51吃瓜

Elections for the European Parliament are currently underway. 360 million people are eligible to vote for 720 members of the EU鈥檚 legislative body from June 6 to 9. In the five years since the last elections, European Institutions have faced interlocking crises like never before: the Covid-19 pandemic, the challenge of joint vaccine procurement, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the politics of sanctions in response, the energy crisis, the war in Gaza.

A completely new political balance is at stake in the Old Continent. Paradoxically, the voter turnout is to rise even while the support of towards anti-EU parties is increasing.听

The more Europeans love Europe, the more they hate it.

The more active the European Union is in managing crises, the more its bureaucracy, flaws and difficulties become visible to the public. This has become fertile ground for right-wing parties demanding a return to national sovereignty. Meanwhile, the political center is shrinking.

A recent Bertelsmann Stiftung indicates that 60% of Europeans intend to vote. Despite an East鈥揥est disparity 鈥� only 29% of the population of the Czech Republic voted in 2019 鈥� the trend is generally positive, especially among young Europeans.

According to a recent TUI Siftung , 58% of 16- to 20-year-olds consider European elections 鈥渋mportant.鈥� The most convinced are young Germans (67%), while the French are the least (50%). Nearly two thirds of Greek youth say that European elections are far more important than national ones. Between 50% and 70% see themselves as 鈥淓uropean鈥� and not only as citizens of their member states.

Under-30s could pull turnouts up. According to a from Eurobarometer, 64% of young voters intend to vote. The most enthusiastic are Romanians (78%) and Portuguese (77%).

Despite the EU’s appeal to the youth, right-wing and populist parties are gaining momentum. These parties generally ask for 鈥渓ess Europe.鈥� They’re no longer asking for a Brexit-like solution; they want simply more sovereignty. They don’t want a bigger European budget, or a common European foreign or defence policy. They prize their individual veto, as Hungary has been showing by several rounds of EU military funding for Ukraine. What these 鈥淓urosceptics鈥� have in mind is just Europe 脿 la carte 鈥� the union is good and useful when it provides money and alliances, and bad when it asks for something in return.听

Two hard-right parties stand to be the biggest beneficiaries this year. French politician Marine Le Pen鈥檚 , which is part of the European parliamentary group Identity and Democracy (ID), and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s , which is part of the European Conservatives and Reformists group.

Germany鈥檚 extreme-right Alternative f眉r Deutschland, however, has in recent polls. The party used to belong to ID but was after corruption scandals involving Russia and China and after the recent extreme right declarations of spitzenkandidat Maximilian Krah, who La Repubblica that one shouldn鈥檛 鈥済eneralize鈥� all SS officers as criminals.

In Belgium, where federal and European elections are both taking place June 9, another ID party, the Flemish nationalist Vlaams Belang (VB), is at in the polls and has a good chance in the federal elections. Across the border in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders鈥檚 Party for Freedom, has already been part of the ruling coalition in Amsterdam for a few weeks, the polls. Last but not least we have the Austrian Freiheitliche Partei 脰sterreich, another ID party, which was part of the first Sebastian Kurz cabinet in Vienna from 2017 to 2019. This nationalist and extreme-right party is now getting great hype, leading the polls with .听

The center will not hold

While the far right is moving forward in Europe, center-right and center-left parties are extremizing their own positions. In Germany, this phenomenon is called Polarisierung. Two good examples of this are the center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) in Germany and the center-left Democratic Party (PD) in Italy.

The CDU, with its leader Friederich Merz, turned rightwards after Chancellor Angela Merkel’s tenure ended in 2021. The party鈥檚 manifesto now that Islam only belongs to Germany if Muslims 鈥渟hare our values.鈥� The CDU favors of stricter migrant . Merkel’s 2015 slogan about migration, 鈥淲e can do it!鈥� is now a bad memory. The CDU is now for asylum applicants to be processed outside the EU in a 鈥渟afe third country,鈥� after the Rwanda model proposed by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

A similar but opposite process is ongoing with the PD under the leadership of Elly Schlein. She is leading the party on a far leftist path compared to five years ago. The 鈥渘ew鈥� PD promises social policies like , the maintenance of the public health system against and for all.

The parties may be doing so in order to counteract the appeal of the radical right. Whether this strategy will be successful remains to be seen.

Europe stands at a crossroads. The current elections will determine whether the European Union remains a political force or becomes a mere region on the map.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author鈥檚 own and do not necessarily reflect 51吃瓜鈥檚 editorial policy.