4 keys to understanding the good results that the right obtained in the European elections

That is what the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said after the results of the European Parliament (EP) elections were announced this Sunday.

While this statement is true, it is also true that The balance of power in the Old Continent is moving from the center to the rightas demonstrated by the clear victory in the elections of the conservative European People’s Party which, according to preliminary results, won 186 seats of the 720 that make up the EP, compared to 135 for the Social Democrats.

This ideological shift was clear with the results obtained by the extreme right both in France (first force) and in Germany (second force).

Thus, the anti-European right is growing strongly in the two main founding countries of the European Union, which are also the nations with the most seats in the EP.

This Sunday’s results already had important repercussions in the political field: the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, called early parliamentary elections for the end of this month after the resounding victory of his rival Marine Le Pen’s far-right party.

In Germany, the far-right party AfD surpassed the coalition of Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the number of votes, asking him to advance the elections, something that does not seem to be going to happen.

At BBC Mundo we spoke with analysts to understand the results of the European elections and the shift to the right in the politics of the Old Continent.

“The pro-European forces have won again, the super coalition in which social democrats and Christian democracy (the European People’s Party) historically govern,” Ignacio Molina, an analyst at the ElCano Royal Institute, explains to BBC Mundo.

But even though the center “holds on,” that center is moving to the right.

“That great coalition has moved because the liberal center has fallen in votes in favor of the center-right. Europeanism wins, yes, but especially the most conservative ones,” Molina maintains.

Around this pro-European center there is “a change in the correlation of forces, much more right-wing and in favor of the radical right, although not in substantive growth,” Javier Martín Merchán, professor of Political Science at the University, explains to BBC Mundo. University of Comillas, in Spain.

Overall, both analysts point outthe results of the European elections are not unexpected and reflect a trend that has been seen in recent years at the national level in the different countries that make up the European Union.

For example, Italy has been governed since 2019 by a right-wing coalition led by Giorgia Meloni and her ultra Brothers of Italy formation; In the Netherlands, the last national elections were won by the far-right party of Geert Wilders and in Sweden the government depends on the far-right.

“It’s a gradual and almost structural process. We live in a positive cycle for the right in general,” says Martín Merchán.

Although the extreme right and the ultra-conservatives have not generally swept the elections, as some previous polls indicated, there are exceptions that draw attention.

These are the cases of Germany and France that, in addition to being emblematic for being the founding fathers of the EU, They are the two member states that contribute the most seats to the EP, so they will help the extreme right have more representatives in the Strasbourg chamber.

In the case of France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally swept and doubled the votes of President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Renaissance party.

Macron’s almost immediate reaction was to call for a early parliamentary elections for June 30.

“Calling early elections is a big surprise for the country and a huge risk for President Macron. “I could have reacted differently and explained the massive victory of the far right as a European aberration that would be corrected in more important elections,” says Hugh Schofield, BBC correspondent in France.

In the German case, The far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) came in second place, surpassing Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition

The result achieved by the AfD is even more remarkable if the scandals of espionage, extremism and corruption that affected the formation in the months prior to the elections.

“The ruling parties (Social Democrats and Greens) took a beating, as did the third coalition partner, the free-market liberals,” explains BBC Berlin correspondent Damien McGuinness.

This alliance was always complicated, according to McGuiness, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shook it, bringing its differences to the surface.

In this context, the extreme right and the extreme left took advantage with their populist speeches.

“In times of insecurity and uncertainty, simple messages are seductive”notes McGuiness.

Although the speeches of the right-wing and extreme-right parties vary depending on the problems faced by each country, there has been a message on which they have agreed: his rejection of immigration, particularly that from Muslim countries.

As this is an uncomfortable issue for the majority parties (such as the social democrats or the Christian democracy), those who have championed it in these European elections have been the most radical right-wing parties, such as AfD in Germany, Vox in Spain or National Rally in France.

“There are families of parties that speak only and exclusively about this tama. “What migration is wanted in the country, what security is there in the streets, what is the security of the borders and what economic effects does this migration have,” explains Martín Merchán.

“When partisan competition deals with these issues, it is easier to produce (electoral) results like the ones we have now,” he points out.

Along with the increase in immigration, “dynamics are generated that have more to do with cultural issues than with economic issues,” Molina emphasizes.

“In Spain, immigration is less politicized because the profile of the migrant (from Latin America) is less distant, but this is not the case in other countries. For the Scandinavians, for example, it is an important issue because a part of the population feels threatened their culture, their traditions“, Add.

Thus, migration from countries in Africa and the Middle East, mostly with a Muslim tradition, is contrasted with the values ​​of old Europe, traditionally Christian.

To this we must add the “cultural war” that has been unleashed in many countries as a result of the achievements in social matters promoted by successive progressive governments.

“There are those who perceive that there has been a change in the cultural values ​​of Western society, in aspects such as the rights of the LGTBI community, gender equality, etc., which, for many, especially white adult males, poses a challenge to their own identity”says Martín Merchán.

The answer is to react to that by voting for the right that defends traditional values.

Molina insists that, although there are signs of consolidation and growth of the most radical right, something that must be highlighted in the European elections is how the center has resisted “despite the challenges that the European Union faces today.”

And he emphasizes that the reading of these elections should not be done in a European key.

“It’s a bit of a self-deception. Because what happened this Sunday were 27 parallel national elections with a little European touch,” she says.

“The final result seen in the European Parliament is continuity, but the voter did not necessarily want continuity.”

“Probably what most motivated the Spanish voter to go to vote was rewarding or punishing Pedro Sánchez. In France they were rewarding or punishing Macron,” he says.

But even if this is the case, the sum of all the parts marks a shift to the right, which in the next five years will define the politics of Europe.

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