The European Union (EU) Parliament elections this weekend were marked by the humiliating defeats of globalist Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, and socialist Olaf Scholz, the Chancellor of Germany.
Left-wing parties shrank, and the Greens were reduced to near insignificance.
Meanwhile, parties labeled as "far-right" and right-leaning independents, once marginalized, now gain strength and begin to significantly influence the design of a new, perhaps more conservative, political face in Europe.
The populist wave, which started with Trump and Brexit in 2016, seems to have finally reached continental Europe!
There’s reason only to celebrate, right?
Not exactly. As with all things "Europe" and all things "right-wing wins election," maybe a healthy dose of skepticism is in order.
First, as seen after the victories of Donald J. Trump and Brexit, the establishment’s reaction against conservative democratic advances is always brutal and almost immediate, exploiting the typical disorganization of the right, which tends to shy away from deep state politics, only to get punished by it.
Second, despite the media’s scaremongering over the European "far-right," in the style of the "Basket of Deplorables" of MAGA Republicans, with few exceptions, the European "right" substantially differs from that on the other side of the Atlantic.
It’s not like Europe is going red; it is slightly going bluish-purple.
For example, besides immigration, Marine Le Pen’s party campaign focused on issues considered centrist or even left-wing, such as civil servants' pay, universal healthcare, and pension increases.
Issues of the so-called "culture wars," such as abortion, gun ownership, and increasingly, gender ideology and even euthanasia, are considered "settled" and mostly ignored by the European right — again, with few exceptions like Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d'Italia and Vox in Spain. The romantic vision of the resurgence of Europe as the center of Christendom is nonexistent on the continent.
In Europe, the conservative agenda is geared towards a nationalist sentiment against the centralization of the EU (or "Euroskepticism"), stricter immigration controls — sometimes advocating restrictions on the advance of Islam — and a more rational approach to environmental policies, in opposition to the "climate change" hysteria.
Yet, these issues typically gain attention not for their own sake but mainly because of their impact on housing, social welfare, crime rates, and the cost of living, reflecting a more practical rather than purely ideological approach to policy-making.
Unlike the U.S. Congress, the EU Parliament does not have the power to propose or approve laws on its own, a privilege of the EU’s executive branch, the (non-elected) European Commission — today headed by Germany’s Ursula von der Leyen, and nobody knows exactly how.
Its role is mostly clerical, if not outright comical.
Therefore, the influence of the Parliament is limited, and its elections attract politicians of lesser expression, making the gains this weekend more symbolic.
Still, there is no doubt that these elections serve as a barometer for European politics, and the European electorate’s message to the Brussels’ elites echoes that of the U.S. masses to the Washington elites.
The most positive aspect of this result could be the consolidation of a new global conservative wave, with the rehabilitation of right-wing agendas after enduring a string of painful defeats in the post-COVID-19 world.
This wave re-emerges at an excellent time, possibly reenacting the same dynamics seen in 2016, when the Brexit vote helped build up the momentum that peaked with Trump’s election later that year, but in 2024, it’s the EU Parliament elections.
More than just the political alignment, a right-leaning EU Parliament might prove an important counterbalance to Biden’s destructive politics on the global stage, for example, by seeking a peaceful resolution to end the war in Ukraine and advocating for a more rational approach to NATO, focusing on strengthening its current arrangement instead of pursuing loose expansion.
It may also help reshape the international debate on issues like immigration controls, the rise of the political use of lawfare and censorship laws, and reassessing the costly, ineffective green policies crippling Western economies.
Another reason for optimism is the so-called "Brussels Effect," where the EU, unable to lead by innovation or productivity, specialized in exercising a kind of global regulatory leadership – exporting its laws to other jurisdictions.
At a time when the EU is intensifying its efforts to regulate Artificial Intelligence (AI), threatening to impose severe sanctions on big techs that violate its strict regulation on social media, and advancing its censorship agenda through the so-called "hate speech laws," a parliament with a more conservative composition could act to curb the authoritarian trends of the bloc, limiting its expansion globally.
Although the EU Parliament is largely symbolic, and the so-called "far-right" that is gaining ground in Europe could pass as a center-left, anti-immigration party in the U.S., the good news is that common sense is prevailing. Let’s make sure we use it wisely to maintain this positive momentum!
Cauf Skiviers writes about philosophy, economics, politics, and things that lie between the inconceivable and the undesirable. His reports also appear at: https://cauf.substack.com. Read more of Cauf Skiviers' reports here.