Europe Day Marks 1 Month to Elections  05/09 06:14

   

   BRUSSELS (AP) -- The European Union marks its annual Europe Day on Thursday, 
but instead of the humdrum celebrations, all eyes are on the EU elections in a 
month's time, which portend a steep rise of the extreme right and a possible 
move away from the bloc's global trendsetting climate policies.

   After decades in which the EU elections hardly caused a ripple, the June 6-9 
voting is the most important in memory. It is being held at a time of 
continuous crises on a continent which is experiencing a war in Ukraine, 
climate emergencies, a shifting of geopolitical plates and fundamental 
questions on the reach and purpose of the EU itself.

   "It will be an existential fight," said Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian 
prime minister and outgoing free-market liberal member of parliament who has 
been in the thick of EU politics for over a quarter century. It will pit "those 
who want less Europe and, then, those political forces who understand that in 
the world of tomorrow you need a far more integrated European Union to defend 
the interests of the Europeans," he said in an interview.

   In naked political terms, it means those traditional socialist, liberal and 
green forces that ran the EU parliament with the Christian Democrats over the 
past five years against the surging powers of the hard nationalist right, 
exemplified by leaders like Viktor Orbn of Hungary and Georgia Meloni of Italy.

   The vote is the second-biggest exercise in democracy behind the elections in 
India, as the 27-nation bloc of 450 million people will be picking 720 
parliamentarians to serve them over the next five years with decisive votes on 
everything from digital privacy rules to international trade policy and climate 
measures.

   But more than that, when the results are made public late on June 9, it will 
be an indication whether the continental political drift will match the 
rightward swing seen across much of the globe from Argentina to the Netherlands 
and Slovakia.

   Even if surveys diverge somewhat on the margins of the gains, they all point 
toward one thing: The nationalist hard right and populist parties will make 
strong gains.

   "If I look at the polls all over Europe, more or less, I can always see the 
same scenario," said Nicola Procaccini, Meloni's man in the European 
Parliament, who typically considers himself as part of the center-right far 
removed from the neo-fascist roots of his Brothers of Italy party.

   He said likeminded parties "are rising more or less, everywhere." That 
includes election victories in the Netherlands and Slovakia and polls showing 
they lead the way in France with Marine Le Pen 's National Rally.

   When it comes to the fundamentals, the EU battle could be seen as 
Verhofstadt vs. Procaccini, with one insisting only more joint policies on 
issues like defense are the answer to the EU's global challenges ahead, and the 
other saying how the individual member states, with their cherished nationhood 
at its core, should always come first.

   While 27 nations with often inefficient individual defense programs have 
left western Europe at the mercy of U.S. goodwill for much of the past half 
century, Verhofstadt wants a full defense union to stave off a belligerent 
Russia, and anticipate a non-committal United States if Donald Trump becomes 
president in November. "It is not individual member states which will protect 
the people," he said.

   "And that's the reason why it's an existential fight. Because if we lose 
this fight against the right-wing parties, we will be without defense, without 
security," Verhofstadt said.

   Procaccini instead centers on what many far-right parties see as 
encroachment and downright meddling in national affairs by the EU's 
institutions in Brussels and Strasbourg, France. They have specifically lashed 
out at the EU Green Deal to keep climate change at bay and have specifically 
targeted measures to force farmers into more environmentally friendly methods 
as overbearing and overruling national decision making. They want to hark back 
to the EU's timid origins some 60 years ago when cooperation was much more 
voluntary and limited.

   "We want to restore the original idea of Europe," Procacinni said.

   It is unlikely the anti-EU parties will get a grip on legislative power but 
a surge into third place behind the Christian Democrats and Socialists would 
have a major impact. If the forecast of the European Council on Foreign Affairs 
holds, the think tank says "this 'sharp right turn' is likely to have 
significant consequences for European-level policies ... particularly on 
environmental issues, where the new majority is likely to oppose ambitious EU 
action to tackle climate change."

   EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has already softened some of 
the climate rules and her center-right Christian Democrat European People's 
Party, the biggest in the legislature, has moved rightward on migration on top 
of climate policy.

   With a wilting of the Green Deal, it would make sure that beyond facing 
geopolitical crises, the EU would also face one of its own making.

   Thursday's Europe Day honors the memory of Jean Monnet, one of the founding 
fathers of the European Union, who once said: "Europe will be forged in crises."