‘We are going to decide which Europe we want to live in’: the old continent goes to the polls with the balance tilted to the right

The elections will serve, according to the president of the European Parliament, the Maltese Roberta Metsola, “to decide in which Europe we want to live.”

Europeans do not vote for continental lists, so The “European elections” are actually 27 national elections. But once chosen, MEPs will not sit in the European Parliament in national but ideological groups. The terms are five years and the European Parliament cannot be dissolved, not even during an electoral period. The outgoing MEPs are MEPs until the same day that the incoming ones take office.

The election is the first step in reconfiguring the power of the institutions that make up the EU. Following this citizen decision, national leaders will meet on June 28 and 29 at the European Council. If there is an agreement, the political pact to elect the bloc’s senior officials will emerge from there, a complex game of regional, ideological and gender balances that must take into account the electoral result.

The main political families of this last legislature were the conservative (176 seats), the social democratic (139), the liberal (102), the environmentalist (72), two extreme right (69 and 49), the former communists (37) . Without a group, 61 were left until there were 705, although 751 had been chosen, but a part was reduced after the definitive departure of the British for the brexit.

The polls assure that the conservatives are very close to repeating the resultthat the social democrats will rise very little, that liberals and environmentalists will fall by up to a quarter and that the two extreme right will grow. Together, because they are discussing their union, they could be the second European parliamentary force.

If its rise is not greater than what the polls predict, the majority will continue to form around a large European coalition which should bring together conservatives, social democrats, liberals and environmentalists.

To form a group two requirements must be met: that has a minimum of 23 members and that at least seven Member States are represented.
After taking office, they will go on vacation in mid-July and return the last week of August, when they will begin their work. The first thing they will receive will be the list of the 27 people who will form the European Commission in the next five years. Each one, from a Member State and appointed directly by its government.

All of them must pass an audition before a committee of the European Parliament, which must give them its approval one by one. When this process ends, the plenary session must vote by absolute majority (361 favorable votes) for the entire new European Commission.

The European Parliament has been gradually assuming more functions since its beginnings as a Parliamentary Assembly that was not elected, but was made up of national deputies. His election by universal suffrage began in 1976, and his political weight never stopped increasing. It is not a typical Parliament because it does not have a legislative initiative. It can propose to the other institutions of the bloc that they legislate on this or that, but it does not start the processes. Yes, he is the one who must give the final approval to all the bloc’s legislation. The increase in powers of the European Union, which is being extracted from national governments and parliaments, thus makes its role very important.

Three weeks after the elections, national leaders will meet in Brussels to elect the bloc’s senior officials. The election of the presidency of the European Commission, which serves as the executive arm of the bloc, is essential because it is the institution that has the legislative initiative. Leaders make this choice by qualified majority (55% of Member States representing at least 65% of the population).

The German Ursula von der Leyen is the favorite to renew for another five years. Without it, names such as the former Italian Prime Minister and former President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, and the current Prime Ministers Kyriakos Mitsotakis (Greek) or Donald Tusk (Polish) are heard.

Except for Draghi, who has no clear political affiliation, the others are all from the European People’s Party (right), because it is understood that the first political force has the right to claim that position. With that seat occupied, the second most important is that of the presidency of the European Council, which is now occupied by the Belgian liberal Charles Michel. The Social Democrats demand it (and should obtain it) for the former Portuguese premier Antonio Costa or the Danish premier, Mette Frederiksen.

If tradition is respected, the third most important position, that of the high representative for Foreign Policy, which is now held by the Spanish-Argentine Josep Borrell, would be for the third political family.. The liberals will try to claim it so that it does not fall into the hands of the extreme right.