Ariel David After U.S. midterms, the next clash between democracy and populism will be in Europe
If the U.S. midterms were billed as a referendum on Donald Trump’s presidency, next year’s European elections could be described as a referendum on the future of the European Union.
The continent-wide
vote for the EU Parliament on May 23-26 is set to be the next major
clash between mainstream parties and surging nationalist movements, with
the latter expected to make major gains.
Unless moderate
forces mount a major comeback ahead of the vote, experts interviewed by
Haaretz predict that Europe may quickly veer toward harsh
anti-immigration rules, protectionist trade policies, and increased
political and economic instability.
“It’s
the same divide we have seen in the midterm elections – a clear clash
between liberal and illiberal forces,” says Nicoletta Pirozzi, head of a
research program on the EU at Rome-based think tank the Institute for
International Affairs.
Euroskeptic and
far-right politicians have long had a presence in the European
Parliament, often using their seats as a platform to attack the EU’s
rules and its bureaucracy.
But
now they stand a real chance of gaining major influence over the bloc’s
policies, thanks to surging support in their homelands and perhaps with
a little help from Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser who is forming a movement to unify Europe’s populist forces ahead of the May vote.
“Europe
faces a risk – that of being broken up by nationalist leprosy and of
being pushed around by foreign powers,” French President Emmanuel Macron
warned in an interview last week. Macron has reason to be fearful, since his popularity at home is plummeting and his party was just overtaken in the polls by the National Rally
– the recently rebranded National Front of Marine Le Pen, the far-right
candidate whom he had easily defeated in last year’s presidential
election.
Italy’s League – the
anti-immigrant and Euroskeptic party of Deputy Prime Minister Matteo
Salvini – is polling at nearly 35 percent, followed by Five Star
Movement, its anti-establishment coalition partner, at just under 29
percent.
Populists can look
forward to similarly strong showings in other countries where they are
already in power, such as Hungary and Austria. Add to that the
uncertainty over the United Kingdom’s planned exit from the EU next March, since a particularly “hard Brexit” could damage the economy of both Britain and the remaining 27-country bloc, adding more fuel to the populist wave.
Bannon,
whose populist organization The Movement plans to offer support on
polling and messaging to like-minded politicians, has said he doubts
nationalists can gain a majority but hopes they can win a third of the
assembly’s 705 seats.
Such an outcome is
“feasible,” says José Ignacio Torreblanca, head of the Madrid office of
the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank with branches
across the EU.
Controlling such a
large group of delegates would allow populists to “change the
conversation” and influence EU policy – either by forging alliances with
moderate conservatives or tempting other parties to adopt their views
simply to try to steal their voters, Torreblanca says.
At a minimum, it
would also secure national right-wing governments from the threat of
sanctions by Brussels, which require a two-thirds majority, he adds.
Most of the experts
interviewed by Haaretz doubted that Bannon could play a key role, since
several far-right leaders – including Le Pen – have been extremely lukewarm toward his efforts.
“I
doubt that Bannon has the ability to unite these forces, because
nationalist movements have a natural tendency to avoid EU-wide
alliances,” says Pirozzi. “Still, it is very significant that such an
experiment is being conducted. And while it may not bear immediate
fruits, it can certainly do so in the long term.”
With or without
Bannon, Europe’s populists will have a strong showing, she says, and
moderate political forces seem unable to rise to the challenge. “The
opposition to this wave of nationalism has been much weaker than you
would expect,” says Pirozzi.
Perhaps because
mainstream parties have managed to stay in power in the heart of Europe –
with Macron in France and Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany – “people
don’t realize the danger,” says Frank Paul Weber, a journalist who
worked as a spokesman for former German Finance Minister Wolfgang
Schäuble.
This complacency can
be deadly in EU elections, which have traditionally a low turnout,
giving an automatic advantage to the highly motivated voters of
extremist parties, warns Weber.
Even though the EU’s
legislative body has a hand in deciding everything from food safety
issues to car emissions, “Most people don’t know what the EU Parliament
does,” Weber says. “While in the United States it’s quite clear what is
the difference between a Republican- or a Democrat-controlled Congress, here nobody understands what’s at stake.”
For this election, the EU has launched a website
that aims to gather activists who will work to get out the vote. But
most experts agree that the bloc’s traditional political forces have
been too slow to adopt the grassroots action and social media savviness
that has helped propel the world’s populists.
“Progressives in
Europe should learn from the [U.S.] Democratic Party, which just
regained control of the House largely thanks to grassroots mobilization
and a host of young, diverse candidates,” says Jean-Pierre Darnis, a
professor of international relations at the University of Nice. They
should also be open to alliances with new movements and nontraditional
parties that have already mastered the tools and messaging of today’s
politics, he says. One example would be the resurgent Greens party,
which has enjoyed strong results in local elections in Germany. A solid
alliance between these forces should be able to maintain stability and
block any moves by even a large contingent of far-right parties, Darnis
says.
But what policies would be favored by a European Parliament with a strong Euroskeptic bloc?
Far-right parties
would quickly try to tighten border controls – both within and without
the EU – and move to deport immigrants, who are their unifying cause
célèbre, says Torreblanca.
They would also move
to remove sanctions on Russia and improve ties with Moscow, out of
admiration for President Vladimir Putin’s strongman policies and his
support for nationalist forces across Europe, Torreblanca says.
Finally, there would
be a strong push to halt the progress of – or even undo – the monetary
union, while allowing each state more discretion on their economic
policies, he says.
“These right-wing
groups are all different in background, but as nationalist groups they
are united in wanting power to be restored to the state,” says Oded
Eran, a former Israeli ambassador to the EU and now a senior researcher
at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
On an international
level, such an outcome is likely to be welcomed by Washington and
Jerusalem, Eran notes. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long been
cozying up to Europe’s populist parties, such as Hungary’s Fidesz, Poland’s Law and Justice, and the Freedom Party of Austria, despite the anti-Semitic statements or neo-Nazi roots of some of their members.
“If Brussels is
weakened, this will certainly play into the hands of both Israel and
Washington, who prefer to deal with individual states in conducting
foreign relations, security arrangements and economic ties,” Eran
explains.
The reasons for Israeli and American indifference to Europe’s fate are different.
For the United
States, it’s the feeling that Europeans have long enjoyed unbalanced
trade relations, and have not been contributing enough to their own
defense and to NATO while benefiting from the U.S. military presence and
the deterrence it creates, Eran says.
“For Israel, Brussels
is identified with pro-Palestinian policies; with imposing restrictions
on cooperation with [Israeli] entities in the West Bank; and for not
sufficiently standing up against various groups that Israel rightly
identifies as terror organizations,” he says.
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