Europe’s far-right parties are set for wins in this weekend’s elections — the only question is how big?
According to polls across the continent — including this week’s polling by Kevin Cunningham and Simon Hix with the EUI/European University Institute — far-right and hard-right parties within EU political groups will gain enough seats to become a combined potent voting bloc within the parliament and will likely take aim at legislation affecting millions of Europeans.
Depending on how many seats they win — with some polls predicting between 30 and 50 — the impact could either lead to paralysis, or at least a watering-down, of EU policy on progressive issues such as the regulation of big tech and the role of the EU in the case of another pandemic.
Areas of uncharted territory for which Europe’s competency has become a lode star, especially for smaller member states.
There are seven main political groupings in the European Parliament, all based on ideological pursuits. National parties join the group most aligned with their political commitments.
The groups include:
- Left;
- The Greens;
- Social Democrats (S&D) (Labour); :
- Renew (centrist, liberal, Fianna Fáil);
- European People’s Party (centre-right, Fine Gael);
- European Conservatives Reformists (far-right);
- ID Identity Democracy (ultra hard-right).
In addition, under the candidature of current president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, the centre-right EPP (European People’s Party, Fine Gael) is considering a shift to the far-right, in order to work with the newly enlarged far-right groups to secure her second term.
The European Parliament does not write legislation — unlike the European Commission, and is not as powerful as the European Council — where the member states sit — but the parliament’s role in adopting or voting down legislation means the far-right can hold up or paralyse initiatives from the commission and member states.
In April, the parliament adopted overwhelmingly the platform workers directive — the European Commission’s legislation designed to give security to workers suffering bogus self-employment or denied basis rights while working on platforms such as Uber, Deliveroo et al.
However, if the far-right surge materialises, alongside the shift from the centre-right to the far-right by EPP, you could see legislation such as this held up or diluted.
Although the votes against were 56 — many were from far-right parties.
The far-right voted against other significant labour directives such as the Minimum wage directive which sets criteria for how minimum wage is set taking into account inflation and allowing collective bargaining.
Votewatch EU reporting shows the voting patterns of the far-right in the European Parliament to be distinctly against legislation on similar initiatives such as the European Care Strategy — designed to recognise and develop better conditions for care workers following the aftermath of covid.
Similarly, mostly far-right groups voted against ‘fight against inequality’ legislation to protect people from poverty while they were working in poorly paid jobs.
In addition, hard-fought, ground-breaking legislation such as the Digital Services Act — designed to combat online harassment, disinformation and bogus selling — received cross group support from the Left, Greens, S&D, Renew and EPP, but not the ECR and ID groups.
“They will be simply waiting for new proposals coming from the commission in order to slow down, boycott, the more realistic scenario is a paralysis of European policy areas around sustainability, Common Agricultural Policy,” says Professor Alberto Alemanno, Jean Monnet professor of EU Law at HEC Paris.
“The workers rights, gender equality issues that the EU has been strong on for decades — if the EU can no longer deliver on these matters — due to the takeover from the far-right, then we must ask ‘what is the point of the EU?’,” says Kevin Cunningham, fellow at the Royal Statistical Society and lecturer at TU Dublin.
Corina Stratulat, associate director of think tank the European Policy Centre, says radical, populist parties were filling a growing gap between the mainstream and distrustful voters in an “age of perma-crisis” from pandemic to war in Ukraine and energy price spikes.
Green policies, heralded in 2019 after school climate strikes, have also become a right-wing target.
“People are aware the Green Deal can bite and that the next five years will be crucial for its implementation,” says Armida van Rij, senior research fellow at Chatham House.
The centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), the Social Democrats and the centrist liberals have so far shut out the hard-right, dividing up top EU jobs and forging policy consensus. They are expected to have a majority, albeit reduced, after the 2024 vote.
Garraud says a shut-out will not be possible this time, while Nicola Procaccini, co-chair of the ECR group, sees Italy’s government of his and prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, the further right Lega and centre-right Forza Italia as a model.
“I think this is the way to go,” he says, pointing to a situation in which the hard right would have far greater say on policy and who staffs the European Commission.
Von der Leyen needs 361 votes in the 720 seat chamber; in 2019 she won by just nine votes. She did a deal with the centrist Renew grouping and Labour, centre left S&D in devising a coalition with the priorities of the groups combined — with global warming and labour protections at the heart.
But those groups are predicted to lose seats, especially in countries like France, the far-right National Assembly, (ID group) is over 15 points ahead of president Emannuel Macron’s Renew group, and where a disaffected population is seeking to use the election as a referendum on Macron’s performance.
‘Even if the right gets more seats — even a quarter of the seats — the story is that the centre right, the EPP, is being pushed to the far-right,” says Prof Alemanno.
“It’s already happening in policy areas like the implementation of the Green Deal, potentially also blocking of institutional reforms needed for enlargement, so political priorities will be hijacked by the far-right and the pact between the centre-right.
“In past six months, Ursula von der Leyen has been turning her back on the Green Deal, has been internalising other input from the far-right such outsourcing migrant processing,” he says.
The EPP called on its members to vote against the Nature Restoration Law — a key part of the EU’s plan to restore 20% of land and sea areas by 2030 in a bid to tackle a potential biodiversity collapse. It was a key part of the Green Deal designed by their party leader von der Leyen.
Irish MEPs within the EPP went against the demand and voted in favour, and the law was narrowly passed.
“So, if the far-right gains then we’ll see a new political dynamic that the EPP has been enabling instead of being opposing,” Prof Alemanno says.
In the past, many of the far-right groups were homes for national parties whose raison d’etre was to upend the European project and forcing their own country to exit it. Since Brexit, the noise about leaving the EU has been silenced.
“None of them are saying they want to leave the European Union anymore. They want to change it from within,” Prof Alemanno adds.