A four-day election has shaken the foundations of the EU, with the far right rocking ruling parties in France and Germany, the bloc’s traditional driving forces. For the next five years it would be harder for the European Parliament to make decisions.
French President Emmanuel Macron called snap national elections after Marine Le Pen’s National Rally humbled his pro-European centrists in the polls. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats also suffered as the extreme-right Alternative for Germany shrugged off scandals to make massive gains.
Germany will not hold a snap election despite calls for Scholz to step aside after his ruling coalition’s dismal performance in the EU election, a spokesman for the chancellor said yesterday.
Photo: EPA-EFE
In Italy, the party of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, which has neo-fascist roots, won more than 28 percent of the national vote for the EU assembly, which would make it a key player in forming alliances.
“It is a resounding result,” Meloni said yesterday of the gains made by her Brothers of Italy party, despite a historically low turnout of 49.69 percent.
“It is very important politically and also moving personally,” she told Rtl radio, noting that elsewhere in Europe governing parties had suffered in the polls.
Photo: AP
The center-right European People’s Party (EPP) is projected to win 191 seats in the EU assembly and remains by far the biggest group. The EPP garnered a few more seats, but the parliament is also expanding from 705 seats in 2019 to 720 seats this year, so the increase was marginal. The second-biggest bloc, the center-left Socialists and Democrats, lost some ground, but with 135 seats comfortably retains its place.
EPP lead candidate, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, had flirted with parties to the right during election campaigning, but after early results were announced she called on the socialists and pro-business liberals to work together in a pro-European alliance.
The environmentalist Greens were perhaps the biggest losers overall. They are likely to lose about 20 seats in the European Parliament, almost one-third of their tally from 2019. A series of protests across Europe by farmers angered at the burden imposed by new climate laws helped to damage their chances.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s centrist party clinched its first electoral victory over a right-wing populist party in a decade by taking the most votes in the European Parliament election.
Many viewed Tusk’s return to power last year as a rare case of a democratic party prevailing over populist and authoritarian forces. However, while the win solidified his position, the results also showed that his lead is small, and that support for the far right is rising.
In Spain, centrist parties contained a far-right surge in the European Parliament elections, helping to bolster Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez standing as one of Europe center-left’s leading figures.
The center-right People’s Party and Sanchez’s Socialists gained two-thirds of the vote, up from about half of the share in 2019, winning a combined 42 of the available 61 seats. While the anti-immigration Vox party’s vote share rose to 9.6 percent from 6.2 percent in 2019, it fell back from last year’s national election, when it won 12.4 percent.
In Hungary, upstart politician Peter Magyar smashed the nation’s image as one with no alternative to Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s rule by surging to second place in the European Parliament elections.
Magyar’s center-right Tisza came in at just under 30 percent in Sunday’s ballot, more than triple the support of a more established opposition alliance. The result makes him a natural challenger to Orban in the 2026 parliamentary elections.
While Orban’s nationalist Fidesz won the overall vote with almost 45 percent support, it was the worst result for the five-term leader in an EU election since Hungary joined the bloc in 2004.
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
INTENSIFYING THREATS: Beijing’s tactics include massive attacks on the government service network, aircraft and naval vessel incursions and damaging undersea cables China is prepared to interfere in November’s nine-in-one local elections by launching massive attacks on the Taiwanese government’s service network (GSN), a report published by the National Security Bureau showed. The report was submitted to the Legislative Yuan ahead of the bureau’s scheduled briefing at the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The national security team has identified about 13,000 suspicious Internet accounts and 860,000 disputed messages, the bureau said of China’s cognitive warfare against Taiwan. The disputed messages focus on major foreign affairs, national defense and economic issues, which were produced using generative artificial intelligence (AI) and distributed through Chinese
COUNTERING HOSTILITY: The draft bill would require the US to increase diplomatic pressure on China and would impose sanctions on those who sabotage undersea cable networks US lawmakers on Thursday introduced a bipartisan bill to bolster the resilience of Taiwan’s submarine cables to counter China’s hostile activities. The proposal, titled the critical undersea infrastructure resilience initiative act, was cosponsored by Republican representatives Mike Lawler and Greg Stanton, and Democratic Representative Dave Min. US Senators John Curtis and Jacky Rosen also introduced a companion bill in the US Senate, which has passed markup at the chamber’s Committee on Foreign Relations. The House’s version of the bill would prioritize the deployment of sensors to detect disruptions or potential sabotage in real-time and enhance early warning capabilities through global intelligence sharing frameworks,
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