The tenth parliamentary term of the European Parliament begins today. MEPs, staff, visitors and journalists can enjoy the new access area at the Parliament’s headquarters in Strasbourg. The security gates in the barracks are history. When the crowds are there, they can now queue in a beautiful, new, underground, covered and well-tempered area.
As the first official act, the 720 MEPs will elect the President of Parliament from ten o’clock. Roberta Metsola is running again for the EPP and is likely to get a good result due to her great popularity. In the short term, however, the left-wing candidate Irene Montero will also be standing. The 14 vice-presidents will then be elected. It will be exciting.
Are candidates from non-attached groups appearing? Will the agreements between the Christian Democrats, Socialists and Liberals for the cordon sanitaire work, i.e. will they let the candidate of the radical right-wing “Patriots for Europe” group fall through and elect a fifth vice-president of the S&D Group instead? Will the candidate of the conservative ECR Group get the necessary votes? Up to three rounds of voting are possible; between the rounds, the political groups will decide whether to withdraw candidates in order to spare themselves the humiliation of losing the vote.
On Wednesday, Parliament will vote on the numerical composition of the committees and delegations. It appears that the EPP and the ECR will swap the chairmanship of two committees: The head post in the Civil Liberties Committee (LIBE) will go to the Christian Democrats, in return the ECR will chair the Agriculture Committee (AGRI). This completes the constitution of Parliament.
Ursula von der Leyen will get all the attention on Thursday. She will present her government program at nine o’clock in the plenary session and then face the vote from 1 pm. Only one ballot is possible. One thing is clear: hot days are ahead in Strasbourg.
Estonia’s Kaja Kallas is not expected to take up the position of EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs until November. However, the Balts already seem to be setting the pace in dealing with Viktor Orbán’s “peace mission” and the Hungarian Council Presidency. Under pressure from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, the capitals are currently discussing moving the informal Council of Foreign Affairs and Defense Ministers from Budapest to Brussels at the end of August.
Nothing has been decided yet, Josep Borrell is in “listening mode,” according to diplomats. It is not prescribed in the treaties to hold the informal councils in the country holding the EU Council Presidency. The Gymnich and the informal meeting of defense ministers in particular would be comparatively easy, as the EU high representative for foreign affairs invites them purely out of courtesy together with the host country.
Opinions are divided. Austria’s Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg shares the criticism of Orban’s travel activities, but has spoken out firmly against a boycott: “We should draw clear lines, but also not go to far.”
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is also reportedly against a boycott of the Gymnich or other meetings in the Hungarian capital. According to opponents of a boycott, appearances in Budapest are also an opportunity to fly the flag. Depending on the outcome of the exploratory talks in the capitals, EU Representative for Foreign Affairs Borrell could announce at the regular meeting of foreign ministers next Monday that the Gymnich will be held in Brussels.
The focus is also on the meeting of foreign ministers because Viktor Orbán’s escapades affect this policy area. The scenario in which some of the foreign ministers travel to Budapest while others meet in Brussels is considered unlikely.
According to reports, it is too early to discuss a boycott of the informal summit of heads of state and government in Budapest in November. They first want to wait and see whether Orbán will continue in the same vein after the summer break. Hungary’s diplomats in Brussels have signaled that the visit to Donald Trump following the NATO summit in Washington was the last stop on the “peace mission.”
Taking the EU presidency away from Hungary altogether and allowing Poland’s presidency to begin earlier has been abandoned. This is the result of investigations by the Council’s legal service. Before the start of the Council Presidency, a qualified majority of 20 member states would have been sufficient, after it there would be no legal basis for a withdrawal.
Orbán’s escapades also reached the Agriculture Council on Monday. In view of the Hungarian head of government’s recent unannounced trips to Moscow, Beijing and to Donald Trump in the USA, German Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir warned on the sidelines of the meeting: the Council Presidency entails the responsibility “to cover and represent the entire European Union and not so much one’s own political agenda.” He expected Hungary to shape its future presidency accordingly.
Germany has not joined the six countries which, according to media reports, are boycotting meetings of the Hungarian Council Presidency at the ministerial level and only want to send officials. However, Özdemir made it clear that whether he would attend the informal meeting of agriculture ministers in Budapest in September would depend on how Budapest continues to act. The informal meetings are also seen as an opportunity for the respective host country to present itself and its agriculture in a good light through local visits. Many EU agriculture ministers are likely to think twice before granting their Hungarian colleague István Nagy this opportunity.
A two-day informal council – the meeting of energy ministers in Budapest – began on Monday. The responsible Federal Minister for Economic Affairs, Robert Habeck, traveled to the G7 trade ministers’ meeting in Italy as announced and planned for a long time, a spokeswoman explained upon request. However, Habeck had already been represented at earlier informal energy meetings by State Secretary Sven Giegold. The spokesperson did not provide any information on who is currently representing the minister in Budapest.
The EU Commission announced on Monday evening that it would no longer be sending commissioners to informal ministerial meetings during Hungary’s Council Presidency. In light of recent developments since the beginning of Hungary’s EU Presidency, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has decided to only send senior officials to Budapest for informal meetings. Chief spokesman Eric Mamer also announced that the traditional visit of the College of Commissioners to the EU Council Presidency in Budapest had been definitively canceled.
The Hungarian government reacted indignantly to von der Leyen’s move. “The EU Commission cannot cherry pick institutions and ministers it wants to cooperate with. Are all Commission decisions now based on political considerations?” wrote Hungary’s Minister for EU Affairs, Janos Boka, on X.
Disinformation, deep fakes and foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) – before the 2024 European elections, there was much discussion about possible threats to the integrity of the European Parliament elections. In retrospect, it seems that the fears were exaggerated.
“There was an increase in activity before the elections, but it was not significant,” says Peter Stano, Senior Spokesperson for Foreign and Security Policy at the Commission. “We did not detect any major incidents that would have caused a significant disruption to the normal electoral process in the EU during the European elections.” The 2019 European elections had already attracted the attention of disinformation actors. “So, we were prepared, we had measures in place and we were protected.”
Did the attacks fail to materialize or did the defensive measures actually work? “It’s called the prevention paradox,” says Michael Meyer-Resende, Executive Director at Democracy Reporting International. “If you raise awareness and do a lot, you might be able to prevent something. Then it looks as if it wasn’t worth the fuss. But maybe that’s exactly why it was.”
Meyer-Resende also says that, according to previous findings, no organization has discovered a massive influence campaign. Be it through false information about the election itself, through political disinformation against very specific party programs or deep fakes. Such a case had previously occurred in the presidential elections in Slovakia, for example. There, a candidate allegedly spoke about electoral fraud in an audio deep fake.
However, political disinformation does not only occur around elections. “It never stops, you always have to price it in,” says Meyer-Resende. “It has taken place, as the fact-checkers in the EU member states have constantly pointed out.” The fact that there was no massive influence shows that there is no reason for hysteria, says Meyer-Resende. “But it’s also no reason to let up.”
In addition to the prevention paradox, there is a second dilemma: it could also be that the attacks were simply not detected. “There is a theory that disinformation is increasingly migrating to messenger services because the large platforms are a little more careful than they used to be,” says Meyer-Resende. Telegram, for example, is not (yet) subject to the strict rules that apply to very large online platforms under the Digital Services Act (DSA). “Disinformation then takes place in smaller spaces, i.e. decentralized.” This makes dissemination somewhat more difficult, but also more difficult to trace.
Julian Jaursch from the think tank Interface (formerly Stiftung Neue Verantwortung) explains that the lack of massive disinformation campaigns allows for two perspectives. One perspective is that the pre-election alarmism may even be playing into the hands of the actors. After all, they aim to scare people and make them feel insecure. The other perspective: the fact that no attack was detected does not mean that there is no danger. “Because when disinformation is done well, it doesn’t attract attention,” says Jaursch. “If it flies under the radar, is not highlighted by fact-checkers and the media, but is only discovered years later, then it is successful disinformation.”
Jaursch believes that it may therefore be premature to draw conclusions at this stage. Moreover, the attackers are not just interested in changing people’s opinions or behavior. “It’s about poisoning the environment in which people inform themselves, consume news, take part in discussions and form their political opinions. This also works with small or even a few campaigns or false facts.”
Jaursch sees threats at both ends of the spectrum. It is not advisable to be alarmist and make this problem bigger than it is. Nor can we ignore the dangers of disinformation that exist for certain groups such as journalists, women in politics or political minorities.
All three experts warn that artificial intelligence will make the spread of disinformation easier, faster and cheaper. There is basically one thing that can help against this: “Media literacy is crucial,” says Stano. “People need to know that their opinions are being targeted and that attempts are being made to manipulate them.” It is therefore important to raise awareness of how to recognize disinformation and how to deal with sources of information. “So that people don’t just take everything they read on their cell phones at face value,” explains Stano. This requires high-quality journalism, better research and access to data, adds Jaursch.
The DSA is just one of several tools that the EU has, emphasizes Stano. “It will take time for it to develop its full potential, but it is an important legal framework for the operation of social platforms through which disinformation is spread.” But there is basically no time.
“We expect more concentrated and powerful efforts and interventions specifically linked to elections in the individual member states,” explains Stano. The elections in the member states are more important to the attackers than the elections at EU level. It plays into their propaganda or ideology that the EU is disintegrating from within, at member state level. Via governments that hinder European integration or reject European policies. “The main aim of the attackers is to create confusion and mistrust among people so that they no longer trust their political leaders or the political-social model.” And this is not only the case around elections.
The leader of the Spanish far-right, Santiago Abascal, has broken the governing alliance between Vox and the People’s Party (PP) in the regions of Valencia, Aragon, Murcia, Extremadura and Castile and León. Vox has been in the regional governments for just one year. The PP had agreed to take in 347 underage migrants. Abascal then terminated the cooperation.
Nobody elected Vox “to continue the invasion of illegal immigration and unaccompanied minors,” said Abascal last Thursday. Last week, representatives of the regional governments and the central government decided to transfer some of the 6,000 unaccompanied migrant minors (known as “menas”) currently on the Canary Islands to accommodation on the mainland. The PP agreed to relocate 347 minors, 120 of them to regions where it governs with Vox.
With its decision to end its cooperation with the PP, Vox is intensifying its xenophobic course and following on from the party’s recent realignment at the European level. Together with the Austrian FPÖ, the Italian Lega, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National and Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz, Vox has founded the far-right group “Patriots for Europe.”
However, Abascal’s move is also seen as a mistake within Vox, as it sends the message that stable government work is not possible with Vox. The Vox MPs in Extremadura and Castilla y León are already rebelling against Abascal and refusing to resign.
Abascal replies that his party “has given in, perhaps sometimes too much” in order to maintain coalitions with the PP and forge an alternative to Pedro Sánchez’s government. The Vox leader accused PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo of having worked to “first obstruct and then torpedo all agreements with Vox in the regions.”
For his part, Feijóo declared that he would not allow himself to be blackmailed by anyone and asked the Vox MPs “not to hinder governability in the autonomous communities and political change in Spain.” The PP can also govern alone and as a minority in the affected regions.
Vox has thus also given up its attempt to enter government through cooperation with the PP. Like Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia, which began as a minority partner of Forza Italia, Vox wanted to impose a far-right course on a possible future government in Madrid. With one issue in particular: in the last three years, Vox has conducted an intensive campaign against immigration. In the 2021 regional elections, the campaign focused on the subsidies that underage migrants receive, with posters reading: “A migrant receives €4700 a month, your grandmother receives €426 in pension.”
During the last parliamentary elections, the Vox campaign focused on housing and spread the narrative that rent subsidies were intended for migrants. At a congress organized by Vox in May to rally the international ultra-right, there was a call to defend “strong borders.”
Vox is currently the third-strongest party in Spain. The new Spanish far-right party Se Acabó la Fiesta (SALF), which received 800,000 votes and three seats in the European elections – half as many as Vox – now appears to be the party with which Vox will compete at the national level.
Europe is at a critical juncture. As it grapples with a rapidly changing global order, a far-reaching technological revolution, and the climate crisis, decisive action is needed. Lawmakers from across Europe must be hard at work to make people safer, and better off. There is no successful course of action that doesn’t involve doubling down on climate. This can only be achieved by stepping up efforts to protect the climate and embedding climate policy in the wider context of industrial policy, trade, security and foreign policy.
When European citizens cast their votes a month ago, the cost of living, international conflicts, and immigration were top concerns when deciding who to vote for. Against this backdrop, the newly elected Members of the European Parliament are meeting in Strasbourg for the first time and will decide whether to support Ursula von der Leyen and the political priorities she will pitch to them.
If Europeans’ concerns dictate these priorities, climate action must be front and centre – this is also economically necessary. Let’s look at energy costs: between 2021 and 2023, increased renewables capacity has already saved European consumers €100 billion. Nevertheless, the International Energy Agency has established that the EU economy remains exposed to fossil fuel price volatility, and decarbonised energy will lower energy prices.
To make people feel safe, lawmakers need to take a lucid look at rising climate impacts and improve our societal resilience to it. Extreme climate events are already causing severe impact on infrastructure, agriculture, and human health. The 2022 heatwave caused an estimated €40 billion of economic losses, and more than 60,000 heat-related deaths in Europe, with the highest share in Italy, Spain, Germany, France.
To protect Europe, even the most ambitious defence policy would not be sufficient. Without actively supporting the global fight against climate change, the EU will remain a small yet mighty region in a heating world, competing for resources. Polls conducted by Money Talks show that trust from emerging economies and leading African countries towards European investors is lower than towards those from the US, Canada, UK, Japan and the UAE. To strengthen its influence in a new world order, the EU must integrate climate into its strategy and build cooperation to avoid catastrophic climate change.
To keep Europe united, cooperation in giving a new breath of life to a European industrial policy will be essential. The gap between Northern and Southern Europe’s resilience to climate impacts can shape future EU politics as much as the fiscal gap does now. But equally, coastal and Southern regions have remarkable opportunities to become hubs for hydrogen production or green manufacturing.
European competitiveness, defence, the single market and the multilateral law order are expected to feature heavily in Ursula von der Leyen’s programme. But what about the European Green Deal? The EU’s whole-of-economy transformation project to climate neutrality survived the COVID pandemic and Russia’s attack on Ukraine but is missing in action following the European elections’ campaign. Well, long live the European Green Deal!
As the largest EU member state and an important industrialized country, Germany is in a strong position to drive forward the debates on a “green industrial revolution” in the EU, supported by an open and fair trade policy. Germany is, often unnoticed, an important green tech producer and exporter: the share of “GreenTech made in Germany” exceeds Germany’s share of global economic output many times over.
The European Green Deal can live on through a renewed focus on a social Europe that protects citizens against climate impacts, a truly green European industrial policy, and an ambitious foreign policy that fosters clean economy partnerships abroad.
According to European election surveys, more than 8 in 10 Europeans expect to see more climate action. Will Europe deliver?
Marc Weissgerber is Managing Director of the think tank E3G in Berlin.
The tenth parliamentary term of the European Parliament begins today. MEPs, staff, visitors and journalists can enjoy the new access area at the Parliament’s headquarters in Strasbourg. The security gates in the barracks are history. When the crowds are there, they can now queue in a beautiful, new, underground, covered and well-tempered area.
As the first official act, the 720 MEPs will elect the President of Parliament from ten o’clock. Roberta Metsola is running again for the EPP and is likely to get a good result due to her great popularity. In the short term, however, the left-wing candidate Irene Montero will also be standing. The 14 vice-presidents will then be elected. It will be exciting.
Are candidates from non-attached groups appearing? Will the agreements between the Christian Democrats, Socialists and Liberals for the cordon sanitaire work, i.e. will they let the candidate of the radical right-wing “Patriots for Europe” group fall through and elect a fifth vice-president of the S&D Group instead? Will the candidate of the conservative ECR Group get the necessary votes? Up to three rounds of voting are possible; between the rounds, the political groups will decide whether to withdraw candidates in order to spare themselves the humiliation of losing the vote.
On Wednesday, Parliament will vote on the numerical composition of the committees and delegations. It appears that the EPP and the ECR will swap the chairmanship of two committees: The head post in the Civil Liberties Committee (LIBE) will go to the Christian Democrats, in return the ECR will chair the Agriculture Committee (AGRI). This completes the constitution of Parliament.
Ursula von der Leyen will get all the attention on Thursday. She will present her government program at nine o’clock in the plenary session and then face the vote from 1 pm. Only one ballot is possible. One thing is clear: hot days are ahead in Strasbourg.
Estonia’s Kaja Kallas is not expected to take up the position of EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs until November. However, the Balts already seem to be setting the pace in dealing with Viktor Orbán’s “peace mission” and the Hungarian Council Presidency. Under pressure from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, the capitals are currently discussing moving the informal Council of Foreign Affairs and Defense Ministers from Budapest to Brussels at the end of August.
Nothing has been decided yet, Josep Borrell is in “listening mode,” according to diplomats. It is not prescribed in the treaties to hold the informal councils in the country holding the EU Council Presidency. The Gymnich and the informal meeting of defense ministers in particular would be comparatively easy, as the EU high representative for foreign affairs invites them purely out of courtesy together with the host country.
Opinions are divided. Austria’s Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg shares the criticism of Orban’s travel activities, but has spoken out firmly against a boycott: “We should draw clear lines, but also not go to far.”
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is also reportedly against a boycott of the Gymnich or other meetings in the Hungarian capital. According to opponents of a boycott, appearances in Budapest are also an opportunity to fly the flag. Depending on the outcome of the exploratory talks in the capitals, EU Representative for Foreign Affairs Borrell could announce at the regular meeting of foreign ministers next Monday that the Gymnich will be held in Brussels.
The focus is also on the meeting of foreign ministers because Viktor Orbán’s escapades affect this policy area. The scenario in which some of the foreign ministers travel to Budapest while others meet in Brussels is considered unlikely.
According to reports, it is too early to discuss a boycott of the informal summit of heads of state and government in Budapest in November. They first want to wait and see whether Orbán will continue in the same vein after the summer break. Hungary’s diplomats in Brussels have signaled that the visit to Donald Trump following the NATO summit in Washington was the last stop on the “peace mission.”
Taking the EU presidency away from Hungary altogether and allowing Poland’s presidency to begin earlier has been abandoned. This is the result of investigations by the Council’s legal service. Before the start of the Council Presidency, a qualified majority of 20 member states would have been sufficient, after it there would be no legal basis for a withdrawal.
Orbán’s escapades also reached the Agriculture Council on Monday. In view of the Hungarian head of government’s recent unannounced trips to Moscow, Beijing and to Donald Trump in the USA, German Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir warned on the sidelines of the meeting: the Council Presidency entails the responsibility “to cover and represent the entire European Union and not so much one’s own political agenda.” He expected Hungary to shape its future presidency accordingly.
Germany has not joined the six countries which, according to media reports, are boycotting meetings of the Hungarian Council Presidency at the ministerial level and only want to send officials. However, Özdemir made it clear that whether he would attend the informal meeting of agriculture ministers in Budapest in September would depend on how Budapest continues to act. The informal meetings are also seen as an opportunity for the respective host country to present itself and its agriculture in a good light through local visits. Many EU agriculture ministers are likely to think twice before granting their Hungarian colleague István Nagy this opportunity.
A two-day informal council – the meeting of energy ministers in Budapest – began on Monday. The responsible Federal Minister for Economic Affairs, Robert Habeck, traveled to the G7 trade ministers’ meeting in Italy as announced and planned for a long time, a spokeswoman explained upon request. However, Habeck had already been represented at earlier informal energy meetings by State Secretary Sven Giegold. The spokesperson did not provide any information on who is currently representing the minister in Budapest.
The EU Commission announced on Monday evening that it would no longer be sending commissioners to informal ministerial meetings during Hungary’s Council Presidency. In light of recent developments since the beginning of Hungary’s EU Presidency, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has decided to only send senior officials to Budapest for informal meetings. Chief spokesman Eric Mamer also announced that the traditional visit of the College of Commissioners to the EU Council Presidency in Budapest had been definitively canceled.
The Hungarian government reacted indignantly to von der Leyen’s move. “The EU Commission cannot cherry pick institutions and ministers it wants to cooperate with. Are all Commission decisions now based on political considerations?” wrote Hungary’s Minister for EU Affairs, Janos Boka, on X.
Disinformation, deep fakes and foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) – before the 2024 European elections, there was much discussion about possible threats to the integrity of the European Parliament elections. In retrospect, it seems that the fears were exaggerated.
“There was an increase in activity before the elections, but it was not significant,” says Peter Stano, Senior Spokesperson for Foreign and Security Policy at the Commission. “We did not detect any major incidents that would have caused a significant disruption to the normal electoral process in the EU during the European elections.” The 2019 European elections had already attracted the attention of disinformation actors. “So, we were prepared, we had measures in place and we were protected.”
Did the attacks fail to materialize or did the defensive measures actually work? “It’s called the prevention paradox,” says Michael Meyer-Resende, Executive Director at Democracy Reporting International. “If you raise awareness and do a lot, you might be able to prevent something. Then it looks as if it wasn’t worth the fuss. But maybe that’s exactly why it was.”
Meyer-Resende also says that, according to previous findings, no organization has discovered a massive influence campaign. Be it through false information about the election itself, through political disinformation against very specific party programs or deep fakes. Such a case had previously occurred in the presidential elections in Slovakia, for example. There, a candidate allegedly spoke about electoral fraud in an audio deep fake.
However, political disinformation does not only occur around elections. “It never stops, you always have to price it in,” says Meyer-Resende. “It has taken place, as the fact-checkers in the EU member states have constantly pointed out.” The fact that there was no massive influence shows that there is no reason for hysteria, says Meyer-Resende. “But it’s also no reason to let up.”
In addition to the prevention paradox, there is a second dilemma: it could also be that the attacks were simply not detected. “There is a theory that disinformation is increasingly migrating to messenger services because the large platforms are a little more careful than they used to be,” says Meyer-Resende. Telegram, for example, is not (yet) subject to the strict rules that apply to very large online platforms under the Digital Services Act (DSA). “Disinformation then takes place in smaller spaces, i.e. decentralized.” This makes dissemination somewhat more difficult, but also more difficult to trace.
Julian Jaursch from the think tank Interface (formerly Stiftung Neue Verantwortung) explains that the lack of massive disinformation campaigns allows for two perspectives. One perspective is that the pre-election alarmism may even be playing into the hands of the actors. After all, they aim to scare people and make them feel insecure. The other perspective: the fact that no attack was detected does not mean that there is no danger. “Because when disinformation is done well, it doesn’t attract attention,” says Jaursch. “If it flies under the radar, is not highlighted by fact-checkers and the media, but is only discovered years later, then it is successful disinformation.”
Jaursch believes that it may therefore be premature to draw conclusions at this stage. Moreover, the attackers are not just interested in changing people’s opinions or behavior. “It’s about poisoning the environment in which people inform themselves, consume news, take part in discussions and form their political opinions. This also works with small or even a few campaigns or false facts.”
Jaursch sees threats at both ends of the spectrum. It is not advisable to be alarmist and make this problem bigger than it is. Nor can we ignore the dangers of disinformation that exist for certain groups such as journalists, women in politics or political minorities.
All three experts warn that artificial intelligence will make the spread of disinformation easier, faster and cheaper. There is basically one thing that can help against this: “Media literacy is crucial,” says Stano. “People need to know that their opinions are being targeted and that attempts are being made to manipulate them.” It is therefore important to raise awareness of how to recognize disinformation and how to deal with sources of information. “So that people don’t just take everything they read on their cell phones at face value,” explains Stano. This requires high-quality journalism, better research and access to data, adds Jaursch.
The DSA is just one of several tools that the EU has, emphasizes Stano. “It will take time for it to develop its full potential, but it is an important legal framework for the operation of social platforms through which disinformation is spread.” But there is basically no time.
“We expect more concentrated and powerful efforts and interventions specifically linked to elections in the individual member states,” explains Stano. The elections in the member states are more important to the attackers than the elections at EU level. It plays into their propaganda or ideology that the EU is disintegrating from within, at member state level. Via governments that hinder European integration or reject European policies. “The main aim of the attackers is to create confusion and mistrust among people so that they no longer trust their political leaders or the political-social model.” And this is not only the case around elections.
The leader of the Spanish far-right, Santiago Abascal, has broken the governing alliance between Vox and the People’s Party (PP) in the regions of Valencia, Aragon, Murcia, Extremadura and Castile and León. Vox has been in the regional governments for just one year. The PP had agreed to take in 347 underage migrants. Abascal then terminated the cooperation.
Nobody elected Vox “to continue the invasion of illegal immigration and unaccompanied minors,” said Abascal last Thursday. Last week, representatives of the regional governments and the central government decided to transfer some of the 6,000 unaccompanied migrant minors (known as “menas”) currently on the Canary Islands to accommodation on the mainland. The PP agreed to relocate 347 minors, 120 of them to regions where it governs with Vox.
With its decision to end its cooperation with the PP, Vox is intensifying its xenophobic course and following on from the party’s recent realignment at the European level. Together with the Austrian FPÖ, the Italian Lega, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National and Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz, Vox has founded the far-right group “Patriots for Europe.”
However, Abascal’s move is also seen as a mistake within Vox, as it sends the message that stable government work is not possible with Vox. The Vox MPs in Extremadura and Castilla y León are already rebelling against Abascal and refusing to resign.
Abascal replies that his party “has given in, perhaps sometimes too much” in order to maintain coalitions with the PP and forge an alternative to Pedro Sánchez’s government. The Vox leader accused PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo of having worked to “first obstruct and then torpedo all agreements with Vox in the regions.”
For his part, Feijóo declared that he would not allow himself to be blackmailed by anyone and asked the Vox MPs “not to hinder governability in the autonomous communities and political change in Spain.” The PP can also govern alone and as a minority in the affected regions.
Vox has thus also given up its attempt to enter government through cooperation with the PP. Like Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia, which began as a minority partner of Forza Italia, Vox wanted to impose a far-right course on a possible future government in Madrid. With one issue in particular: in the last three years, Vox has conducted an intensive campaign against immigration. In the 2021 regional elections, the campaign focused on the subsidies that underage migrants receive, with posters reading: “A migrant receives €4700 a month, your grandmother receives €426 in pension.”
During the last parliamentary elections, the Vox campaign focused on housing and spread the narrative that rent subsidies were intended for migrants. At a congress organized by Vox in May to rally the international ultra-right, there was a call to defend “strong borders.”
Vox is currently the third-strongest party in Spain. The new Spanish far-right party Se Acabó la Fiesta (SALF), which received 800,000 votes and three seats in the European elections – half as many as Vox – now appears to be the party with which Vox will compete at the national level.
Europe is at a critical juncture. As it grapples with a rapidly changing global order, a far-reaching technological revolution, and the climate crisis, decisive action is needed. Lawmakers from across Europe must be hard at work to make people safer, and better off. There is no successful course of action that doesn’t involve doubling down on climate. This can only be achieved by stepping up efforts to protect the climate and embedding climate policy in the wider context of industrial policy, trade, security and foreign policy.
When European citizens cast their votes a month ago, the cost of living, international conflicts, and immigration were top concerns when deciding who to vote for. Against this backdrop, the newly elected Members of the European Parliament are meeting in Strasbourg for the first time and will decide whether to support Ursula von der Leyen and the political priorities she will pitch to them.
If Europeans’ concerns dictate these priorities, climate action must be front and centre – this is also economically necessary. Let’s look at energy costs: between 2021 and 2023, increased renewables capacity has already saved European consumers €100 billion. Nevertheless, the International Energy Agency has established that the EU economy remains exposed to fossil fuel price volatility, and decarbonised energy will lower energy prices.
To make people feel safe, lawmakers need to take a lucid look at rising climate impacts and improve our societal resilience to it. Extreme climate events are already causing severe impact on infrastructure, agriculture, and human health. The 2022 heatwave caused an estimated €40 billion of economic losses, and more than 60,000 heat-related deaths in Europe, with the highest share in Italy, Spain, Germany, France.
To protect Europe, even the most ambitious defence policy would not be sufficient. Without actively supporting the global fight against climate change, the EU will remain a small yet mighty region in a heating world, competing for resources. Polls conducted by Money Talks show that trust from emerging economies and leading African countries towards European investors is lower than towards those from the US, Canada, UK, Japan and the UAE. To strengthen its influence in a new world order, the EU must integrate climate into its strategy and build cooperation to avoid catastrophic climate change.
To keep Europe united, cooperation in giving a new breath of life to a European industrial policy will be essential. The gap between Northern and Southern Europe’s resilience to climate impacts can shape future EU politics as much as the fiscal gap does now. But equally, coastal and Southern regions have remarkable opportunities to become hubs for hydrogen production or green manufacturing.
European competitiveness, defence, the single market and the multilateral law order are expected to feature heavily in Ursula von der Leyen’s programme. But what about the European Green Deal? The EU’s whole-of-economy transformation project to climate neutrality survived the COVID pandemic and Russia’s attack on Ukraine but is missing in action following the European elections’ campaign. Well, long live the European Green Deal!
As the largest EU member state and an important industrialized country, Germany is in a strong position to drive forward the debates on a “green industrial revolution” in the EU, supported by an open and fair trade policy. Germany is, often unnoticed, an important green tech producer and exporter: the share of “GreenTech made in Germany” exceeds Germany’s share of global economic output many times over.
The European Green Deal can live on through a renewed focus on a social Europe that protects citizens against climate impacts, a truly green European industrial policy, and an ambitious foreign policy that fosters clean economy partnerships abroad.
According to European election surveys, more than 8 in 10 Europeans expect to see more climate action. Will Europe deliver?
Marc Weissgerber is Managing Director of the think tank E3G in Berlin.
