Looking ahead to the EU elections 2024

At LOW Associates, we have a long and deep experience creating and managing campaigns for our clients. For example, recently we helped the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung get its ‘Twelve Missions for a Progressive Europe’ policy ideas into party election manifestos from Dublin to Sofia.  

With the European Parliament elections just around the corner, we thought that this would be a good opportunity for us to use that expertise to explain their significance.  

This article describes what will happen, what we think it means, and why it matters.

What will happen

Ever since the first elections to the European Parliament in 1979, being a European elections observer has been a rather simple job. Due to the nature of the vote, namely it being the sum of national votes in the EU Member States, not many shifts have traditionally taken place in the European Parliament. Between 1979 and 1999, the centre-left were the largest group in the Parliament, and ever since 1999, the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) has been the winner of the elections. 

In a sense, this will not change in the June vote. But in another sense, the June election may mark a change: it is indeed possible that the three-party ‘grand coalition’ between the alphabet soup of centre-right, centre-left, and centrists (currently under the banner of the Renew Europe group) will come under significant strain, and the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) might in some votes be replaced by the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR), depending on how the election turns out.  

Perhaps the most important vote in which one can expect this is the vote for the Commission President herself: given that Ursula von der Leyen was elected by a slim majority in 2019, she will likely require votes from the ECR to get re-elected in 2024 (as by some accounts she did in 2019).

Source: Europe Elects

What it means

Such a right-wing majority will not manifest itself across all policy areas the EU deals with. It is expected that support for Ukraine, where there is a disagreement between the pro-Ukrainian EPP and ECR and the more ambiguous Identity and Democracy (ID) group, does not seem to be in danger at all. However, the realignment that has taken and will take place within the right-wing European political groups may yet put a spanner in the works even there.

After coming to power in 2023, Giorgia Meloni and her party Brothers of Italy (who belong in the ECR) have redefined what it means to be a far-right politician in the EU. On EU matters, Meloni tends to be cooperative and does not represent as much of a change from previous centre-right Italian governments as some had perhaps expected. But equally, speculation that Meloni wants to onboard Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party into the ECR has sparked fears that the most important distinction between ECR and ID may start to fade. This in turn could scare certain ECR members away; most notably the Sweden Democrats (SD) and the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), who have publicly said that they are considering seeking EPP membership in view of Fidesz’s potential move. Pair this with the fact that Ursula von der Leyen has refused to rule out cooperating with the ECR (in the Spitzenkandidaten debate, she said it would depend on ‘their size and the composition of the Parliament’), and you can easily see that the first few months after the elections may prove to be a messy affair indeed.

Why it matters

The changes to the Parliament’s composition, and (within the Parliament) on the right of the political spectrum, will prompt a change in the EU’s priorities.

The most significant casualty of the European elections is likely to be the EU’s Green Deal agenda, brought into life in 2019 by Commission President von der Leyen. 2023 and 2024 have already seen moves by the EPP to water down climate policies such as the nature restoration law. In view of the farmers’ protests that have left politicians scrambling for a response in recent months, we have also seen this green backlash affecting agricultural policies. We can expect this trend to continue in the new Parliament if the EPP does in fact start cooperating with ECR.

The EU’s foreign policy direction will most likely remain unchanged. Support for Ukraine, even if the ECR develops a ‘Ukraine-sceptic’ faction, will remain among the three groups in the centre plus the Greens. The Commission is not interested in renegotiating parts of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement with the UK, prompting an incoming Labour government to look beyond the terms of the TCA to obtain a closer relationship with the EU. And on China, a stronger (China-sceptic) ECR coupled with a stronger (China-friendly) ID means that most likely the current position of strategic ambiguity will not change much.

Navigating the ever more complex EU machinery that will emerge after the European elections won’t be easy.  But  LOW is here to help. You can learn more about the work we do representing all manner of clients here, and if you’re a British business or business organisation, you may want to explore the LOW London offer.

Author: Arno Sterck