Some days ago, European citizens have gone to the ballot boxes in order to choose the women and men that will represent them in Europe’s biggest and most important legislative body, for the coming five years. Most of the laws that govern the economies of the European Union’s 27 Member States, and by consequence their people’s everyday lives are in fact really drafted in Brussels and formally adopted in Strasbourg. The Parliaments of the Member States retain of course their importance, but a big part of their job nowadays consists in deciding how to transform European Directives into national laws.
Almost immediately after their election, these representatives, the MEPs as they are commonly known in English, will be called to confirm or infirm the person chosen by the Union’s Heads of States and governments to lead the European Commission. Some weeks after their decision, the Members of the European Parliament will be again asked to validate or invalidate those that the new Commission President, along with the national governments, will propose for the post of European Commissioner. Once this process is completed, the EU will be again ready to adopt legislation, since, as it is always useful to remind, according to the Treaties, it is exclusively the Commission that has the legislative initiative, even if the Parliament can adopt Resolutions or call upon the Commission to draft Directive proposals on specific issues.
At the same time, national leaders will reach an agreement on the future President of the European Council, who will replace the current incumbent, the Belgian ex Premier Charles Michel, for a two-and-a-half-year term. This position can be renewed only once so that it can coincide with a full European Parliament and Commission term. Named in November 2019, Michel is thus not anymore eligible for the post, unlike the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who could continue to chair the Union’s executive body if both the Parliament and the States decide so.
The mandate that has now finished was a very turbulent and most unusual one.
For the first time in its history, the Union had to face a serious pandemic, that obliged most of the Member States to temporarily freeze the “sacred” principle of freedom of movement within the Single Market, and demonstrated its serious shortcomings in terms of common health planning and sufficiency of life-saving material, such as masks, etc.
Thanks to a series of brave common decisions that kept the economies on foot and proved the resilience of the spirit of solidarity amongst member countries, the EU managed to emerge from the difficult two years of COVID united, and, some could say, stronger, only to be again challenged by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that brought war in front of its very borders and, naturally, revived discussions on the need or not of a common defense policy and an ever closer integration. Last year, the war in Gaza came to underline the pertinence of these discussions, but also to feed the divisions that inevitably arose because of the different ways political forces across the European space are viewing their common future, in a context marked by insecurity, inflated prices due to the war, and a permanent raise of immigration that questions centuries-old conceptions of national identities and ways of life.
In such a context, the rise of populist and extremist parties was not of course unexpected.
In most EU Member States far-right, and sometimes far-left, eurosceptic discourse gained public adherence, and those who promoted it became unavoidable in the formation of national governments.
June’s European election have confirmed this phenomenon, but the danger of a triumph of the extremes that could have paralysed the political procedure relating to the nomination of a new President and College of European Commissioners was avoided. The Socialist political Group (S&D), and the centrist Reformists (RE), have certainly lost a number of seats, but the Christian Democrats of the European People’s Party Group (PPE) have gained enough for the traditional alliance of mainstream parties to be able to continue co-managing the Union. A majority for Mrs von der Leyen’s election is thus still achievable, and it is possible that Mrs Metsola could continue to chair the Parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg for another term.
The big raise of the extreme right-wing parties in Germany and France however have triggered internal evolutions and so, for the moment nobody can pretend that it is going to be business as usual. The discussions within the EP for the nomination of the European Commissioners are going to give us further indication of the way positions will develop in the coming five years.