What's happening in Europe? - How does Europe look like in the summer of 2024?

Gerrit Jan Bouwhuis

The pollictical leaders of renew.

In eight contributions to this journal several developments in Europe were addressed. In this article some current events will take centre stage. I will first look to five countries: the UK, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. Then I will describe the political composition of the current European Parliament since the elections on June 9 and we will have a short look at the new European Commission that the President and the countries are working on. This article is mainly descriptive. In a next article I will give my opinion on the European project.

The United Kingdom 

The UK is no longer part of the EU, but of course it is an important country in Europe. On June 4 there were parliamentary elections. The results were as follows:

Table 1: Results Parliamentary Elections UK 4-6-24 (including changes compared with 2019)

Turn-out and Political Parties	Elections 2019	Elections 2024
				Turn-out	67,3	59,9
	Seats: number	Seats: perc.	Votes: perc.	Seats: number	Seats: perc.	Votes: perc.
Labour Party	202	31,1	32,1	411	63,2	33,7
Conservative Party	365	56,2	43,6	121	18,6	23,7
Liberal Democrats	11	1,7	11,6	72	11,1	12,2
Scottish National Party (SNP)	48	7,4	3,9	9	1,4	2,5
Reform UK	-	-	-	5	0,8	14,3
Green Party	1	0,2	2,6	4	0,6	6,4
Other (N. Ireland, Wales, other)	23	3,4	6,2	28	4,3	7,2
Total	650	100	100	650	100	100

The UK has an outspoken district system: in each district the candidate with most of the votes is elected (an absolute majority is not necessary; only one round of voting is needed). This system favors the two largest parties and almost always results in an absolute majority in Parliament. It is unfavorable for small parties. They get almost no seats. These elections clearly showed how big the differences can be between the “popular vote” and the composition of Parliament in this system. The most striking results in these elections (rounded up): Labour has 63% of the seats with 34% of the “popular vote. Labour has won 1.6% in votes and 32% in seats. Reform UK has 14.3% of the votes and 0.8% of the seats. Analogous results exist for the Greens. The loss of the Scottish SNP is also striking: losing 50% of the “popular” vote, resulted in a loss over 80% of the seats. Labour governs with the votes of only 20% of the electorate (Turnout 60%; Popular vote 33%). In my opinion it is legitimate to ask whether this system is democratically healthy. The people's representation is not at all a reflection of the population. And that is in my opinion the first function of a Parliament: to represent the people in all their diversity.

It is clear the Conservatives have lost. They lost almost half of their voters. Why did they lose? One could say: about every 14 years the British want a change of power. It is also possible the Conservatives’ image was unstable: several prime ministers since 2019. However, I think the most important factor is the great dissatisfaction among the population. That explains the victory of Reform UK (Farage). Protest votes. As a result, the Conservatives lost dramatically. In many districts, Labour became largest because the conservative votes were divided between the Tories and Reform UK.

Now Labour is in power. Prime Minister: Keith Starmer. He has quickly found himself in a challenge. Some weeks ago, a wave of riots swept the country. They came from the “right” (initiated by the murder of three children by a Rwandan). Starmer took very tough action against the demonstrators. More than 1,000 arrests have been made, the police has said. Opposition Leader Sunak accused Starmer of double standards, because he was very mild or silent on aggressive acts from other sides. In a Dutch online medium his comments on the “George Floyd riots” in 2020 (2 billion damage) were shown. They were very mild. The analysis of the conservative thinker Douglas Murray is that the UK has an indigenous underclass with no perspective, a problem that the government has been unable to solve or reduce. In the meantime, immigration continues unabated (even after Brexit). That is a recipe for tensions. Conclusion: In the UK technically there is political stability (a large majority in the Parliament), but socially not at all.

France

An hour after the exit poll of the European elections was announced on June 9, Macron dissolved the Assemblée, the French Parliament, and announced new elections in three weeks. The French President has many powers since the fifth Republic, created by De Gaulle, started. He can do this alone. The exit poll showed that the political bloc on which Macron relies had lost significantly. Why Macron took this step and what he wanted to achieve with it, is still a mystery to everyone. So the elections took place on June 30 and July 7.

France also has a district system, but different from the UK. A candidate must obtain 50% of the votes cast. That is why there are two rounds. In the first round, only the candidates who immediately obtain 50% are elected. That is always only a limited number, this time 76 of the 577 seats. A second round follows in the other districts. The two highest-ranking candidates plus those who obtain at least 12.5% ​​of the registered voters participate in that round. This last element in the system, plus a much higher participation than five years ago, proved to be crucial for the outcome of these elections. It turned out that in 306 districts a “three-way runoff” had to take place, in 5 districts even a “four-way”. That was a huge record (in 2022 it was 8, in 2017 only 1, in 1997 it had once been 105). And this made a political strategy possible!   

Immediately after the elections were announced, the “Left” had formed a “New Popular Front” consisting of four parties: Rebellious France (strongly “leftist”), Socialists, Greens and Communists. Now there were three blocs: the “Left”, the “Centre” (Macron) and the “Right” (Le Pen). The Left and the Centre decided to block the Right (Le Pen). They supported each other candidates. 216 candidates were withdrawn. The strategy worked. The Right (Le Pen) came only in third place, notwithstanding having by far the largest percentage of the popular vote. To complete the picture, besides the three blocs, there are also The Republicans (the former Gaullists). Up till now Macron governs with their support. They were divided about working together with Le Pen. Their President, Mr Ciotti, wanted to do that. The Party threw him out. He formed its own bloc and got 17 seats, part of the Le Pen bloc. The Republicans dropped from 61 to 39. Let’s see in detail to the results:

Table 2: Results Parliamentary Elections France 7-7-24 (including changes compared with 2022)

Turn-out and Political Parties	Elections 2019, 2nd round	Elections 2024, 2nd round
				Turn-out (percentage)	46,23	66,63
	Seats: number	Seats: perc.	Votes: perc.	Seats: number	Seats: perc.	Votes: perc.
National Rally and Allies	89	15,4	17,3	143	24,61	37,06
National Rally (Le Pen)	(89)			(126)
Republicans-Ciotti	n.a.			(17)
New Popular Front	131	22,7	31,60	180	31,2	25,8
Rebellious France (Melenchon)	(65)			(72)
Socialist Party	(28)			(62)
The Greens	(15)			(38)
Communist Party of France	(12)			(8)
Other partners	(11)			n.a
Ensemble for the Republic	245	42,5	38,57	159	27,56	24,53
Renaissance (Macron)	(150)			(87)
Democratic Mouvement	(46)			(36)
Horizons	(26)			(31)
Union Democrats and other	n.a.			(5)
Other partners	23			n.a.
The Republicans (Gaullists)	61	10,6	7,29	39	6,76	5,41
Miscellaneous Right	10	1,7	1,11	26	4,68	3,6
Miscellaneous Left	21	3,6	1,97	12	2,08	1,47
Miscellaneous Centre	4	0,6	0,48	6	1,04	0,65
Miscellaneous Far-Right	0	0	0	1	0,17	0,07
Miscellaneous Far-Left	0	0	0	0	0	0,09
Regionalists	10	1,7	1,28	9	1,56	1,06
Other	6	1,0	0,4	2	0,34	0,26
Total	577	100	100	577	100	100

First a small remark: the definitive division in political groups in the Parliament can be slightly different, because of individual members from the “miscellaneous” joining certain groups.  

What do we see and what happened further on? Some elements. The participation was much higher than in 2022, 20% more. The French “Right” (Marine Le Pen) is on the march: from 17% in 2022 up till 37% now. Le Pen has worked on making her Party attractive also for relatively moderate people. And she has the help of the young (aged 28) Jordan Bardella. It is possible there is a relationship between the turn-out and the results for Le Pen in terms of popular vote. But the high turnout resulting in a lot of third candidates also made the blocking strategy possible. Kind of paradox. So, also in France we see differences in percentages in seats and popular vote, the Left and the Center having proportionally more seats and the Right less. In this case that is highly related to the blocking strategy. By the way: we see that the political landscape of France is “rich”. There are many political parties. And there is ad hoc formation of blocs. Sometimes a coalition can contain up to ten parties and groups.

What happened further on? The situation seems to be more or less stalemate. The French President can appoint the Prime Minister and the other ministers, but they must have the support of Parliament. So, they have to find a candidate acceptable for the blocking majority of the Left and the Centre. But even the Left couldn't agree about a candidate. This has everything to do with Jean Luc Melenchon, the leader of “La France Insoumise”, Rebellious France, the biggest party in the “New Popular Front” coalition. Melenchon (72) is far-left (and strongly anti-Israël), verbally gifted, dominant and has one dream: becoming president. The others in the left bloc have problems with that, the center obviously too. There is still no name. During the Olympic Games the process was interrupted. France united around the Olympic flame. What happens now? No idea. What is certain is that the economic and social problems are huge. The budget deficit is above 100%. The discussions about immigration and the problems of lacking integration are intense. Macron's term runs until 2027. The most likely seems to be a cabinet largely from the center, maybe consisting of technocrats, that has to govern with changing majorities. And the President can up till a certain amount use rulings for which he doesn’t need the Parliament. But the French will not like that. Conclusion: France is politically and socially very unstable.

Germany

 Economically Europe is not doing very well. Economic growth is below the world’s medium growth. Germany is leading the way in Europe's weak economic performance. Germany is increasingly becoming the "sick man" of Europe. This is partly due to the policy of the current “traffic light” coalition consisting of the Socialists (Olaf Scholz, Chancellor), the Greens (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economic Affairs, Robert Habeck; Minister of Foreign Affairs, Annalena Baerbock) and the Liberals (Christian Lindner, Minister of Finance). This coalition places great emphasis on "green" policy and is pursuing a very offensive strategy towards Russia. 

Nuclear energy is no longer available. Energy costs are rising and that is affecting the industry. Some say Germany is de-industrializing. The coalition has great difficulty in balancing the budget, partly because of constitutional requirements. Recently, a new source of tension has emerged: the publication in the Wall Street Journal about the putative perpetrators of the attack on the North Stream Pipeline two years ago: Ukraine. This could put the current policy of support for Ukraine in a different perspective. The German authorities are continuing the investigation (against the wishes of Poland, by the way).

Politically, it is important that there will be “Länder” elections in September (1 and 22) in three of the five federal states in the former GDR. In all three states, the right-wing AfD polls around 30% as number one. The AfD has been in a “cordon sanitaire” up till now. Sahra Wagenknecht, who split off from the Left and obtained 6% in the elections for the European Parliament in Germany as a whole, polls around 20% in the eastern federal states. Wagenknecht also excludes the AfD, but she shares the conservative agenda (migration, Europe, woke, climate) with this party. In connection with the fact that the coalition is not popular (polls around 30%), the outcome of the “Länder” elections in September could increase the instability in Germany. Conclusion: Germany is politically unstable.

Belgium

Belgium is an interesting case. On June 9, parallel with the elections for the European Parliament, there were also elections for the National Parliament and for the Regional Parliaments (Flanders and Wallonia). In Belgium, as in the EU, the term of office is five years. The results were as follows.

Table 4 Results Parliamentary Elections Belgium 9-6-24 (including changes compared with 2019)

Political Parties	Seats 2019	Seats 2024
New Flemisch Alliance (Bart de Wever) (national; soft-right)	25	24
Flemish Interests (“far-right”; nationalistic)	18	20
Flemish Socialists	9	13
Flemish Christian-Democrats	12	11
Flemisch Liberals (De Croo; Prime Minister) (with a left-liberal touch).	12	7
Flemish Greens	8	6
Workers Party of Belgium (Flanders-elected MPs) (marxists)	4	7
Total of Flemish Seats	88	88
Wallonian Liberals (with a conservative-liberal touch)	14	20
Wallonian “Christian-Democrats” (les Engagés, kind of christian-democrats)	5	14
Wallonian Socialists (rather classical socialists)	20	16
Wallonian Greens (Ecolo)	13	3
Workers Party of Belgium (Wallonia; Wallonian elected MP’s) (marxists)	8	8
Other	2	1
Total of Wallonian Seats	62	62
Total Parliament	150	150

The most important elements in the results were: The Party of the Prime Minister, De Croo, the Flemish Liberals, went from 12 to 7. The Greens lost heavily, especially in Wallonia. There was a real change in power in Wallonia: for a long time the socialists were dominant there; now they lost and the conservative liberals and “Les engagés”, (centre, kind of Christian-democrats) heavily won; this changed the political landscape in Wallonia.  

The cabinet-De Croo consisted of Liberals, Socialists, Greens and the Flemish Christian-Democrats.  De Wever was not in it. The forming of a cabinet in Belgium is difficult because of the Flanders/Wallonia dichotomy. They have the world record of cabinet-formation, 541 days (in 20210/2011). But now there was a chance for Bart De Wever. He got the task to form a cabinet. He is now trying to form a cabinet of his own party, the NVA (24), the Flemish Christian Democrats (11), the Flemish Socialists (13), the Wallonian Liberals (20) and the Wallonian Centre Party (14). Bart de Wever had ruled out the far-right Vlaams Belang before the elections. Such a cabinet would rely on 82 seats. 

The negotiations are not going smoothly. De Wever had to present his third main text. He has set himself a deadline on September 20. On that date the Belgian government must submit the budget to the EU. If the formation were to succeed and De Wever were to become prime minister, then that would be important in Belgium and in the EU. In Belgium for the first time NVA would be in the National Government (they govern in Flanders). In Europe a prime minister who is much more critical of the EU than his predecessor would then sit at the table in the European summits. The same applies to the Netherlands. Although these are two smaller countries, this can have some influence on the political dynamics in the European Council.

Netherlands

In the Netherlands, the Schoof-Cabinet took office mid-July. The elections were on 22 November last year. The formation took a long time and was difficult. Reason: two of the participating parties (the Liberals (24 seats of 150) and a new Centre Party (20 seats) had problems with becoming a political partner of the PVV of Geert Wilders (nationalist, populist) (37 seats). Electing Wilders as prime minister has been blocked. The four political leaders remain in the Parliament. A top civil servant was appointed as prime minister.

Two factors determine the cabinet's chance of survival: firstly: will the new prime minister succeed in maintaining unity in his cabinet and taking up a sufficiently independent position in relation to the four political leaders of the Coalition? Secondly: will the four political leaders succeed in holding on to each other sufficiently? So far, the new prime minister has done well, but a lot of issues have to be dealt with. Toppriority: migration. The leftist opposition is deeply frustrated and is doing everything it can to put the cabinet in a bad light (“demonizing”). Conclusion: the Netherlands is involved in an interesting experiment.

The European Parliament

The newly elected European Parliament has been installed. The socalled “political blocs” have been formed. The Result is as follows.

Table 3. Political blocs in the European Parliament legislature 2024-2029

Countries	Seats	1 EPP	2 S&D	3 PfE	4 ECR	5 RN	6GR/EFA	7 Left	8 ESN	NI
Germany	96	31	14			8	15	4	14	10
France	81	6	13	30	4	13	5	9	1
Italy	76	9	21	8	24		4	10
Spain	61	22	20	6		1	4	4		3
Poland	53	23	3		20	1			3	3
Romania	33	10	11		6	3	1			2
Netherlands	31	6	4	6	1	7	6	1
Belgium	22	3	4	3	3	5	2	2
Cz Rep.	21	5		9	3		1		1	2
Greece	21	7	3	1	2			4		4
Hungary	21	7	2	11					1
Portugal	21	7	8	2		2		2
Sweden	21	5	5		3	3	3	2
Austria	20	5	5	6		2	2
Bulgaria	17	6	2		1	5			3
Denmark	15	2	3	1	1	4	3	1
Finland	15	4	2		1	3	2	3
Slowakia	15	1				6			1	7
Ireland	14	4	1			6		3
Croatia	12	6	4		1		1
Lithuania	11	3	2		2	2	1		1
Latvia	9	2	1	1	3	1	1
Slovenia	9	5	1			2	1
Estonia	7	2	2		1	2
Cyprus	6	2	1		1			1		1
Luxembourg	6	2	1		1	1	1
Malta	6	3	3
Total	720	188	136	84	78	77	53	46	25	32

Abbreviations: 1 EPP: European People’s Party; 2 S&D: Socialists and Democrats; 3 PfE: Patriots for Europe; 4 ECR: European Conservatives and Reformers; 5 Renew: Renew Europe; 6 GR/EFA: Greens and European Free Alliance; 7 The Left; 8 ESN: Europe of Sovereign Nations; 9 NI: Non-Inscrits.

First, the general developments are described. Then I give information in more detail about each of the eight political blocs.

In each country, the national parties participate in the European elections. There are no European lists. After the elections, “kindred spirits” look for each other and form “political blocs”. These “blocs” or groups are much more loosely structured than a political fraction of a Parliament in a member state, but they are nevertheless important. Being part of a group has advantages in terms of facilities and access to functions. In order to form a group, at least 23 members from at least 7 countries are needed. There are many situations that representatives from different parties in one country are in the same political bloc in the EP, sometimes op to three, four or five. For instance in the Netherlands there are left-wing en right wing liberals; they are both in Renew; in the EPP there are the Dutch Christian-democrats, but also the two new parties more or less in the center, ands. In the past Term of Office of the EP, there were seven groups, now there are eight.

There have been two changes. Hungarian Prime Minister Orban has taken the initiative to set up a new group: Patriots for Europe. This new group includes almost all the parties that were in  the Identity and Democracy (ID) group in the past period. But Orban’s party, Fidesz, which had previously been thrown out of the EPP, was not included in ID. It belonged to the Non-Inscrits. This newly formed group turned out to be the third largest, mainly thanks to Le Pen’s good result in France. The other change is that the German AfD (right wing, populist, nationalist, cordon sanitaire in Germany), recently thrown out of the ID by Le Pen (Le Pen making herself acceptable for moderates) managed to form its own group: Europe of Sovereign Nations.\

How does the political spectrum in the European Parliament look like now? There are three groups  that are strongly pro-EU. These are the Socialists, the Liberals and the Greens. They are also generally the strongest proponents of migration and multiculturalism, and they support a far-reaching climate policy (Green Deal). Together they have 266 seats, 37%. There are three parties that are critical of the EU, they wish to stop migration and they are critical of climate policy. These are the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and the two new groups already mentioned: PfE en ESN. Together they have 187 seats, 26%. So they are smaller, but in comparison to the last period they have won seats. More or less in between is the European People's Party, EPP, with 188 seats, also 26%. And then there is “The Left”, mainly anti-capitalist and also somewhat critical of Europe, 46 seats, 6%.  The position of the EPP is crucial. In principle this party is pro-EU, but it is also conservative, economically on the right, and it is susceptible to competition from new “right-wing” parties. Until now the EPP has mainly worked together with the Social Democrats and with Renew. And after the elections on June 9 they have continued to do so. They have rejected to reckon with the shift to the “right” (Liberals and Greens loosing; Euro-critical parties winning). They could be called a “middle” coalition. Together they have a majority, 401 seats. In fact this political coalition is decisive. That has also become apparent in the distribution of functions. The presidencies of 24 standing committees, including two subcommittees,  are divided as follows:

Pol. Bloc	Seats	Presidencies
EPP	188	8
S&D	136	5
PfE	84	0
ECR	78	3
Renew	77	3
Greens	53	3
Left	46	2
ESN	25	0
Total	N.A.	24

The presidencies are divided proportionally, but PfE (the third biggest group) en de ESN got no presidencies (“cordon sanitaire”). They also got none of the many vice-presidencies.  The Greens got above proportion. But apart from the number, of course the weight of the Committee is also important.

The “decisive coalition” doesn’t have the least important Committees…

Secondly, some more information about the eight political groups will be listed. I will give the name, the chair, the political position, the dominant groups and the number of national parties in the group in question.

• EPP. 

  European People’s Party; Christian Democracy/Conservatism; pro-Europeanism. Chaired by Manfred Weber from Germany. Dominant Groups: Christian Democrats, Conservatives and Liberals from Germany, Spain and Poland (Tusk). Total number of national parties: 45

  
  

• S&D

  Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats; Socialism; strongly pro-European. Chaired by Iratxe Garcia from Spain. Dominant groups: Socialists from Spain, Italy and Germany. Total number of national parties: 27

  
  

• PfE

  Patriots for Europe. Euroscepticism; Chaired by Jordan Bardella from France (Le Pen). Dominant groups: National Rally from France (Le Pen) and Fidesz from Hungary (Orban); Total number of national parties: 15. The Dutch PVV of Wilders is also in this group (six seats)

  
  

• ECR

  European Conservatives and Reformists; Conservatism and soft Euroscepticism. Chaired by Nicola Procaccini from Italy and Joachim Brudzinski from Poland. Dominant groups: Brothers of Italy (PM Meloni) and PIS party from Poland. Total number of national parties: 23

  
  

• RN. Renew Europe. Liberals (mostly left wing). Strongly pro-European; Chaired by Valéry Hayer from France (Macron). Dominant group: Ensemble from France (union of five parties!). Total number of national parties: 35.

  
  

• Greens/EFA

  Greens and also regional parties (Catalania, Spain); strong pro-European; Chaired by Bas Eickhout from Netherlands and Terry Reintke from Germany. Dominant group: Greens from Germany. Total number of national parties: 23

  
  

• The Left

  Economically strongly leftist and some specific groups (e.g. animal parties Germany and Netherlands); soft euroscepticism. Chaired by Martin Schirdewan from Germany. Dominant groups: Die Linke from Germany; Rebellious France (Mélenchon) and Five Stars from Italy (NB. In the last period five stars were Non-Inscrits). Total number of national parties: 19

  
  

• ESN

  Europe of Sovereign Nations. Euroscepticism. Chaired by René Aust from Germany and Stanislaw Tyszka from Poland. Dominant group: Alternatives for Germany. Total number of parties: 8

  
  

• NI

  Non-Inscrits. Members not belonging to a political group. All kinds of parties and politicians, e.g. communists and split-offs. Coming from 8 countries. Most interesting group: Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht from Germany with six seats. 

The building of the New European Commission

Finally, the formation of the new European Commission. That process is not yet finished. Up till now only the President is decided: Ursula von der Leyen from Germany and EPP can continue. That’s is part of the system. She has now to organize the other Commission Members (26) together with the Member-states. Also in relation to the formation of the European Commission the political coalition of EPP, S&D and Renew was functioning. In an informal meeting June 17 the political leaders of these three groups (EPP: Donald Tusk/Poland and Kyriakos Mitsotakis/Greece; S&D: Scholz/Germany and Sanchez/Spain; Renew: Macron/France and Rutte/Netherlands – in his last weeks as the Dutch Prime Minister -) decided about the three most important functions: President of the European Commission: Ursula von der Leyen (EPP, Germany); President of the European Council: Antonia Costa (S&DE, Portugal); European High Representative for Foreign Affairs: Kaja Kallas (Renew; Estonia). The prime minister of the third largest country (Italy, Meloni, ECR) was kept out of that meeting. Also, the rule up till now, to give the three most importants functions to the three biggest groups, was not followed, Renew being only the fifth group.

Meloni was furious according to European media. That's how it goes. And then the Parliament comes in. The parliament must agree to a candidate. That is decided after a "hearing" in a secret ballot. Van der Leyen was certainly not certain of approval. A part of "her" EPP would certainly not support her. She did a lot of travelling around to gather support. She also met with the Greens. In order to receive their support she made promises. This included the Green Deal, which is interesting, because there are reservations within the EPP about the Green Deal (farmers' supporters). However, she succeeded in this strategy. She received the support of 401 members. Coincidentally, this is the total of the EPP, S&D and Renew, but it is certain that a few dozen members of the Greens voted for her and part of the EPP did not. As already said, the formation of the rest of the Commission is now a matter for the newly elected president in consultation with the countries, and hearings and agreement by the Parliament. This process is on its way now.

Will the course of the EU change, e.g. a little less EU, or a slightly other climate policy, or more tough on migration? I think there will be little change. Change will not come from the European Parliament or from the Commission. The most important body, however, is the European Council. And there are partly new prime ministers at the table. That is actually the only chance for any change, but that chance is not big. To make that happen, substantial changes are needed in Germany and France. And this is not yet the case.

In a few weeks I will write a critical article about the European Union