European elections

‘Anti-European’ populists on track for big gains in EU elections, says report

France, Poland and Austria among nine countries where radical rightwing
parties predicted to finish first

Jon Henley Europe correspondent
@jonhenley
Wed 24 Jan 2024 05.00 GMT

Populist “anti-European” parties are heading for big gains in June’s European elections that could shift the parliament’s balance sharply to the right and jeopardise key pillars of the EU’s agenda including climate
action, polling suggests.

Polling in all 27 EU member states, combined with modelling of how national parties performed in past European parliament elections, shows radical
right parties are on course to finish first in nine countries including Austria, France and Poland.

Projected second- or third-place finishes in another nine countries,
including Germany, Spain, Portugal and Sweden, could for the first time
produce a majority rightwing coalition in the parliament of Christian Democrats, conservatives and radical right MEPs.

The analysis should “serve as a wake-up call for European policymakers
about what is at stake” in the election, said the political scientists
Simon Hix and Kevin Cunningham, who co-authored the report for the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

The researchers said the implications of the vote were far-reaching,
arguing the next European parliament could block laws on Europe’s green
deal and take a harder line on other areas of EU sovereignty including migration, enlargement and support for Ukraine.

Domestic debates could also be affected, they said, bolstering the “growing axis of governments trying to limit the EU’s influence from within”: Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, Sweden and, if Geert Wilders’ PVV heads its new government, the Netherlands.

The possible return of Donald Trump in the US and a right-leaning, inward-focused coalition in the European parliament could result in a
rejection of “strategic interdependence and … international partnerships in defence of European interests and values”, they warned.

The projections showed the mainstream political groups in the parliament – the centre-right European People’s party (EPP), centre-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D), the centrist Renew Europe (RE) and Greens (G/EFA) – all losing MEPs.

The more radical Left group and particularly the populist right, including
the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR) and far-right
Identity and Democracy (ID), are set to emerge as the main victors, with a
real possibility of entering a majority coalition for the first time.

<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/24/anti-european-populists-on-track-for-big-gains-in-eu-elections-says-report>

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