European Elections Deepen Divisions in National Capitals
Vote for European Parliament became a referendum on countries’ leaders
The outcome of the weekend’s European Union elections threatened a fresh stage of political instability in the bloc, with results in many countries signaling disillusion with the establishment and polarization among voters.
“The electorate is crying out for change and is therefore volatile—preferring to back new insurgents rather than the status quo parties that have been around for decades,” said Mark Leonard, founding director of the European Council on Foreign Relations.
No country captured the growing polarization better than Britain, which chose almost three years ago to exit from the EU. Voters were torn between parties wanting to leave the bloc and ones wanting to stay, signaling no obvious way out of the Brexit deadlock.
The ruling Conservative Party was relegated to fifth place with less than 10% of the vote, its worst showing in a nationwide poll in its history. The main opposition Labour Party fell into third place, with less than 15%.
The big beneficiaries were the upstart Brexit Party, led by longtime anti-EU campaigner Nigel Farage, which gathered more than 31%, and the anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats, which polled more than 20%. There was also a strong showing for the pro-EU Greens, with 12%.
In Germany, the election was also a blistering indictment of the two ruling parties. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union and her left-leaning coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party, both suffered large drops in votes compared with the last European elections in 2014 and Germany’s federal election of 2017.
The main winner from this erosion was Germany’s centrist Greens and not the stridently nationalist Alternative for Germany, whose share of the vote fell almost 2 percentage points below its showing in 2017’s national vote.
The SPD’s dire showing poses the biggest risk to the stability of Ms. Merkel’s government. The party’s relentless shrinkage puts chairwoman Andrea Nahles under growing pressure from grass-roots activists who want her to leave Ms. Merkel’s coalition and reposition the party in opposition.
In France, the vote also further decimated traditional center-left and center-right parties. That suggested that pro-EU centrist President Emmanuel Macron continues to face a formidable political challenge from his top 2017 presidential opponent, Marine Le Pen, whose anti-migrant, euroskeptic National Rally eked out first place on Sunday.
Looming political wrangling could be further complicated by nationalist leaders in Hungary, Poland and Italy who emerged strengthened in last week’s elections. They want to win back powers from Brussels and limit the EU’s say over their policies.
In Italy, the elections handed a resounding victory to the nationalist League that reversed a balance of power from last year’s national elections with its coalition partner, the antiestablishment 5 Star Movement.
With more political turbulence likely ahead, analysts say the EU will struggle to tackle its biggest challenges, including Brexit, economic sluggishness, trade tensions with the U.S. and growing concerns about China’s economic interests in the bloc.
“You see [political] fragmentation in many countries which means governing becomes more difficult and cabinets often don’t last their full term,” said Hylke Dijkstra, director of European Studies at Maastricht University. “The reality is the rest of the world is moving…and Europe is faced with an increasingly complex political system that might not be able to deliver.”
