In this year’s European Union elections, far-right parties made gains across many of the EU’s 27 countries, including in France, Germany and Italy. What’s driving this?
Today, On Point: How the far-right gained traction in this year’s EU elections.
Guests
Matthew Karnitschnig, chief correspondent at POLITICO Europe.
Sara B. Hobolt, Sutherland Chair in European Institutions and professor in the Department of Government at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Also Featured
Magdalena Góra, associate professor of political science at the Institute of European Studies of the Jagiellonian University.
Transcript
Part I
MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: Earlier this month, Europeans voted for representatives in the European Parliament. Heading into the elections, many projected that a far-right surge would tip the balance of power in Brussels. Case in point, France.
MARINE LE PEN: The French have spoken, and this historic election shows that when the people vote, the people win. By giving more than 32% to the national rally, the French have just given us their highest score, all parties combined in 40 years. It’s a real emotion to see this beautiful, popular force rising up throughout the country.
CHAKRABARTI: That’s Marine Le Pen, celebrating the far-right National Rally Party winning just over 31% of French votes, gaining 12 seats since the last election.
They now hold a clear majority of France’s European Parliament seats. French President Emmanuel Macron.
EMMANUEL MACRON: The rise of nationalists and demagogues is a danger for our nation, but also for Europe, for France’s position in Europe and in the world. Yes, the far-right is both the result of the impoverishment of the French, and the downgrading of our country.
At the end of this day, I cannot act as if nothing had happened.
CHAKRABARTI: Following that defeat, Macron announced that he is dissolving the French Parliament and calling a snap national election, citing his quote, confidence in the French people to choose, quote, the progressive bloc over the far-right for its nation’s governance.
But according to opinion polling, Le Pen’s far-right National Rally Party is projected to win 34% of those votes, while Macron’s centrist Renaissance Party is projected to finish third with 19%. Again, these are for national elections in France set for June 30th and July 7th.
The political upheaval has brought protests in France. Quote, the shock of the 31% for the far-right is enormous, but I think that dissolving the National Assembly is really a very difficult choice, one protester says. Quote, Above all, it’s an enormous risk for all democracy in France.
While the far-right gained seats elsewhere in the European parliamentary elections, far-right parties saw gains in Germany, Italy, and Spain in their parliamentary seats, among other places. So today we’re going to take a look at what happened in these 2024 European parliamentary elections. Again, this is for the governance of the European Union as a whole. What drove those far-right gains, and we also want to try to understand why.
What this means for the political shift that’s been going on across the European Union. And we’re going to begin today with Matthew Karnitschnig. He is chief political correspondent for Politico Europe, and he joins us today from Berlin. Matthew, welcome to On Point.
MATTHEW KARNITSCHNIG: Thanks for having me.
CHAKRABARTI: Can we first start off with the big picture analysis of what the European Parliament as a whole right now following these elections look like?
So if I’m looking at a map of the Parliament in Brussels, what would that map be made up of?
KARNITSCHNIG: You’d see that the center-right in particular has not only held, but increased its standing in the parliament after this election. So while it was a very difficult election for many center left parties, green parties, liberal parties, the social Democrats in Europe, it was actually pretty successful for the center right, which is going to form the largest block in the European parliament now.
And of course, as you noted, it was very successful for the right-wing parties, populist far, depending how you want to classify them. It’s worth noting though that the European election, even though we call it the European parliament election, it is the European parliament election, of course.
But most voters are voting according to whatever is bothering them at the moment in their home countries, European issues don’t really factor that prominently in these elections. So it’s a national election in most places, and it’s also just a reflection of what’s going on in those countries.
CHAKRABARTI: That’s a really interesting point, because in that case, then it actually gives us quite a good picture of maybe patterns across Europe, when we see major shifts in who holds the seats in the EU Parliament. But to your important point that the center right in Europe managed to hold on and still forms the bulk, or the center of gravity for the European Parliament, I just want to listen to a moment from Ursula von der Leyen, she’s the president of the European Commission, and here are her takeaways from the elections.
URSULA VON DER LEYEN: First, there remains a majority in the center for strong Europe, and that is crucial for stability. In other words, the center is holding. But it is also true that the extremes on the left and on the right have gained support, and this is why the result comes with great responsibility, and this is why the result comes with great responsibility for the parties in in the center.
CHAKRABARTI: Now, Matthew just like in the United States, I presume in Europe, we need to offer contemporary definitions for what we mean by center right, center left, far-right, far left in Europe.
Because, as at least in the United States, those are not, those names are not necessarily attributable to things they used to mean. So when we say center right in Europe, what kind of set of policies or beliefs does that tend to define?
KARNITSCHNIG: I would say if we were to compare it to the American system, the center right is probably most similar to the contemporary Democratic party.
It is a party that is somewhat conservative in the way that the Republicans used to be, or it’s a family of parties rather, but it is balanced out by the Social Democrats, the traditional center left in Europe, who tend to be maybe somewhat more to the left than the Democrats in the United States, at least the center of the Democratic Party, as it were.
They’re probably more similar to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party at this stage. So you have, when we talk about the center, in terms of this election, we’re really talking about what’s known as the European People’s Party, which is the center right block. So this is a family of parties of across Europe, and they are also running a bunch of governments in Europe, across the continent, from Austria to Greece, they’ve been quite successful in recent years, but they as well have come under immense pressure from these far-right populists, from these extremists in some cases.
And they too are quite a diverse group. They’re in an even more diverse group. You have some of these parties that are pro American. Vox, for example, in Spain is a far-right group that looks more to the United States. And then you have parties, such as the alternative for Germany, in Germany where I am.
And they look more to Russia and China. So there’s a lot of difference of opinion, even within these right-wing circles.
CHAKRABARTI: Okay, so what does that mean in terms of the, let’s say the strength of the European Union as a whole? It sounds like it’s alright for the moment. Because the center-right, I presume, maintains a stalwart pro Europe attitude.
KARNITSCHNIG: Yes, if you believe in the European Union and want the European Union to continue on, then you could draw that conclusion. I think that it’s worth, though, looking at what does unite these parties. And the two main things that I would cite, one is the euro skepticism. They all have this idea that Europe has become too powerful.
The European union has become too powerful. They want to take more power away from the European union and put it into the member states and they refer to themselves as sovereigntists. And the other big issue that unites them is their stance on migration, where they tend to be very anti migration.
They feel that too many foreigners have come to Europe in recent years. And this is a constant push and pull. So even though the center is still holding, it is also under siege. It has to be said.
CHAKRABARTI: Okay, so then let’s talk about, as you said a little bit earlier, Matthew, that it makes a lot of sense.
Voters aren’t necessarily going to the polls in Europe and thinking, I’m going to cast my ballot based on what I want intra-European trade to look like. They’re really voting on what they want for their home country. So what are some of the issues that brought people to the polls that led to these gains for some of the far-right parties?
KARNITSCHNIG: Really, the dominant issue, at least according to most of the exit polls that I’ve seen after the results came in, was migration. If you look at a country such as the Netherlands or Germany, Italy migration is still the big issue. And there are topics that are related to that, or the people perceive are very closely related to migration, such as security that they also cite.
And this is what is driving people to the polls in many cases. It’s what’s driving them to these right-wing parties. Not across the board. It’s not a unified picture. By any means. But I think that overall, those were the overall trends.
And also, there’s a lot of concern about the economy. The European economy has been quite stagnant in recent years. And there’s really not a lot of hope on the horizon to be honest. So I think people were also voting against the establishment parties in many cases, that they feel have not done enough to rejuvenate the economy coming out of the COVID pandemic.
CHAKRABARTI: Okay. So just to clarify, because we’re going to talk a lot more about Europe and migration throughout the rest of the show. But when we say that, when you’re seeing the discontent around migration amongst European voters, is that migration, intra Europe migration, right?
Because for EU countries, there’s still a freedom of movement between, from nation to nation. Or is it migration coming from outside the European Union?
KARNITSCHNIG: This is a central point, and it’s really crucial to understand this. We’re talking about migration from outside of Europe, and I think in most cases, we’re talking about migration from predominantly Muslim countries.
There was a poll done in Germany last week after the election that showed that more than 60% of those polled are worried about Germany being a Muslim country. Becoming too Muslim, the influence of Islam is something that people are extremely worried about, and that seems to be driving this anti migration push much more so than say, migration from a place like Ukraine, where people feel that they share the same cultural background.
Part II
CHAKRABARTI: I’d like to turn to Sara B. Hobolt. She’s Sutherland Chair in European Institutions and Professor in the Department of Government at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and she’s with us from London.
Professor Hobolt, welcome. Welcome.
SARA B. HOBOLT: Thanks for having me.
CHAKRABARTI: So I actually wonder if we might spend some time with both of you focusing on a couple specific countries within the EU that tell some different stories here. I’d like to go to France for a few minutes and ask for your analysis on the gains made by the far-right in France and then of course Macron’s response in terms of calling a snap election.
How significant do you think that is, professor?
HOBOLT: Sure. I think the results in France were perhaps the most striking of all the results in these European Parliament elections. Firstly, because Marine Le Pen’s far-right national rally topped the polls. They’ve done that before, but this time they did so even more convincingly with 31% of the vote, which meant they gained double the vote of President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance.
So that was really, that was quite a shock, that they did so well. And even greater shock was, of course, that on the night of the results on Sunday, when they came in, Macron then said he was going to call snap legislative elections. Now, he didn’t have to, he could have waited another couple of years. But by doing that, just coming on the heels of a very poor electoral results for his party, that suggests, of course, that a decent European election could lead to quite some upheaval, also nationally in France.
CHAKRABARTI: Then can you explain or guess as to why Macron did that? Because to your point, to just call one snap election after quite a significant European one, doesn’t it further risk, in fact, his party’s influence in France at itself? Why wouldn’t, why does he think that anything other than the Renaissance party losing seats in the French assembly might happen?
HOBOLT: Oh, definitely. I don’t think anyone disagrees that this is a huge gamble. So France has a semi–presidential system, which means there’s both a directly elected president, which is Macron. He can stay in power until the next presidential election in 2027 when he has to step down because then he served two terms.
So in that sense, his own power is not jeopardized. However, the government is determined by the votes in the National Assembly, in the National Parliament. And of course, what looks likely now from the polls is given that these elections come so closely after the European Parliament elections, where Le Pen’s party did so well, and all the polls suggested that her party, while they might not gain an outright majority, will still be the biggest party in the next French National Assembly after these elections later this month and in early July.
That would mean that he would then as president have to vote, to work together with a government that are governed by another majority, and it could be a far-right led government. And that of course is something that could lead to quite a lot of deadlock. Some analysts have suggested, well maybe he’s doing that to show to voters that when you get the far-right populist in power, they’re not actually that effective, and then hoping that in the next presidential elections, they will think again and not vote Le Pen into the presidency in 2027, which is the price that she’s really hoping for.
But that’s quite a sort of a sophisticated analysis, and certainly in the short term, this is a real risk to the center of politics in France. And to Macron, in terms of his effectiveness as president.
CHAKRABARTI: Because as you said, if the Renaissance Party loses in these snap elections, Macron’s essentially ceding a great deal of control over domestic policy.
He would be, to Marine Le Pen and her party. But Matthew, let me turn back to you here for a second because I want to be mindful that when we speak broadly about elections, there’s a presumption that it is very representative of all voters. So I want to ask, check me on this.
Was turnout in France for the European election substantial? Or is it possible that Macron is banking on the shock gains that Le Pen and her party made to galvanize more French voters to turn out for the national snap election there?
KARNITSCHNIG: I think that’s probably true. Turnout in France was pretty good.
I think it was over 50%. By American standards, that would be pretty substantial. Generally speaking, more voters turn out for national elections in Europe than they do for the European election. But we also saw in other places, this past week in Germany, for example, turnout was really high, was over 60%, was a record for a European election.
So I think that voters are very energized at the moment, in many places. And, that can help you and can hurt you, depending what side of the equation you’re on. But it does feel like France is a real roll of the dice for Macron at the moment. Because the polls just don’t look like they’re shifting in the way that they would need to for his bet really to pay off here.
CHAKRABARTI: Professor Hobolt, let me turn back to you, because I heard you say very clearly that the French result was perhaps the most surprising of any of the nations that voted in these EU elections. Can you explain to me why? Because Marine Le Pen has been on the scene, as we all know, for quite some time.
Her party has ebbed and flowed in terms of its influence in French politics. But perhaps it’s not quite a surprise that there would be as much discontent in France as there is now, to provide the kind of gains that Le Pen saw, especially since this has to do with Europe as a whole.
So what do you think about that?
HOBOLT: I think that’s right. We generally, we have, this is not the first time Le Pen’s party has topped the polls in France. They did so last time as well, and they’ve just done so, more convincingly this time. I think you’re also entirely right to point out that European parliament elections do offer a chance for voters to perhaps vote a little bit more, in terms of protest vote more sincerely and often they’re more likely to vote for the fringes of politics.
Because these are not elections that result in an actual government or an actual president, at least not in a way that can be directly seen by most voters. So that means that voters feel more free to express whatever views or grievances they have in that moment. So that’s a general trend.
However, the fact that Le Pen’s party did so well this time, and of course, followed on by Macron’s sort of shock announcement that there would also be a legislative election. I think that combination has also just shown that close connection there is today, between what happens at the European level in the European Union and what happens in national politics.
Because perhaps the real shift, when we think about the influence of the far-right in Europe is not so much that they’ve gained ground in European parliament elections, where they have been stronger historically, but that they have gained ground and look like they can take over or have taken over national governments across the continent.
So we’ve seen that in Italy, where Giorgia Meloni, also from a populist radical right-wing party is leading a coalition. We’ve seen that now in the Netherlands, where Wilders’ Freedom Party, it has just agreed on going into government, and came top of the polls in national election in the Netherlands.
And the fact that the Freedom Party in Austria came top in these European Parliament elections suggests that we might also have a far-right chancellor in Austria later this year. So I think it’s this combination, that it’s not only something now that happens in these kind of midterm European Parliament elections, it’s also happening in national government, and that could really shift, I think, the sense of gravity over time in European politics.
CHAKRABARTI: Ah, interesting. Now, speaking of Meloni, her Brothers of Italy party, I think, won the most seats or first place in Italy’s version of the European parliamentary election. So very strong showing there. Matthew, I just wanted to take a small little tangent with you. Because, as Professor Hobolt said, perhaps in these European elections, there’s a greater willingness for voters to cast their ballots for fringe candidates.
It’s a protest vote. I just note that your organization Politico put out a very interesting article, your colleagues Eddy Wax and Hanne Cokelaere put out a headline, excuse me, an article titled The 23 kookiest MEPs heading to the European Parliament which include a 25-year-old YouTuber from Cyprus.
And a new member of the European Parliament from Greece, Galato Alexandraki, 76, who runs a butcher shop in Greece. There are no photos of her online at all, zero. No one even knows what she looks like outside of her Greek village. I don’t know. I just wanted to point that out, because I was wondering what you thought about that too, Matthew.
KARNITSCHNIG: This is one of the quirky things about the European Parliament, because many countries don’t have minimum thresholds that parties need to get in order to win seats. So you have generally over 200 parties represented in this parliament, which I think this time we’ll have 720 members. So you will get a really hodgepodge of people in there.
And even though these little parties don’t have any real power, they are often very colorful.
CHAKRABARTI: Yeah, the Cypriot new member of the European Parliament once put up a video on YouTube where he said, I forced Elon Musk to hug me. He got a million views for that. Okay, let’s move on to, thank you for applying some serious analysis to my distraction with some of the more colorful members of the new European Parliament.
We talked about France, let’s look at Poland for a few minutes here, because it presents actually quite a different story in terms of, let’s say, the currents of influence between the center and the far-right in Europe. Now, back in March, we took a look at what had been going on in Poland, prior to the European elections, because after eight years of rule by the Conservative Law and Justice Party, the Polish people in their national elections earlier this year, voted for a new coalition government that signaled a pushback against the far-right. So the question is, did that swing continue in Poland for these more recent EU elections?
GÓRA: I think since the formation of the coalition government, the government seems to work smoothly. It actually is putting a lot of attention on capturing what went wrong and how to repair our political system.
CHAKRABARTI: So that’s Magdalena Góra, she’s an associate professor of political science at the Institute of European Studies of the Jagiellonian University.
She’s talking there about how the Polish coalition government has been functioning since the national elections. So we reconnected with her following the EU elections.
GÓRA: Two major initiatives in the very beginning concern the state-owned media, as a very politicized medium. So the Minister of Culture, he was able to shift the leadership and the message that comes through it.
And the second major issue was to fix the rule of law issue. And basically, close the long lasting, since 2016, at least, a conflict with the European Commission and EU institutions on the rule of law, and they were successful in fixing major judiciary issues, and the European Commission very recently closed the proceedings against Poland.
CHAKRABARTI: Now, those successes were not easily gained by the ruling civic coalition, Góra says. Parties within the coalition itself span the political gamut, from progressive to center right.
There is a tension within the governing coalition, but I think, again, this is something natural, because this is a very broad coalition in Poland, something that is not usual in our political system.
And those 3 major blocks that are forming, of course, are having a lot of very different preferences when it comes to domestic politics. Of course, when it comes to the EU and foreign policy, the government is very coherent in their approach.
CHAKRABARTI: Góra says that this does not mean that Poland has fully turned its back on right wing authoritarianism.
For example, while the conservative Law and Justice Party also just lost its five seats in the European Parliamentary elections, those seats did not go to centrist candidates.
GÓRA: What is really quite worrying is that the very ultra-right-wing confederacy won 12%. And this is something that is really important in Polish elections, because they didn’t get any seats in the European Parliament in the previous 2019 elections. So one can clearly see that the votes from Law and Justice actually, at least in parts, went to the more radical formations.
CHAKRABARTI: But having seen the changes in Poland since last fall, Professor Góra says Poland presents a lesson about how campaigns can build voter support for rebuilding democracy.
GÓRA: As some of the American commentators said very recently, the European Parliament elections is a very good testing grounds for strategies of either mobilizing radical voters or actually demobilizing the voters that are moderate. And I think this is really something to see, that the Polish case shows how you can build the argumentations that are ultimately convincing for the voters.
So looking at how the strategy of meddling in the elections is evolving, it’s a lesson that really needs to be studied now, in Europe of course, as well, particularly in France, ahead of the snap elections. Or the UK, but also in the U.S., it seems to me.
CHAKRABARTI: That’s Magdalena Góra, associate professor of political science at the Institute of European Studies of the Jagiellonian University. Professor Hobolt, what do you think about that, that Poland presents perhaps a potential roadmap for a successful argument for more centrist parties?
HOBOLT: Suddenly, I think the Europeans were very, there was a sigh of relief in Brussels when Tusk, who is the head of, who heads up the Civic Platform Coalition, when he was reelected after, and the outgoing Law and Justice, they lost power. And part of the reason for that was not just that they were, this was a sort of conservative right wing coalition government in place before, but also because that European Union had been, had some squirmishes with the Polish government because of democratic backsliding, particularly over the judiciary in Poland.
So there was a real sort of concern that in parts of Central Eastern Europe, that what we are seeing is a move against liberal democracy. And that’s a broader concern about the rise of the far-right, that while these parties are never openly anti-democratic. They’re often not as committed to liberal democracy in terms of checks and balances, rule of law, support for minority rights, and so on.
So the fact that Donald Tusk came back, and he now also upheld his sort of support in these European Parliament elections was something that was greeted enthusiastically in Brussels and in other capitals.