The stalemate of European right-wing parties

Sunday, July 7, is the second round of the French legislative elections. So, the European picture could change. Indeed, it certainly will change whoever wins if anyone wins.

But, as of today, considering the expectations provided by polls and polling forecasts in France, it is safe to say that what many have called “the wave of the right” in Europe has, to say the least, stopped in mid-air, if not crash against a cliff; at least for now.

The electoral success was not there. Sure, there was an increase in votes, bringing more seats in the European Parliament. The same thing happened to the EPP and the Left actually, which increased the number of MEPs in their groups at the expense of the Greens and Liberals, in particular. The center-left lost some seats but essentially held up.

The right now accounts for 25 percent of the seats in Parliament. Among the Union’s 27 heads of state and government, only two (Giorgia Meloni and Viktor Orbán) stood out, and not even entirely in the vote for the three top EU jobs. For sure, the “majority” sinned in diplomacy, presenting to partners a known and already cooked dish, but the bottom line is that the extreme right did not make a difference. It did not even slightly dent the choices of the current majority, which has proven to be very solid.

In Parliament, I mentioned, the extreme right-wing parties have remained in the minority, with no chance of entering the majority forming for the vote on the confirmation of Ursula von der Leyen as head of the Commission. On the contrary, from what is emerging in these days of negotiations, it seems that the votes von der Leyen needs to be sure to pass will come from the Greens, no longer from “some element” of the ECR group, as she feared before the vote, and this is, if the candidate’s diplomatic maneuver succeeds, despite the EPP’s “veto” to bring on the Greens. Too strong is the opposition of Socialists and Liberals to agreements with the extreme right.

New parliamentary groups are being established these days. News has been swirling with agreements made and torn up, but while from the EPP down to the Left, the groups are what they are, and there have been only some shifts of MEPs from one to another and mostly of small individual groups, on the right of the EPP there is great uncertainty. The disappointing election outcome has set in motion a mechanism of separations of historic understandings, such as that of Fratelli d’Italia and Vox, and unexpected reunions. It is still unclear what the ECR and ID groups will look like next week, with the former losing pieces and the latter seemingly dying to be reborn around Fidesz deputies, until now relegated to the non-aligned. And a third group, led by the Germans of AfD, may also emerge.

Instead of a “decisive” right-wing, there will probably be a right-wing still on the sidelines of important decisions in this legislature, with perhaps the ECR being able, from time to time, to become a protagonist of some majority because, in the European Parliament, the majority is historically “floating.” Disappointment in the polls has been so great, now the hope for the far right is in the upcoming national elections, which perhaps can change the balance in the Council and thus put so much back on the table. But that is something that has yet to happen.