Historic turn to the right in Europe with the victory of the EPP and the rise of the radicals

He European People’s Party has won the European elections with 184 seats, according to the first data offered by the European Parliament at the close of the electoral colleges. The popular ones have increased its advantage over its traditional rivalthe group of Social Democrats Europeans, who has dropped to 139 parliamentariansand who suffers a important defeat just like the Liberals and Greenswhich have fallen strongly to the 80 and 23 seats respectively.

Beyond the popular ones, the big winners are the radical right groups. The Conservatives and Reformists they reach the 73 MEPs thanks, in large measure, to Giorgia Meloniwhile Identity and Democracy goes up to 58 for the overwhelming Marine Le Pen’s victory in France what has forced Emmanuel Macron to call legislative elections.

Also Non-Registrants rise strongly to 45 seats which include parties such as the populist Fidesz Victor Orban or the German far-right formation, AfD. He rest of the 720 MEPs that were chosen in these elections that were held between June 6 and 9, are distributed among the left groupwith 36 seatsand a large group of 50 MEPs from new formations without defined affiliations.

Europe turns blue

With the results still provisional that will be consolidated over the next few hours, it is clear that the great outgoing coalition around the center of Populares, Social Democrats and Liberals It is affected by the weakness of the latter two, although they would have enough seats to repeat themselves in power. Of course, the rise of the most radical right will also offer the EPP the option of looking to its right for a majority that seems unthinkable to form a solid but feasible coalition to advance or stop some of the thorniest issues on the European agenda.

Also significant is the change in trends in numerous EU countries in which parties that are not in power have won. Spain and France are the two most representative examples of a Europe in which the red color of the socialists is diluted. According to the provisional results, the social democratic forces They have only won in minor countries such as Romania, Lithuania, Sweden and Malta, while they have lost in countries where they expected to achieve victory, such as Spain or Denmark and in Portugal they have tied seats with the popular ones.. The Netherlands is spared from the shift to the right, where the coalition between greens and socialists manages to contain the strong advance of the ultra-conservative Geert Wilders.

In total, the EPP would achieve victory in 11 of the 27 Member States, the social democrats in 5, the liberals, the conservatives and the extreme right in 3, the Left in Ireland, the Greens in the Netherlands and the unaffiliated populists in Hungary and Slovakia.

Von der Leyen, Meloni and Le Pen, great winners

The current president of the European Commission and head of the EPP list, Ursula von der Leyenyou have at your fingertips the possibility of repeat in office for the next five years. An obvious but not safe option since everything is now subject to the negotiations that will start this Monday for the formation of political groups in the European Parliament and the distribution of the main positions in the European Institutions.

Until now, popular and social democrats have always shared the presidencies of the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament, in addition to the High Representative for EU Foreign Policy with some specific concessions to the liberals when they have been necessary to form a coalition.

However, the strong general rise on the right and the rising price of the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Melonicould force look at the most radical wing for the composition of the future puzzle of European decision-making.

The great uncertainty in this sense will be France since Marine Le Pen’s landslide victory has forced Emmanuel Macron to dissolve the National Assembly and to call elections that will coincide with the period of negotiations between the leaders of the 27 member states for these major appointments.

Macron was decisive in shaping power after the 2019 elections Therefore, in the event that the turnaround in the European elections translates into a change of power at the national level, it will be would open a period of enormous uncertainty.

The removable red line of the PPE

The general trends of recent years and the dazzling rise of Giorgia Meloni in Italy they seem to have done disappear the cordon sanitaire that the popular Europeans had drawn in the past to their right.

Now the red lines are more diluted and Fratelli d’Italia, the party of the transalpine prime minister, is the concrete example that there are some formations of the most radical right that have gone from causing fear to being the object of an outstretched handas has been evident in Ursula von der Leyen’s campaign.

However, there are more exceptions than the rule since, of the two political families that have positioned themselves to the right of the European People’s Party in the legislature that is now endingonly launching a bait a few of the parties that are part of the more moderate wingThe one of the Conservatives and Reformists to which Vox belongs and that has powerful parties such as Meloni herself or Poland’s PiS.

The parties that have been located on the extreme right in the Identity and Democracy group are ruled out for possible important alliancesled by Marine Le Pen and Matteo Salvini’s Lega, despite having excluded Alternative for Germany just a few weeks ago due to controversial statements by their candidate about the SS in times of Nazism.

Partly It will be key to see how all these parties are restructured and if they are capable of forming a more powerful political group in the European Parliament. For now, Le Pen has already reached out to Meloni to reach an understanding. However, the Italian leader is not convinced with the idea of form an alliance with a surname that has always been linkedsince the time of Marine’s father, to the extreme right, to populism and, even, to sympathy for enemies of the EU, such as Vladimir Putin today, with whom Le Pen showed a lot of sympathy in the still recent past.

In any case, The next few weeks will be decisive to see the direction Europe takes after the results that these elections have produced.