{"id":384779,"date":"2024-08-23T14:30:35","date_gmt":"2024-08-23T12:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2024\/08\/23\/paesi-ue-senza-governo\/"},"modified":"2024-08-30T13:21:41","modified_gmt":"2024-08-30T11:21:41","slug":"european-commission-takes-shape-while-some-eu-countries-are-without-a-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2024\/08\/23\/european-commission-takes-shape-while-some-eu-countries-are-without-a-government\/","title":{"rendered":"European Commission takes shape, while some EU countries are without a government"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – As\u00a0the second von der Leyen Commission<\/strong> is taking shape, with Italy among the last countries not having already announced its candidate for the next College, some states in the bloc <\/strong>are currently without a government<\/strong>. Or rather, they are led by outgoing executives after inconclusive elections or particularly acute government crises. Let’s see who among the 27 member states\u00a0is in this situation.<\/p>\n

In France<\/strong>, June’s European elections triggered a\u00a0political cataclysm<\/strong> that brought the far-right Rassemblement National<\/i> (RN) of Marine Le Pen and her dauphin Jordan Bardella (who in the European Parliament sits with the Patriots of Europe<\/a> along with Matteo Salvini’s League and Viktor Orb\u00e1n’s Fidesz<\/i>) to outnumber the centrist coalition President Emmanuel Macron, Besoin d’Europe <\/i>(in the liberals of Renew Europe). In snap\u00a0legislative elections<\/strong>\u00a0that Macron surprisingly called, the Nouveau Front Populaire<\/i> (NFP) progressive coalition, which includes a range of parties from socialists to the radical left along with\u00a0communists and environmentalists, unexpectedly won a relative majority<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With a split\u00a0parliament (none of the three main blocs – center-left, center, and radical right – has the numbers to govern alone), Macron kept outgoing premier\u00a0Gabriel Attal<\/strong> at the head of the government, calling for an “Olympic truce” to suspend bickering between political forces during the Paris 2024 Games. Now that the Olympics are over, hostilities have resumed with a request for impeachment of the president<\/strong> by\u00a0Jean-Luc M\u00e9lenchon, the leader of La France Insoumise<\/i> (LFI). The\u00a0move has very little chance of leading to any tangible\u00a0result other than shattering for good the unity of the left<\/a> since all other members of the NFP have distanced themselves from the broadside of the radical left.<\/p>\n

T<\/span>oday (August 23), Macron began\u00a0a round of consultations<\/a> with the parties represented at the Assembl\u00e9e Nationale to find a solution\u00a0and give France a new executive. M\u00e9lenchon’s exuberance could now thwart the efforts of the progressive front that painstakingly found a shared premier candidate<\/strong> in the figure of economist Lucie Castets. According to some analysts, monsieur le Pr\u00e9sident could attempt yet another move and impose a centrist candidate on Parliament, as he did with the election of the president of the House last July.
\nBeyond the Ardennes, Belgium<\/strong> has been without a government since the last European elections when citizens voted not only to elect their representatives in Strasbourg but also to renew regional (Flemish and Walloon) and federal parliaments. On a national scale, the Flemish Liberal Democrats of Premier Alexander De Croo (Open-Vld<\/i>) fared poorly along with the ecologists (the Francophones of Ecolo<\/i> and the Flemish Groen<\/i>).\u00a0The radical right-wing Flemish independents of the Vlaams Belang<\/i> (VB) and the Walloon liberals of the Mouvement R\u00e9formateur <\/i>(MR) were successful, finishing second and third, respectively, behind the Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie<\/i> (N-Va), the historic standard bearer of right-wing Flemish independence (in Europe it sits with the ECR Conservatives).<\/p>\n

After 70 days of negotiations, a new round of consultations<\/strong> is also being held today\u00a0in Brussels after the failure of the first attempt<\/a>\u00a0to form a new executive. Bart De Wever, leader of the N-Va, resigned as formator in the hands of King Philip on Thursday evening (August 22). However, the ruler\u00a0is likely to seek a new agreement within the same political coalition<\/strong> that sees two other Flemish formations (the Social Democrats of Vooruit and the Christian Democrats of Cd&V)\u00a0and two Walloons (the liberals of Mr. and Les \u00e9ngag\u00e9s) alongside the N-Va.<\/p>\n

Unlike France, however, for Belgium, instability is a constant feature of national political life<\/strong> given the delicate balance between administrative, linguistic, and cultural instances in the complex federal structure that is the constitutional monarchy. The\u00a0country holds the world record for forming a government<\/strong>: De Croo’s executive, which took office on October 1, 2020, was the first with full powers in more than 650 days after Charles Miche’s coalition crisis in December 2018. A record that the northern European state snatched from itself, surpassing the previous 589 days between 2010 and 2011.<\/p>\n

Further south, forming an executive seems to be an impossible mission in Bulgaria<\/strong>. Since April 2021, citizens in the Balkan country have gone to the polls six times, and a seventh early election<\/strong> has been set on the agenda\u00a0for October 20 after negotiations to create a government\u00a0failed for the umpteenth time<\/a> in early August. Sofia is dragging itself to the brink of one of the most acute constitutional crises ever as the civil rights situation<\/a> deteriorates.<\/p>\n

Bulgaria also held legislative and European elections\u00a0together on June 9, but no single side (let alone a single party) emerged strong enough to govern. The leading party was still the conservative GERB<\/strong> (a member of the European People’s Party), led by former premier Boyko Borissov. However,\u00a0a deal with the populist right-wing ITN (which sits with the ECR in Europe) and the liberals of the DPS (Renew) fell through. Neither could the other liberals of PP, who in April\u00a0triggered the political crisis that is still ongoing by withdrawing support for the coalition executive with GERB.<\/p>\n

Understandably, Bulgarian citizens are becoming more impatient: voter turnout plummeted from 50.61 percent in\u00a0April three years ago to 34.41 percent<\/strong> last June. The President of the Republic, Rumen Radev, is also aware of this: “The electoral spiral continues to rage and not only causes irritation but also unlocks a series of destructive processes, the blocking of various institutions, and the alienation of citizens,” he said, urging political forces to devise a way to overcome\u00a0the impasse<\/i>. Meanwhile, the Euroskeptic and pro-Russian ultra-nationalists of Vazrazhdane<\/i> (affiliated with the Europe of Sovereign Nations in Strasbourg) are on the sidelines,\u00a0 riding the wave of discontent and disillusionment among the electorate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Paris, Brussels, and Sofia, negotiations between political parties continue to try to form executives. But no light at the end of the tunnel for the three countries<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":384746,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[26261,25801,26929,28802,28801],"class_list":["post-384779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-belgian-cat-en","tag-inbulgaria","tag-elections-anticipated-en","tag-crisi-di-governo-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384779"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":385210,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384779\/revisions\/385210"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}