ELECTIONS IN EUROPE: WHAT CHANGES WILL THEY BRING ?

Source : Doru Frantescu, Co-Founder and CEO of VoteWatch Europe

In Europe, the Dutch will be the first to vote in a new Parliament, on 15 March, with Wilders’ far-right topping the opinion polls. While some find comfort in the thought that he will not be able to form a governing majority, this does not mean that his views will not be taken onboard in the future policy making. As seen last year, Wilders-led anti-establishment forces have been able to turn the population to reject the EU-Ukraine association agreement, which forced to Dutch government, and through it the European Council, to moderate its ambitions of bringing Ukraine closer to the EU. Any move towards further EU integration will have to take into account the situation in the Netherlands – one should not forget that the Dutch public (along with the French) also buried the Constitutional Treaty in a referendum a decade ago.

France will follow, with voters going to polls on 23 April for the first round of Presidential elections. While Marine le Pen is likely to make it into the second round, Fillon holds the upper hand. However, the above-mentioned logic applies: Marine le Pen and her followers do not have to win the elections to influence the future policy making. In fact, they are already doing so: the (intergovernmentalist) agenda with which Fillon has won the nomination of the Republicans for the French Presidency has been substantially influenced by the rising popularity of Front National.

Italians are likely to go to the polls over the year, amid prolonged squirming of their political elites. The possibility of holding a referendum for exiting the Eurozone is no longer a science-fiction scenario (after seeing Brexit and Trump victories nothing should be). The leading opposition force, 5-Star, is asking for the referendum and is leveraging the current banking crisis to make it happen. Other relevant parties, such as Forza Italia and Lega Nord are not big Euro fans either and already put forward ideas for either replacing the euro or introducing a second currency alongside it. In fact, only the governing Partito Democratico and other small centrist forces fully support the Euro, but their voters are far from being enough to secure a victory in the case of a referendum (as just seen in their defeat in the previous referendum held in December on the change of Italy’s Constitution).

Germans will vote in September, amid the societal crisis that have led the centrist CDU and SPD forces to “bleed” electorate to radical anti-EU reformists, such as the AfD. The terrorist attack in the Berlin Christmas Market complicated things further and many events can happen in the remaining time interval. Merkel’s CDU seems to prefer a new governing coalition, alongside the Greens and the Liberals, which would thus exclude the SPD. By putting SPD in opposition, CDU would solve two issues: gain more room for maneuvering in the government and avoid further fragmentation and instability of the German political spectrum. However, the reality of the elections’ outcome may terminate their plans. Either way, a new government configuration will take shape, which might change fundamentally Berlin’s policy agenda (and with it, that of the EU). 

Finally, we should not underestimate the importance of the political developments in the UK, where (the month of) May may not be good for (PM) May. The surprising victory of the Liberal Democrats in the by-elections of a “Remain” constituency (previously held by the Conservatives) was based on their anti-Brexit platform. The British will go again to polls to vote in their new local authorities in May. The outcome of these elections will show whether the voters approve the shift to the right of the Conservative Party on migration, the strong anti-Brexit rhetoric of the Liberals and the Scottish Nationalists, or the moderate position on Brexit advocated by Jeremy Corbyn. Some players will be strengthened to the detriment of others and this will have a direct impact on the tone of the negotiations between the European Union and the British government.

All of these mean that 2017 will be a year of political fighting, which also means a year of less (visionary) action: politicians will be more busy with undermining their opponents and with improving their own image internally (often through social and protectionist measures and nationalist rhetoric), while taking minimum risks in terms of promoting liberalisation of trade, business-friendly measures or supra-national governance. At the end of this year, depending on the outcomes of all of these developments, we might witness a very different institutional order in Europe and in international relations.