincts, Tocci writes.
The outcome, she suggests, might not be the slow erosion of European integration seen in recent years but a hollowing out, if not outright implosion. The EU as it is known would struggle to retain its purpose, particularly if no agreement is reached on its next seven-year budget in the coming months.
Tocci finds irony in the persistence of European political heterogeneity while, beyond the bloc, more than Canada is seeking closer proximity. Britain, she notes, may have begun retracing its steps: a decade passed before a British prime minister publicly acknowledged that Brexit had done more harm than good and opened the door to rejoining the EU, as Andy Burnham has now done.
It took ten years to remember the purpose of European unity and the emptiness of petty nationalism, she concludes — precisely as Europe risks losing the memory of its dark past and teeters on the brink of falling apart. Now, in her view, may be the moment for the UK to remind its European neighbours what it means to be out there, all alone.
COMMENTS