What to expect from the EU after far-right gains in election | DW News

now despite considerable gains for the far right in the Netherlands Austria and Germany the center right European people's party is poised to remain the biggest party in the European Parliament that's the party of European commission president Ursula felion who's seeking a second term fion promised the EP would build a Bastion against extremes but on the campaign Trail she refused to rule out cooperating with members of the hard right like Italy's Georgia Mone together with others we will build a Bastion against the extremes from the left and from the right we will stop them this is for sure now a few of the votes are still being counted but we're getting a clearer idea of the future makeup of the European Parliament the EP Remains the biggest group in the projected new Parliament the center right block includes parties like Germany's Christian democrats in Spain's people's party but the biggest swings are at the ends of the political Spectrum with voters turning their backs on Europe's green parties and looking towards the identity and democracy group that includes far-right Nationalist and populist parties many of them Euros Skeptics the right bring group expelled Germany's farri afd party earlier this year following various scandals well for more now I'm joined by DW correspondent l Lu Schon uh she's reporting from russels Lucia ex European commission president Ur p l seems optimistic that she'll be able to serve another term but could the rise of the far right not complicate her bid to stay in office yeah there is still a long way to go for USA feline to really be u g again elected into the office as commission president the first Next Step will be that the you heads of States um will have to Nate her officially to really become the next EU commission president and then the next step is that she will have to go back to the European Parliament and she has to secure a majority of 361 votes and to get this majority she has been saying yesterday that she will reach out and her party has been saying that to the Liberals uh and the social Democrats we have heard that on the campaign train it did sound as if she might also reach out to Georgia mone's frell Italia that we have not heard yesterday so we have heard a little bit of change of sound there a bit of change of tone um they do have enough votes these parties that I just mentioned that she's looking to work with do have enough votes to secure the majority if you just count them together but it is not a very short majority because it's not said that everyone would really vote for her so she will have to see how she gets these votes and then um it might be but as we have heard it might be that she also has to see whether she has to really go to the far right or not but if she would do this and that became very clear in the campaigning Trail she might lose the votes of the other parties so it is a balancing act for her um as she said yesterday from today on the work starts so um it is a tough challenge for her to secure the majority again but the first step are the heads of States so the two big cent groupings in the European Parliament uh do have a majority but given that the composition of Parliament has shifted with the extremes gaining seats what impact is that likely to have on policymaking in brussles so the first thing to bear in mind is that the farri right parties do not have a blocking majority that is the first thing to to see uh and then the second thing which is another big question also when it comes to their possible impact and to their influence is whether uh the far-right parties which are right now in two groupings in the um in the far right European conservative reformist and the far right identity and democracy group whether they can team up or not um experts are doubting that this is the case but this remains to be seen um but this will also have an impact in general what is being said here even though they do not have a blocking majority um that there is a possibility that overall uh European politics will move further to the right um because that other parties like the the center right might take in topics that they are pushing forward like um they're against Green policies they have a hard migration stance and that that other more Central right parties take this in and that therefore the whole of the European Union moves a bit more to the righta Shulton in Brussels thank you very much well here to help us make sense of this European parliamentary election We join now Studio by DW's Chief International editor Richard Walker Richard what are your main takeaways from this European parliamentary election well I think ter we we we've obviously been talking a lot about France we saw the charts there with the look at the parties I think the big picture is that you certainly do have gains on the far right but it's not a completely uniform picture for instance here in Germany there were gains for the afd the alternative for Germany in neighboring Poland uh the um Law And Justice party uh uh made losses so not a completely uniform picture also on the Progressive side of politics there certainly has been a kind of a shift away from Progressive so more towards the center right but you do see variation there as well so you see green parties suffering more than you see social Democrats suffering for instance I think broadly what you can see in a lot of countries is there's this kind of midterm phenomenon like European elections are treated in a country where um if it falls in the middle of the term of the national government then of course it will be it will be treated like a mid term election often is in the United States for example where the the governing party will get punished for anything that's going badly what you do see though and I think this is going to be really important going forward and we've talked about France quite a bit is some power shifts happening within the EU we see that Emanuel Macon is weakened coming out of this election uh he's now called another election which could run the risk of weakening him even further we see Olaf Schultz weakened already leading a weak Coalition weakened still further that not a single party in Olaf Schultz's governing Coalition here in Germany was as strong as the afd on the far right so you have these two extremely important figures in in Europe weakened who is going to get stronger on the other side of the coin well Georgia Maloney in Italy is looking strengthened at this point and also in Poland Donald Tusk the res the recently um arrived Prime Minister in Poland who's who's a cent center right also looking stronger so you may have a a shift in influence within the European Union in the coming years away from France and Germany and potentially towards countries such as Italy and Poland what about policy uh Richard I mean in in Practical terms when you other countries are looking to the European Union as a block uh can we expect any policy policy changes to result from this election do you think I mean it's a bit early to say because a lot is going to depend on on the makeup of the of the the way the power structures of the European Union respond to the result of this election um you know who runs the commission for instance but I think there are two areas that are really going to be interesting to to watch um one would be climate action um that in recent years there's been a lot of effort by the European Union really to be a global leader on climate there's a lot of push back from that particularly from the far right and this is trickling through into center right Politics as well so what happens there and also migration you see a similar Nom that that these two issues migration and climate change are becoming really kind of culture War issues but also kind of really hot button policy issues too and of course they have major consequences for people around the continent the European commission will be choosing well Europe will be choosing his new Commissioners including the president of the European commission uh soon osula ferion wants another term as president a very powerful post obviously uh do you think she has a good chance of after this election of of getting a second term yeah so it's not looking bad for her at the moment but there are a couple of hurdles to clear that she needs support of national leaders she needs a majority in the European Parliament a lot of focus will be about how she goes about getting that majority um and there was a lot of speculation about this already through the course of the campaign um and it focused on whether she would um focus her support on the sort of cist parties of her center right block of the Liberals of the Social Democratic kind of groupings the center left whether that's the root of her majority the root of her Authority or whether she opens up a little bit to some on further to the right and the the real focus is on Georgia Maloney again who we just mentioned earlier whether Wasa fondel line is going to be really opening to uh to cooperating with her more closely so that's going to be something to watch in the days ahead feline's been quite ambiguous about it she was ambiguous about it last night so we just don't know the answer to that yet but I think that underlines again that georia Malone is going to be a very important figure to watch in the years ahead the right has been strengthened but still many question marks remain Richard Walker our chief International editor thank you very much

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Length: 9min 58sec (598 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 10 2024