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.
CIVILIAN SIGHTING: Fishers from Penghu County took a photograph of a Chinese guided-missile destroyer near the median line of the Taiwan Strait China sent 77 military aircraft around Taiwan over a two-day period ending yesterday morning, an uptick in its activity over the past few weeks. Forty-one Chinese military aircraft were detected in the vicinity of Taiwan in the 24-hour period that ended at 6am yesterday, with 23 crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait and nine crossing its extension, entering the country’s northern, southwestern and eastern air defense identification zones (ADIZs), flight routes released yesterday by the Ministry of National Defense showed. Of the nine aircraft that crossed the median line’s extension, were seven fighter jets and two drones that flew around
ESCALATING TENSIONS: The US called for restraint and meaningful dialogue after Beijing threatened Taiwanese independence advocates with the death sentence The US on Monday condemned China’s “escalatory and destabilizing language and actions” toward Taiwan after Beijing last week announced new guidelines to punish supporters of Taiwanese independence. Asked about the guidelines, which included the death sentence for “diehard” independence advocates, US Department of State spokesman Matthew Miller said: “We strongly condemn the escalatory and destabilizing language and actions from PRC [People’s Republic of China] officials.” “We continue to urge restraint and no unilateral change to the status quo,” he said at the press briefing. The US urges China to “engage in meaningful dialogue with Taiwan,” Miller said, adding that “threats and legal
UNDER THE RADAR: Two US deputy assistant state secretaries visited Taiwan and met with foreign diplomats to discuss how to boost the nation’s international participation US officials who visited Taiwan earlier this week met with foreign representatives and told them that UN Resolution 2758 does not involve Taiwan nor should it be conflated with China’s “one China” principle, sources said yesterday. UN Resolution 2758 recognized the People’s Republic of China as the sole legitimate government of China in 1971. Beijing has been misrepresenting it to exclude Taiwan from the international organization and its affiliates. A representative to Taiwan, requesting anonymity, quoted the US officials as saying during a meeting that as long as it is not specified in UN Resolution 2758, “everything is feasible” with regard to
‘SEPARATIST’ CRACKDOWN: Beijing’s actions would only sow discord on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and damage exchanges, the Mainland Affairs Council said China has no jurisdiction over Taiwan, and its so-called laws and norms have no binding force on Taiwanese, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday as it called on Taiwanese “not to be threatened and intimidated” by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The council issued the remarks after China earlier in the day threatened to impose the death penalty in extreme cases of what it called “diehard Taiwanese independence separatists.” China’s state-run Xinhua news agency yesterday said the Chinese government unveiled guidelines that say its courts, prosecutors, public and state security bodies should “severely punish Taiwanese independence diehards for splitting the country