04 January 2019

SPIEGEL: Europe's right wing takes aim at the EU

Right-wing populist parties in Europe have been gaining strength for years. Now, they hope to use European Parliament elections in May as a springboard for gaining greater influence in the EU. Surveys indicate they may be successful.

[...]And surveys show that the right wing could end up becoming stronger than ever before. There are, to be sure, significant differences between some of the parties on the far right and they are not nearly well-organized enough to be able to push through a joint political platform. But they could certainly put the brakes on European integration.

Right-wing populists have become a feature in the political landscape of almost every European Union member state, while in Italy, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Denmark and Finland, they are either part of the government or support the government. They are no longer merely a fringe phenomenon or a passing anomaly. Rather, they are a movement that could continue to grow -- and they are doing all they can to position themselves as such.

Despite all of their differences, the target of their ire is the same: the cosmopolitan elite, liberal opinion leaders in the media and EU bureaucrats in Brussels. Their best enemies? German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, the latter having proven to be a tireless promoter of deeper European integration. [...]

The right wing hopes to transform the European elections into a kind of plebiscite: What kind of Europe do people want? Open or closed? Traditionalist or tolerant? Should the European bloc become a political union with fewer powers reserved for the nation-states or should it merely be something like a free-trade area in which each individual country can chart its own course?

The Most Pressing Problem

The mood on the Continent is currently playing into the hands of the right-wing populists. According to the most recent Eurobarometer survey, a majority of 62 percent believes that EU membership is a good thing, but at the same time, exactly half of EU citizens believe that things are "going in the wrong direction," an increase of eight percentage points over the results of a survey from half a year before. Migration continues to be seen as the most pressing problem facing the bloc.

Public opinion researchers believe that right-wing populists could end up with 20 percent of the EU-wide vote. That is, of course, far short of a majority, but it is enough to throw a spanner in the Brussels works by blocking joint initiatives on financial issues, social welfare and migration. In short: They can turn back the clock on European integration. Hungarian political scientist Daniel Hegedüs of the German Marshall Fund believes the elections in May will be vital to Europe's further development.

That is precisely to Marine Le Pen's liking. "We are at an historic turning point," she said in Sofia. "Wild globalization is coming to an end." Now, she said, it is time for the peoples of Europe to take center stage. [...]

Full article on DER SPIEGEL

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