Le Pen Earthquake in France, What Happens Now in the EU

The European Union reacts with its usual understatement, officially, to the results of the first round of the legislative elections in France which, if they attest that the Rassemblement National is by far the first party in the country, also confirm that the far right is far from an absolute majority in the National Assemblythe French Parliament. “We never comment on the results of elections in the Member States”, limited himself to saying the spokesman for the European Commission Eric Mamer. We will have to wait until the evening of July 7, but if with the dropouts the ‘gut’ of the double round does its jobit seems unlikelyAt the state, that Jordan Bardellathe young son of Italian immigrants chosen by Marine Le Pen as her ‘dolphin’, could manage to conquer the government of the second largest country in the EUThe good news for Europe, however, ends here.

President Emmanuel Macronone of the central politicians of the EU establishment, comes out weakened by the vote wanted by him in the aftermath of the European elections, even if he remains at the Elysée (his second mandate ends in 2027). The vote has confirmed the widespread unpopularity in France of centrist policies, aligned with the EU ‘consensus’. This fact had already emerged clearly at the time of the ‘jacquerie’ of the Gilets Jaunes. The rest of the French political spectrum, to the left of the Rassemblement National, is deeply divided, so much so as to make it difficult, at present, to imagine a center-left government.

The EU, however, continues apace with the appointment of top positions and of the majority’s program, but Brussels ‘consensus’ reacts to French vote diverge. There are those, like Sandro Gozi, MEP of Renew Europe, elected across the Alps, who observes that it is in any case “good news” for the EU that there is a “majority” of pro-European forces in the National Assembly, with the exception of “some” exponents of Jean-Luc Mélénchon’s France Insoumise.

There are those, however, like the German economist Daniel Gros, director of the Brussels think tank Ceps, who observes that the likely political instability that will result from the elections is not good news for the Unionif only because France, which is a large EU country, will tend not to decide and especially not to act on the public accounts front, because it would entail political costs. It is an issue, that of public finances, that traditionally worries Germany a lot. Paris will end up under excessive deficit procedure, like Italy and other countries, and has a public debt equal to over 110% of GDP, destined to rise this year to 112.4% and next year to 113.8%, according to the Commission’s estimates.

In the absence of actions to straighten out the accounts, French debt set to risewhich could worry the financial markets, and also have repercussions on the yields of government bonds of other countries, such as Italy. How to deal with the rise of the far right in Europe has long been a matter of discussion: continue with the conventio ad excludendum, or try to exploit the divisions between the different nationalisms to co-opt some of them? The EPP leadership seems to have chosen this second path, drawing three red lines (dialogue with those who are pro-EU, pro-Ukraine and pro-rule of law), which both Manfred Weber and Ursula von der Leyen have clearly indicated.

Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National does not respect these ‘red lines’, since in the past it has received bank financing from Russia, even if Jordan Bardella, as Gros recalls, recently said on Ukraine that, if he were to go to government, his France would not allow Russia to “absorb” the neighboring country. For someone who aspires to govern a member of NATO (and the only nuclear power in the EU) it would be difficult to say otherwise. The pro-Russian positions of the RN have been for years a major obstacle to the project of uniting the European right in a single groupgiven that the Polish PiS, a major force in the nationalist camp, is fiercely anti-Russian, for historical reasons. Von der Leyen explicitly cited Le Pen among the forces she does not intend to talk to, unlike Giorgia Meloni, who has deployed Fratelli d’Italia in support of Ukraine.

For Daniel Gros, “in the long run” the conventio ad excludendum does nothing but bring consensus to the extreme right and induces public opinion to question the functioning of democracya, given that the first party in France remains far from the government (an attempt by the Républicains to get closer, made by Eric Ciotti, led to an insurrection in the Gaullist party). For the German economist, it would be better to let the Rassemblement National govern, “and then we’ll see if they do like Meloni” or not. France or not France, the EU is in a hurry to close the nomination game.

Macron himself, who had publicly expressed doubts about the Spitzenkandidat principle, quickly endorsed the reappointment of Ursula von der Leyen. If the German born in Ixelles receives at least 361 votes in Strasbourg on July 18, the presidency of the European Commission, the institution that holds the monopoly on EU legislative initiative, will be safe for the next five years. In the European Parliament, the right has gained ground, but to a lesser extent than expected and without compromising the centrist majoritywhere the EPP gained ground, the Socialists substantially held their ground, while the Liberals lost around twenty seats.

The changes could be felt at the level of the EU Council in the next five yearsthe institution that brings together, in its various formations, the ministers of the member countries and which is co-legislator of the EU. It is there that the political changes that could occur at the national level will be ‘unloaded’. A government of the Rassemblement National in France, which is the second largest country in the EU, would decisively change the balance in the Council. and would likely make legislative work more difficult. On paper, Italy, France, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia together can block any qualified majority vote..

In Austria, the People’s Party is governing for now, with Chancellor Karl Nehammer, but the European elections have confirmed that the FPOE is the leading party. And at the end of September, that country will vote. On September 1, two important German Laender, Saxony and Thuringia, will also go to the polls: in Germany, the AfD came in second in the European elections, well below the CDU/CSU but above each of the three parties in the traffic light coalition, starting with Olaf Scholz’s SPD, which recorded the worst performance in its history. And in November, there will be the US presidential elections, where a return of Donald Trump to the White House does not seem at all unlikely, after the performance of the incumbent president Joe Biden, born in 1942. All excellent reasons to quickly close the game of top EU positions.