With European Parliament elections less than a year away, the evolving political landscape raises concerns about the EU’s ability to address its structural challenges. A third of the EU’s member nations are now run, or highly influenced, by populist-style governments or factions. Right-wing parties are now in power in Sweden, Italy, Finland and Greece. Spain’s socialists have also lost parliamentary control even if the right has failed to make the gains it hoped for.
The rise of populism will continue to weaken the mainstream political parties in the European Council and Parliament, hurting the centre-left more than the centre-right. Current polling suggests the next Parliament could be more conservative, particularly with right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists gaining ground.
The genesis of the shifting sands in European politics is linked to the problem of immigration and the net-zero strategies adopted by the EU to tackle climate change. Populist parties owe their success to many ordinary people’s backlash against uncontrolled migration, failure to tackle crime, the left’s excessive focus on woke issues, and EU directives forcing people to alter their lifestyles to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Europeans are telling their politicians to look after their own people first, amid soaring inflation and rising energy and food prices. While mainstream politicians, especially those of the centre-left, lambast populist parties as racists, the reality is that an increasing number of citizens have lost faith in the ability of mainstream parties to address their concerns.
Former Italian prime minister and EU commissioner Romano Prodi speaking at a Partito Democratico conference recently, argued, “The PD has lost half of its votes in 10 years. It is no use condemning populism. The reality is that many electors feel that populist parties care more for their concerns than the traditional parties.”
Last year the EU received almost 900,000 asylum seekers, nearly double the number in 2021. Many voters blame high immigration for rising crime, a crippling housing shortage, terror attacks, social problems and what they see as an erosion of European culture. The recent riots in France following the killing of a 15-year-old boy of Algerian descent by the police is evidence of the failure of integration policies in many EU countries where large immigrant communities feel emarginated and treated as second-class citizens.
Ultimately people want prosperity, security, and fairness, not sovereigntist politics aimed at regression
Mainstream political parties of the centre right and centre left react by increasingly criticising immigration. But many in the electorate no longer trust traditional politicians’ tactics, including doublespeak, slick but insincere public relations, and politicians more interested in promoting their careers than working for the common good.
The EU’s Green Deal is another factor likely to affect the outcome of next year’s Parliament elections. Over 60,000 Europeans died of heat-related causes last summer, and this year will be even hotter. The need to address climate change has never been more urgent.
Still, while most parties back Europe’s 2050 climate neutrality target, measures to achieve this milestone have increasingly become unpopular. Centre-right and centre-left parties are broadly in agreement to address the challenges of climate change with determination. But popular discontent is growing. German MEP Peter Liese, environmental spokesperson for the EPP, the centre-right popular parties bloc, says that the EU’s growing number of green regulations “is a huge problem”, adding, “It is important not to demand too much”.
Even French President Emmanuel Macron has taken up the EPP’s call for a regulatory “pause”. A weakened determination to take action to slow down the effects of climate change will only result in more pain in the longer term. An EU Commission official speaking to the UK The Observer argues, “The thing with climate change is that we are constantly confronted with the consequences. Whatever the politics may be, reality has a way of ensuring that decisions are taken.”
Populists are unlikely to become a majority political force in any large EU country. The failure of the far-right Vox in Spain to make the breakthrough they hoped for indicates that, for some time, the political landscape in Europe will continue to be fragmented, preventing the creation of solid governments to take the necessary decisions to address structural economic and social challenges.
The Ukraine war and the failure of Brexit to deliver as much as promised will likely influence many citizens to think that the EU, with all its warts and spots, is a safer place to live than any other alternative. Ultimately people want prosperity, security, and fairness, not sovereigntist politics aimed at regression.