Next year’s European elections are threatening to shake up the political balance in Europe.
Far-right nationalist parties could quite conceivably take 100 seats next May. Marine Le Pen’s National Front could win up to 20 seats in France alone. With far-left populist parties like Greece’s Syriza also set to make gains, the scene is set for Europe’s voters to give the political establishment a kick in the balls.
The question is at whose expense their seats will come from?
Some will undoubtedly come from the centre-right EPP, who will probably take their heaviest losses in France, Italy and Spain.
As for the Socialists, well, 2009 was a dismal year for the centre-left parties, who took severe beatings in the five largest EU countries. Although the French and Italian parties in the Parliament’s Socialist and Democrat group are probably heading for another pasting, the group should expect to post limited gains of up to 20-30 seats to its 194-MEP group.
But for me, it is the Liberal group that has most to fear in May. The group’s two largest delegations – the UK Liberal Democrats and German Free Democrats (FDP) – are almost certain to suffer the curse of the junior coalition partner and take a kicking from voters. The FDP was wiped out of the Bundestag after getting fewer than 5 percent of the vote in September, while the Liberal Democrats could lose most of the 12 seats they won in 2009.
Not only that but the Liberals’ prospects are hardly likely to be improved if Finnish Economic affairs commissioner Olli Rehn is their candidate to be President of the Commission. Rehn threw his hat into ring to run for the European Parliament elections a few weeks ago and is likely to take on former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt for the post.
Criticism of Rehn is harsh but fair.
Aside from being less charismatic than the average doormat, Rehn is also the EU’s austerity hawk-in-chief and has spent the last few months trying to tell anyone who will listen about the eurozone’s formidable 0.2 percent growth rate in 2013. Rehn’s mantra throughout the eurozone’s economic depression has been that it is all part of a cunning plan to deliver “sustainable growth and job creation” – a claim that is borderline insulting to the intelligence in Brussels let alone Athens, Rome or Lisbon.
The prospect of Rehn trying to win friends and influence people anywhere south of Paris must be a terrifying one for any Mediterranean Liberal party.
For their part, Socialist group officials are rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of Rehn’s candidacy.
“Having been in southern countries in crisis, that the more Mr Rehn speaks and the more he gives interviews, the more anti‑European feelings rise in these countries,” Socialist group leader Hannes Swoboda told MEPs before Christmas.
If nothing else, Rehn deserves credit for having the courage of his convictions. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, he genuinely believes that the austerity shock-treatment being meted out in Greece and elsewhere is working and is the right (and only) solution, and that people will eventually thank him for it. But unless the Liberals really do have a death wish, it’s hard to picture him as their star candidate.