Chris Mills Rodrigo is the managing editor of Inequality.org.
The recent European Parliamentary elections went poorly for the region’s leftist parties, to say the least.All across the continent, socialist, worker, and environmentalist parties—many of which had risen from the ashes of the Eurozone crisis—lost ground as far-right authoritarian parties picked up new support.
The Greens, primary architects of the European Union’s ambitious Green Deal, lost 19 seats of the 70 they had secured in a triumphant 2019 election. And while the Left coalition in parliament actually gained two seats to control 39 of the 720 available, the country-by-country results paint a darker picture.The left has historically had success mobilizing those that are frustrated with the political system—and they should be unwilling to cede those potential voters to the far right. In my native Spain, Podemos only managed a meager 3.3% of the vote, down from over 10% at their apex in 2019. Syriza, which briefly turned Greece into an epicenter of the European left, only pulled in 14.7% support, a far cry from their first place finish at nearly 24% in 2014.And in France, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National party beat the field so badly that President Emanuel Macron called snap parliamentary elections.The overall results of the European Parliamentary elections—where millions of citizens across the European Union’s 27 member states voted to fill one of the bloc’s three legislative bodies—actually went slightly better than some observers feared. The moderate coalition of the conservative European People’s Party, the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, and the weakened liberal Renew Europe party looks poised to maintain leadership, although the far right’s influence over the body undoubtedly grew.The two far-right groups in parliament—Giorgia Meloni’s European Conservatives and Reformists Party and Marine Le Pen’s more eurosceptic Identity and Democracy party—gained a combined 16 seats. Although an alliance is not on the horizon as of now with the two parties differing over the role of the E.U., together their bloc would nearly match the center left coalition.And that’s not counting Alternative for Germany which, despite being kicked out of Le Pen’s coalition after a leader suggested that Nazi SS officers were not necessarily criminals, placed second in Germany ahead of Prime Minister Olaf Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats.After a setback of this magnitude, a period of reflection and restrategizing will no doubt take place. But as they grapple with a rising far right, the last thing Europe’s leftist parties should do is shift to the right themselves.How can leftists in Europe beat back the rise of the anti-immigrant, ethnonationalist right and wrest power from centrist parties that are already pledging to weaken climate commitments? Present a unified front, energize new voters, and resist the temptation to soften their positions.
European Union Far Right Fascism Left-Wing Marine Le Pen Podemos Syriza Working Class Eu Elections
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