THE NEW EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT CHALLENGES

Anti-European Union and populist parties registered stunning gains in European Parliament (EP) elections over the last week, finishing first in several member states, including France, the United Kingdom, and Denmark. They will use their parliamentary presence as a platform for their Euroskeptic, anti-globalizing, and xenophobic discourse. This will affect the political climate in the EU and may weigh heavily on upcoming debates of strategic importance, for instance on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the United States. The high number of anti-establishment members in the EP will also narrow the gap between the moderate parties.

Euroskeptics will not go away by being ignored (Please refer to my previous post on the necessity to engage in a constructive conversation with them). National and European leaders will have to develop more compelling views on how to improve the performance of the European Union and increase the legitimacy of EU decision-making. The absence of a convincing growth strategy and unresolved weaknesses in the euro area’s governance architecture need to be tackled, while security challenges, energy sustainability, and issues related to justice and home affairs all require more political attention.

In France, the FN’s victory will give President François Hollande less leverage in negotiating nominations for key positions in the European executive but the political fallout may be felt more strongly in national politics than at the EU level.

In the United Kingdom, U.K. membership in the EU will dominate party politics until the 2015 national election and perhaps beyond, with the potential to cause divisive splits in both mainstream parties. Together with similar gains in other member states such as France and Denmark, it means that an organized opposition to the process of European integration has the opportunity to make its voice heard loud and clear in the European Parliament.

In Denmark, the right-wing Danish People’s Party (DPP) got 26.7 percent of the vote but despite their anti-EU stance, Denmark’s ring-wing populists are skeptical about cooperating with the likes of France’s National Front. Instead, they have indicated the possibility of partnering with British conservatives and others.

But even if they struggle for cohesion, the incoming nationalists, neo-fascists, establishment baiters and hard leftists will make it trickier for the mainstream to push through its legislative agenda on everything from trade pacts with America to climate change to immigration policy to eurozone economic and fiscal integration.

The new European Parliament will need to work harder to find majorities with discussions on issues such as migration and free trade deals set to become more polarised. Coalition building is going to be more difficult in the next parliament. Together the two parties (EPP and S&D) hold a majority (403) in the 751-strong EP, but it is a slim majority (54%). That means that in areas where only the S&D and the EPP agree, that will not be enough, they will have to get votes from some other places. A centre-right coalition of the EPP, the liberals and the anti-Federalist ECR does not result in a majority, nor does a centre-left coalition of the Social democrats, liberals and far-left. So a super coalition of the EPP, S&D and Liberals will likely be needed for any measures that would strengthen EU integration or the power of the EU institutions. But where the EPP and S&D disagree, it will take a lot of hard work to form a majority. The new numbers are set to make it hard for the new parliament to achieve its first goal: electing a new European Commission president, which will need an absolute majority of 376 MEPs.

But the new make-up is also expected to affect policy areas: The already controversial EU-US free trade negotiations could attract even more criticism in the EP where they will be opposed by the left but also by some on the far-right, such as France's National Front, calling for more protectionism. There could also be more division on whether to further liberalise the internal market in services, while the EP is expected to be "less favourable to budget consolidation" and more "vocal" against migration, with anti-immigration parties topping the polls in the UK, France and the Netherlands.