This text belongs to the 'Europa' newsletter, which Lluís Uría sends every Monday to the readers of 'La Vanguardia'. If you want to receive it in your mailbox, sign up here.
Election campaigns can often lead to major misunderstandings. The European elections from June 6 to 9 will not be an exception, if anything it may end up exacerbating them. While the latest polls place the economic and social situation at the center of European concerns, their leaders insist day in and day out about the threat of a war in Europe and the need to increase defense spending while - at time - a new austerity cure is applied. The fracture between what citizens demand and what is offered to them can be taken advantage of by the extreme right, which – after immigration and agriculture – can now raise the flag of peace.
Reading a recent survey carried out by the Ipsos opinion institute for the Euronews network in 18 countries of the European Union is very illustrative. The results are clear: the fight against inflation and the loss of purchasing power constitutes the highest priority for citizens (68%), followed by the reduction of social inequalities (64%) and the promotion of economic growth (62%) . Also of concern, although already behind, are irregular immigration (59%) and climate change (52%), while the construction of a Europe of defense (47%) and - above all - aid to Ukraine (36% ) go down significantly a few steps. This is a current snapshot of how European public opinion breathes.
Until a few months ago, it seemed that the central debate of the European election campaign was going to revolve around the Green Deal promoted from Brussels to meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement against climate change. Environmental demands were beginning to agitate the countryside and, little by little, farmers began to take their tractors to the roads as a sign of protest. The Dutch led the way, followed later by the French, Germans, and Spaniards... The far-right parties did not take long to notice the vein and set out to seek the peasant vote with a ruralist discourse opposed to the environmentalist "demands."
The European leaders, concerned about the electoral effect of this crisis and taking into account the growing voting expectations of the ultra parties in the June elections, then decided to hit the brakes and multiply the gestures towards the farmers, even if it were at the cost of sacrificing their climate ambitions. In recent weeks, the 27 have increased aid to the countryside, agreed to limit imports of agricultural products from Ukraine and approved to review the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to soften its environmental rules, while a handful of countries blocked the discussed bill. of Nature Restoration.
In the chapter of irregular immigration – the original battlehorse of the extreme right – European governments have applied the same treatment: trying to take away oxygen from the adversary. This past Wednesday, the European Parliament gave the green light to the Immigration and Asylum Pact, forged last year, which considerably toughens the EU's asylum policy and the fight against illegal immigration, while strengthening control of the EU's external borders. Union. Even if it is at the cost, as the NGOs denounce, of assuming a setback in the protection of human rights.
But lo and behold, a month and a half ago, French President Emmanuel Macron came up with the idea of suggesting that sooner or later it will be necessary to send troops to Ukraine to help this country overcome Russian aggression. Since then, Macron himself and numerous European leaders have multiplied a tremendous discourse, with pre-war airs, as if Russia – which in two years has not managed to subdue the Ukrainians – was preparing to attack NATO. This new line has been assumed by the EU, which in a document sent by the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, to the leaders of the 27, proposes giving priority to military spending, competitiveness and food security to the detriment of sustainability. Social spending will undoubtedly be affected. And the culture is already beginning to notice it.
The sentiment of the citizens goes completely the other way. Two years after the Russian invasion, Europeans do not believe that Ukraine can win the war – only 10% maintain faith – and, although they are in favor of continuing to support it, the opinion of those who believe that Kyiv should sit down to negotiate is growing. peace with Moscow (even if it were at the cost of territorial cessions). Furthermore, wherever they have been done – in France, in Poland… – the polls confirm that an overwhelming majority of citizens reject direct involvement in the war.
While the mainstream parties – from the Christian Democrats to the Social Democrats, including the Liberals and even the Greens – continue to brandish their sabers, the extreme left and extreme right parties throughout Europe are adopting a discourse of resistance, avowedly pacifist, that connects directly with citizens' concerns. In France, in addition to the rebellious Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the head of the list for the European National Regrouping (RN) of Marine Le Pen and new darling of the far right, Jordan Bardella, has managed to maintain a certain critical line with Moscow while lambasting to Macron for his “dangerous and irresponsible escalation.” Despite the French president's attempts to present the RN as a vassal of Putin, the polls place him in the lead, with a vote expectation of 30%, almost double that of the presidential coalition.
Another example: on the 7th, the pro-Russian candidate Peter Pellegrini won the presidential elections in Slovakia - despite having come in second place in the first round - presenting himself as "the candidate of peace"... Which, by the way, contributes to strengthening the Budapest-Brastislava axis, favorable to Moscow's interests. If things continue like this, in the end it will not be immigration or the climate crisis that will mark the main dividing line in the electoral debate, but war or peace. And there are those who are already ready to take advantage.
