The European elections: the right lessons to learn

There remains a democratic majority in the European Parliament to tackle the economic and social insecurity fuelling populism.

‘Business as usual’ cannot continue—that much is clear from the results of the European elections.

Democratic forces still have a clear majority in the European Parliament. The majority of people who came out voted for a democratic Europe. So there is no need—still less excuse—for backroom deals with any part of the far right. But the rise in support for anti-democratic, anti-worker parties demands a response.

Some politicians, panicked, will try to go even further in imitating the far right, in style and substance. Trade unions, supported by the data, are clear that this tactic will backfire. The obsessions of the far right are far from the main concerns of European citizens, whose priorities are quality jobs and ending poverty.

The Hans-Böckler-Stiftung recently conducted a survey of workers in ten European Union member states. It found that workers who were dissatisfied with their working conditions and pay and who had little say in their job were more likely to have negative attitudes towards democracy and to be more vulnerable to right-wing narratives about ‘migrants’.

Parties must not normalise the far right’s talking points. Wrong in principle and self-defeating in practice, this strategy—adopted by many during the election campaign—was a failure. It would compound the error to double-down on it.

Instead, these results must be the wake-up call that stops Europe sleepwalking towards disaster. All democratic parties must use their combined majority to deliver on the priorities of hard-working people. It is time to stop trying to treat the symptoms and finally address the real cause of the malaise—economic insecurity.

A project of hope

The EU must urgently press forward on a European project of hope that delivers security and safety to workers. That includes quality jobs in all occupations and regions, real improvement in pay and working conditions, enhanced public services, affordable housing and social justice. 

People want an EU that fights against poverty and creates quality jobs—too many lack the most basic elements of a decent life. Renewed austerity would take us in the opposite direction and add to anger in communities across Europe.

Uncertainty and insecurity are fuelling the ‘backlash’ against the European Green Deal. Tackling the climate crisis is non-negotiable: there are no jobs on a dead planet. But we must make the transition to a green economy in a way that does not leave workers and their communities behind.

By 2030, around 160,000 jobs in coal could be lost across central and eastern Europe, with up to triple that number in the supply chain. Neither the funding nor the legislation is in place to ensure that new opportunities are available for those workers.

It is no wonder there is fear. But rather than abandoning the Green Deal, we should add a lot of red to it, to ensure that the long-promised just transition becomes a genuine reality. We need a dedicated just-transition directive that guarantees workers will benefit from new, quality, green jobs in their region the moment or before old jobs are phased out.

Public investment

That will require increased public investment in every member state—which means the EU needs to have a new investment fund ready to go when the Recovery and Resilience Facility ends in 2026. The incoming European Commission, if it is sensible, will also show a high degree of flexibility over the EU’s new fiscal rules, to avoid a return to austerity.

Equally, bringing stability to people’s lives has nothing to do with violating human rights through migration deals with repressive regimes. It means ensuring that every individual has a secure job with an income they can rely on, with enough to provide for themselves and their families—not simply scraping by, week to week, bill to bill. It means ensuring that member states guarantee that workers can unionise and have a real say at work.

The last commission made a positive start by recognising that the destruction of collective bargaining during austerity had supercharged insecurity, taking steps to reverse that trend through the minimum-wages directive. The platform-work directive was also a recognition of the negative consequences of growing precarity.  

We now need measures of a scale and urgency that matches these election results and the challenges faced by workers. Let’s give working people back more control over their lives by ramping up their ability to bargain collectively. There should be no more public money for companies which do not act in the public interest by paying union wages and reinvesting profits to create jobs and raise productivity—instead siphoning them off in excess bonuses and dividends.

Europe will never be able to compete in the world on the basis of the lowest cost. We need an active industrial policy that shares the benefits of green growth at home and sees our reputation for high standards as a comparative advantage, rather than a drag on ‘competitiveness’. 

Social progress

During the election campaign, I was repeatedly asked whether results such as these would mean it would be more difficult to achieve social progress in the coming term. These results actually make progress more urgent than ever—and there is still a democratic majority in place to deliver it.

Those in power should not however take it for granted that workers’ support for Europe will continue if they do not take this opportunity to change it, delivering on the real priorities of working people. To paraphrase the former commission president Jacques Delors, our aim must be to ensure that—before the next European elections—the person in the street can enjoy the daily experience of a tangible social Europe.

Esther Lynch was elected general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation in December 2022. She has extensive trade union experience at Irish, European and international levels, starting with her election as a shop steward in the 1980s.