European Election Outlook: Let the Bargaining CommenceEuropeanElectionOutlook:LettheBargainingCommence

A slow dance of many steps 

The European Elections may not be the first that spring to mind in 2024’s crowded calendar of democratic exercises – a year in which roughly 50% of the world’s population go to the polls.  

But the vote for the next European Parliament is one of the biggest the world will see this year – with an electorate of 359 million that will choose 720 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) for a five-year term in office. 

The turnover is expected to be large – over 50% of the parliament’s membership is forecast to change. At the same time, the vote is a precursor to a wider re-shuffle of the EU’s leadership: a true ‘Year of Change’ that will determine the future direction of travel for the world’s third largest economy. 

EU leaders and the newly elected parliament will decide who they want running the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm – with current president Ursula von der Leyen a frontrunner but not a certainty for a second term. 

Meanwhile MEPs will grill prospective national Commissioners and judge their worthiness to lead in different policy areas, and a new president of the European Council needs to be found who can chair summits of Europe’s prime ministers and presidents. 

This means that rather than a white-hot election moment followed by a cooling process, Brussels will go through a protracted period of jostling for positions, for winning ownership of agendas, and of political haggling.   

A lean or lose situation

In the centre of all this is von der Leyen – a former German defence minister who shot to international prominence when she emerged as a surprise choice for the commission presidency in 2019: her name emerging out of multiple days (and nights) of intractable summit negotiations between EU leaders.

Von der Leyen scraped through her parliamentary confirmation vote in 2019 by 9 votes – proving political adaptability by advocating a strong EU green agenda, while at the same time winning critical votes from a nationalist right sceptical of grand EU ambitions. Given the expected makeup of this new Parliament, she may need to learn some even more impressive political bends and twists.

If current polling is to be trusted, we should expect a sizeable shift rightward. Right-leaning, anti-establishment parties could finish first in eight or nine EU Member States and second in perhaps as many. 

While Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) won the 2019 EU election by a small margin, she is expected to beat French President Macron’s centrist Renaissance by a much stronger margin in 2024. Polls predict 27 seats for RN and allies to 17 for Macron’s politicians. 

In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats could come a distant fourth behind anti-Europe, anti-immigration party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). While the traditional centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) is polling in a strong first place in Germany, they have also shifted meaningfully rightward as a party to avoid haemorrhaging votes – a trend exhibited across much of Europe. 

Breakthroughs for right-wing, ‘anti-elite’ leaders and parties – Geert Wilders’ Party of Freedom (PVV) in the Netherlands, André Ventura’s CHEGA! in Portugal, Tom Van Grieken’s Vlaams Belang in Belgium – are becoming a new normal across the continent. Centre-right parties are leaning much more toward these anti-establishment positions.. 

Five year outlook: a sharp right hand turn in EU policy? 

Maybe not. 

The three largest political families: centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), centre-left Socialist & Democrats (S&D), and centrist/liberal Renew Europe and will most likely maintain a thin majority between them. They will rely on this for taking the big decisions in a grand coalition format, e.g. handing VDL the keys to the Commission for another five years and adopting the EU’s next long term budget framework. While a much stronger emphasis on economic growth and competitiveness will feature more prominently, a complete U-turn on the Green Deal is not expected.

Despite their growing numbers, Le Pen’s followers and others on the far-right will likely not be part of the big ticket decisions in Brussels. But when it comes to the smaller, day-to-day regulatory decision-making in the European Parliament such as whether to impose more stringent rules to restore natural ecosystems across Europe, there will be a large group to the right of centre which the EPP can rely on for votes where it suits them. The Socialist and Green political families may find themselves outside of the fold of decision-making to a much greater extent in the next Parliament. While the green agenda doesn’t go away, expect some serious tempering, especially where there is a trade-off between growth and green.

Alongside the green agenda and competitiveness, security and defence are emerging as the third key political agenda item in Brussels. 

This involves both shoring up Europe’s defence capabilities through industrial policy. It also involves greater economic security measures – trade defence instruments, possible inward / outward investment restrictions, localisation requirements. This will inevitably impact Europe’s openness to non-EU investment and business. A nativist agenda could run-up against the competitiveness agenda which may necessitate greater investment from outside Europe and reliance on other global jurisdictions like the U.S. and China.

One thing is certain, the next five years promise to be complex and turbulent, as the EU navigates the acute global challenges of our times across a fragmented political landscape. 

In 2019, von der Leyen promised a “geopolitical Commission”; over the next five years, Europe will be exploring the frontiers of a geopolitical EU.