In the run-up to the European Parliament elections last month, a report by a think-tank in Berlin, the European Council on Foreign Relations, commissioned YouGov (a leading polling organisation) to conduct a survey in 14 European countries. It found that majorities in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, the Netherlands, Austria, Slovakia, Greece and the Czech Republic thought the European Union would fall apart in 20 years’ time, raising the spectre of new conflicts and war on the continent. Indeed, many voters thought that the May 2019 elections would be the last.
The results were fascinating. Although President Emmanuel Macron of France wants to strengthen the European project, voters in his country were deeply pessimistic, with 58 per cent believing that the EU is doomed. France was closely followed by Italy on 57 per cent and Germany on 50 per cent. Younger voters, aged 18 to 34, were particularly worried about the potential for conflict to break out between EU countries, with fears most strong in the Netherlands, France, Poland and Germany.
In the event, these bleak polls prior to the elections proved, if not unfounded, at least exaggerated. Pro-Europeans used this fear of loss before the elections to mobilise their silent majority to ensure that it was not just the populist anti-parties who got their say on May 26.
What has become clear over the past fortnight is that the European Parliament elections were every bit as consequential for the European Union as expected – just not for the reason that most political commentators had predicted.
The forces holding Europe together are stronger than those pulling it apart. The surge in support for Eurosceptic populist parties that was supposed to rock the EU to its foundations failed to materialise. Right-wing populists did well, but largely at the expense of left-wing populists. The traditional centre-right and centre-left cross-border parties suffered, but their losses were offset by significant gains for Liberals and Greens. The result has been to leave the European Parliament more fragmented, but the overall balance between populist and mainstream political forces broadly unchanged.
Instead, the real significance of the parliamentary elections lay in the impact on the domestic politics of the key member states where the elections served to strengthen the position of pro-EU mainstream parties in ways that may yet prove economically positive.
In Germany, for example, where the real drama was not the performance of the far-right AfD (which made only modest gains compared with 2014), but the remarkable surge in support for the Greens, whose share of the vote rose by 10 points to 20.5 per cent, and the consequent collapse of the Social Democrats, who were pushed into third place on just 15.8 per cent.
This has led to the resignation of its leader and may yet result in the party pulling out of its coalition with Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats. That could lead to a period of turbulence in which Mrs Merkel is either forced to seek a new coalition with the Greens and Liberals, or is compelled to call new elections which could precipitate the early end of her chancellorship.
From an economic perspective, there is little to fear from such turbulence. It is unlikely to yield much change in economic strategy. It may even lead to a change for the better. One poll last week put the Greens in first place for the first time. The German Greens are not radical leftists and have long supported the German consensus in favour of fiscal conservatism.
The forces holding the EU together remain far stronger than those pulling it apart
The outcome of the elections may also prove economically positive for France. It’s true that President Macron’s party was narrowly beaten into second place by Marine le Pen’s National Rally. But the bigger picture is that Le Pen’s party won a lower share of the vote and fewer seats than it did in 2014. The real story is the collapse in support for the mainstream-conservative party, the Republicans, which crashed to only 8.5 per cent, beaten into fourth place by the Greens.
As a result, the mainstream right finds itself in similar disarray to the mainstream left, which barely managed to scrape above the five per cent threshold needed to secure any MEPs. This has strengthened President Macron’s hand, who finds himself without meaningful Opposition beyond Ms Le Pen, as he embarks on much-needed pension and unemployment reforms.
At first glance, the elections in Italy appear to be the exception to the wider European trend, given the very strong result for the far-right Eurosceptic League led by the rabble-rousing Matteo Salvini, which topped the poll with 34 per cent. But even in Italy, the longer-term ramifications of the election results may yet turn out to be market-friendly. Recently the Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, effectively threw down an ultimatum to Mr Salvini either to cooperate with the government’s efforts to deliver a Budget for next year that would comply with EU rules, or he would step down.
Mr Salvini must now decide whether to stick with his coalition with the populist Five Star Movement, or gamble on an election which, while he currently looks sure to win, could force him to share power with mainstream conservatives who would likely act as a brake on his more radical impulses.
To sum up, even if the European elections have strengthened the hands of pro-European centrists in unexpected ways, the political challenges facing the EU have not gone away. The EU remains sharply divided over what to do about illegal migration, the size and scope of the future budget, and how to share out the EU’s top jobs.
How should it respond to the rise of China? How should it strengthen the eurozone? What should Europeans collectively do to tackle issues such as climate change and clean air which cross national boundaries?
It must confront these challenges against a worsening economic backdrop as a result of President Trump’s trade war and the unresolved strains posed by Brexit. All of this is bound to generate a great deal of political noise. But despite these enormous challenges, the encouraging signal that these elections demonstrate is that the forces holding the EU together remain far stronger than those pulling it apart.
This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece