Geopolitical Europe Pulse: a turbulent week - and more to come
14 June 2024
The last week in European politics, both domestically as well as for European foreign policy, was intense — and the upcoming weeks also bring a full agenda of meetings and major summits, with arguably major implications for Europe’s role in the world. This week’s edition of the Geopolitical Europe Pulse brings you compilation of articles and resources on the major events and decisions, a zoom on the election campaigns in France, as well as an updated overview of the agenda for the next weeks.
What are the implications of the EU elections? There was no “surge” of the far-right across the EU27, as anticipated by some observers, far-right parties have significantly gained strength in France and Germany, and received the backing from more than one-fourth of the voters in Italy. Alongside the conservative European People’s Party (189 seats), the clear winner of the elections, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and Identity and Democracy (ID), both at the right end of the Parliament’s political spectrum, hold together 134 of the 720 seats. However, neither the EPP nor the Socialists and Democrats (S&D, 135 seats) have seen significant losses, so that others argue that the centre holds. The political groups in the European Parliament are still being reshuffled, particularly on the political right. Until this recomposition takes shape, it will be hard to predict how the European Parliament will shape policies relevant for foreign policy — such as industrial policy, trade, or the budget — in the next years. Overall, consensus on these issues will be more challenging, so that the elections “jeopardise the continent’s agenda”, as Matthias Matthijs writes in Foreign Affairs.
While the challenges for EU foreign policy are completely different from 2019, when populist forces for the first time scored strong across the continent, the challenges populism poses for foreign policy still persist — and the article “Populism, the European Elections, and the Future of EU Foreign Policy”, published after the 2019 EU elections, presents how populism and foreign policy are interlinked.
In other news from Brussels…a decision on BEV duties: This week, the European Commission announced that Chinese battery electric vehicles (BEV) imported in the EU will now be subject to duties, ranging from 17.4% to 38%. This measure is part of the Commission’s agenda on economic security, competitiveness, and de-risking from China, and was unsurprisingly not precisely well received in Beijing. Here’s an overview on the background of the measures, a comparison of EU and US duties on China, and an outlook to potential reactions from China.
Zoom on legislative elections in France: In reaction to the significant losses of his party in the EU elections, French President Macron has dissolved the Assemblée National, and called for snap legislative elections on 30 June and 7 July. These elections will not have a direct impact on the French president, as the president is elected directly by the people and not by the parliament. However, France now risks a scenario of a so-called cohabitation, where the President appoints a Prime Minister from the parliamentary majority that is not his own party. This Warcast from War on the Rocks has background. The election campaign has already started in France: on the political left, seven parties have announced the creation of a “popular front” (front populaire). The political right is scattered — with a netflix-worthy confrontation in Les Républicains (who aimed to fire their own president, Eric Ciotti, after he announced he would form an alliance with Le Pen’s Rassemblement National), and Reconquête (extreme far-right) just expelled four out of five of the elected Members of the European Parliament from the party, who will now support Rassemblement National. In other words: the winner of the disputes and fractions is most likely Le Pen’s party. This thread (unrolled) sums up everything that happened in the first days of the campaign.
Parenthesis from the EU — UK general elections: The UK’s general elections might lead to a significant shift of the country to the left, as Labour is currently leading the polls — and thereby create a situation that stands in stark contrast with the results of the EU elections in France, Germany, and Italy as the major EU countries. Andrew Duff’s piece leaves readers with this thought, which, for most on the continent, was at best a parenthesis this week — and that’s why the rest of the piece on leadership in the EU is also worth reading.
Looking ahead: The weeks until mid-July are filled with a meeting marathon on major questions of security, defence, and geopolitics. Here’s an updated overview:
13-15 June: G7 summit, Borgo Egnazia (Italy)
13-15 June: NATO Defence ministers meeting, Brussels
15-16 June: high-level Ukraine peace conference, Bürgenstock (Switzerland)
17 June: informal European Council dinner (pre-discussion on top jobs), Brussels
28-29 June: European Council (most likely with discussions on top jobs after the EU elections), Brussels
30 June: first round legislative elections, France
4 July: General Elections, United Kingdom
7 July: second round legislative elections, France
9-11 July: NATO summit, Washington D.C.
18 July: European Political Community summit, Blenheim Place (UK)
And outside the meeting marathon, it’s also going to be a summer filled with sports in Europe: the European Football Championship in Germany starts today (14 June to 14 July), and will be followed by the Summer Olympics in France (26 July to 11 August).