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It seemed like a throwaway line by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, yet it encapsulated what is at stake for many in this week\u2019s European Union parliamentary elections \u2014 What to do with the hard right? And should it be trusted?<\/p>\n
The top EU leader basically had said that\u00a0far-right Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni<\/a>, whose party is steeped in post-fascism, could be ready for prime time as a potential coalition partner once\u00a0the four-day elections<\/a>\u00a0across the 27-nation EU end Sunday.<\/p>\n During an election debate, von der Leyen declared that Meloni checked all the necessary boxes, the last of which was \u201cpro-rule of law.\u201d She immediately added, however, \u201cif this holds.\u201d<\/p>\n That provisional question of whether to extend basic trust to extremist and populist parties is on many minds as the EU appears poised\u00a0to veer rightward<\/a>\u00a0unlike it has ever done in its history, which has its seeds in the World War II defeat of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy.<\/p>\n Since the last European elections five years ago, populist, far-right and extremist parties are already leading three governments, are part of governing coalitions in several others and are surging in polls across the bloc like never before.<\/p>\n As a result, the whole political pendulum of the giant bloc is likely to swing toward the right after the elections, a plethora of surveys indicate and political observers agree.<\/p>\n \u201cThere will be a shift to the right. So the question is, how big?\u201d said Maria Demertzis of the Brussels-based independent Bruegel think tank. \u201cThe numbers will matter because it could very well be that one of the possible outcomes is that the extreme right actually becomes the second (largest) party. If that is the case, then it\u2019s interesting to see how and who will govern.\u201d<\/p>\n In the second-biggest\u00a0exercise in democracy<\/a>\u00a0behind India\u2019s recent elections, almost 400 million voters will elect 720 members of the European Parliament from beyond the Arctic circle to the edges of Africa and Asia, impacting anything from global climate policies and defense to migration issues and geopolitical relations with China and the United States.<\/p>\n For the longest time, the European Parliament elections had little importance, as core members France and Germany set much of the policy for the ever-increasing group and the legislature looked like a retirement home for elderly national politicians and an incubator for young talent.<\/p>\n But as the powers of the legislature grew on issues like banking rules, agriculture and the EU budget, so did voting interest and the quality of legislators. While breaking a 50% voter turnout threshold was considered a major step forward in 2019, an EU Parliament survey says 71% could vote in the upcoming elections, another massive step forward.<\/p>\n Von der Leyen\u2019s European People\u2019s Party, a largely Christian Democrat group, is the legislature\u2019s biggest and bound to be the coalition kingmaker after the elections. For anyone to the right of the EPP, breaking up its coalition with the socialists, pro-business liberals and the greens should be the main issue at stake.<\/p>\n While bold, brazen and boisterous at best, the outer bounds on the right can be bellicose, bitter and biting at worst \u2014 bashing buddies to boot.<\/p>\n So even if the math adds up for a brilliant victory by the right on Sunday, the total will most likely be less than the sum of its parts.<\/p>\n For all the hard-right\u2019s unity in wanting to keep migrants out,\u00a0ridicule climate measures<\/a>\u00a0as woke fiction and uphold conservative family values, there also are fundamental divergences. When it comes to the war in Ukraine, for example, someone like Meloni stands with the West, unlike Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n. Others remain in a grey zone.<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t help that populist and hard-right parties are now split up in two groups in Parliament \u2014 the Identity and Democracy group to which\u00a0the French National Rally of Marine Le Pen<\/a>\u00a0belongs, and the European Conservatives and Reformists, to which Meloni belongs.<\/p>\n Some are courting the center, others are courting controversy. The I&D group last month\u00a0expelled its Alternative for Germany<\/a>, or AfD, party after a growing list of scandals was capped when its lead candidate said that not all members of the Nazis\u2019 elite SS unit, which was involved in major atrocities during World War II, were war criminals.<\/p>\n \u201cThe AfD has become the plague that no one wants to touch,\u201d said Roberto D\u2019Alimonte, a political analyst at Rome\u2019s LUISS university.<\/p>\n It is still unclear how far-right and populist parties will form new groups after the elections.<\/p>\n Nowadays, some want first and foremost to be \u201csalonf\u00e4hig,\u201d that quality of being accepted in the finest circles despite an extremist background. Le Pen is vying to become French president in 2027, and of course, Meloni has already reached that stage as Italian prime minister.<\/p>\n In almost two years as Italy\u2019s leader, she has overcome initial worries and\u00a0proven reliable at EU summits<\/a>\u00a0and willing to work for hard-fought compromises, to the extent of even keeping the combustible Orb\u00e1n in line during key debates. Leaders, including von der Leyen, have glossed over national complaints about her treatment of groups that do not meet her\u00a0conservative family values<\/a>\u00a0or accusations of placing\u00a0limits on press freedom.<\/a><\/p>\n And with the pro-business liberals and greens set for losses, the EPP\u2019s von der Leyen wants to keep her options open for coalition building, including Meloni, over the vociferous objections of her outgoing allies.<\/p>\n Even if coalitions in Parliament are brittle since legislators are sometimes beholden to national, not EU, agendas, von der Leyen is still eager to find a coalition that will give her the necessary 361 out of 720 votes to win a second five-year term as EU commission president, perhaps the most powerful position in the EU.<\/p>\n And this is where Meloni also comes in as a pivotal player who might have in her hands both the fate of von der Leyen and of a massive geopolitical bloc on the point of tilting ever further to the right.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s one of these people \u2014 not quite the extreme right, but on the right of the right, as it were,\u201d said Demertzis of the Bruegel think tank. \u201cShe\u2019s been talking to EPP, but she\u2019s also talking to more extreme right groups, Mrs. Le Pen and others. And, of course, depending on how the votes turn out, she might have a big card up her sleeve.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n