After the pandemic, is the virus of Euroscepticism under control?

Euranet Plus News Agency | Hermine Donceel·June 10, 2021

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis, as EU recovery plans take shape, the rhetoric of sovereignist parties seems to be shifting, at least for a while, from hostility to the EU to more traditional issues. While in the European Parliament, a new attempt to create a large Eurosceptic party is underway…

In this first French-language press club, journalists from countries where Euroscepticism triumphed in the last European elections in 2019 discuss the state of this political trend in the wake of the health crisis.

A mixed EU sentiment

Figures from the latest Eurobarometer, the European Parliament survey, reveal a fairly positive European sentiment – although it masks significant disparities between member states. This is the case with Austria, which remains one of the most Eurosceptic countries, according to Oliver Grimm, as only 34 per cent of its citizens are satisfied with the EU – that’s 14 points below the EU average.

But if the health crisis has not disarmed Austrian Eurosceptics, it has not strengthened their position. Furthermore, and still according to the Eurobarometer, Austrians would be in favour of strengthening European competences in crisis management. A confusing expectation, to say the least, notes Oliver Grimm of the Viennese daily Die Presse.

“In the same Eurobarometer, we also see that a number of Austrians want more European competence in pandemic management, and that intrigues me a bit. What does this really mean? Do we want a European health ministry? That would be completely utopian and, in my opinion, not a good idea. And I am not convinced that the Austrians are in favour of Brussels having a strong position in health management. I don’t really have an answer to this question, but it intrigues me!”

A change in tone

Further west, far-right parties, which had stepped up their Eurosceptic rhetoric in recent years, are now reviewing their copy. Current and upcoming election campaigns suggest a change in tone, notably for Italy’s Lega Nord or France’s Rassemblement National, journalists say.

For Gigi Donelli, of Radio 24/Il Sole 24 Ore, this change of direction is not surprising, as Euroscepticism is not part of Italian political culture.

“Matteo Salvini is no longer the same Eurosceptic he was a year ago: he has made a change of course, an almost complete turn. So he has abandoned a position that traditionally does not pay so much in Italian culture and has seen that there are other subjects, much more promising and probably more effective for the political debate.”

In France, the presidential election appears to be heading towards a new duel between En Marche, the party of President Emmanuel Macron, and the Rassemblement National, the far-right party led by Marine Le Pen.

Pierre Benazet, journalist at Radio France Internationale, notes that the RN’s ongoing campaign for the regional and departmental elections at the end of June, a “trial run” for the 2022 presidential election, has relegated European issues to the background. It is a “return to basics” for the campaign themes, with security or immigration being put forward.

Post Covid, en 🇫🇷 comme en 🇮🇹, les partis d’extrême droite relèguent au 2nd plan leurs discours anti-UE. A la veille des élections, le #RN recentre son débat sur des sujets plus traditionnels, analyse @PierreBenazet dans notre club presse #EUinMotion https://t.co/ujXNLCvluR pic.twitter.com/sHVOySi1X8
— Euranet Plus (@EuranetPlus) June 10, 2021

“In the European electoral programme of the Rassemblement National in 2019, getting out of the euro – Marine Le Pen’s great hobbyhorse – and getting out of the European Union were no longer the fundamental keys to sovereignism. And we feel that today, she is probably at odds on this issue. It went very badly for her during the debate of the second round of the presidential election in 2017 against Emmanuel Macron, because she gave the impression that she did not master the European issue at all, while he really made it the platform of his party: it was Emmanuel Macron’s programme – afterwards there was his big speech at the Sorbonne on the refoundation of Europe – it’s really something he uses to the full. And we have the impression that programmatically it poses a real problem for the Rassemblement National and so this subject has been put aside. So in the RN campaign they’re using more traditional issues at the moment.”

Commonplace Euroscepticism?

There is now a trivialisation of the Eurosceptic discourse, in a context where, in many European countries, the right is looking for a new lease of life.

This is the case in France, where centre-right party Les Republicains is losing ground and seeking to position itself somewhere between En Marche and the Rassemblement National. This is underpinned by the recent suggestion to suspend immigration for a few years, carried by Michel Barnier, ex-Brexit negotiator and in search of a new lease of life within the French right, notes Pierre Benazet.

As for the Italian right, it is looking for a new leader with the withdrawal of Silvio Berlusconi, the figurehead of the Italian right for a quarter of a century. Matteo Salvini is trying to put on the clothes of a presidential candidate, explains Gigi Donelli.

https://twitter.com/EuranetPlus/status/1403001421499277318

“We must also remember that there is the deep decline – political and human – of Silvio Berlusconi, and therefore there is a vacuum, once occupied by Silvio Berlusconi (from 1981 to today) as a leader, the grandfather of the classical right. There are quite a few people who want to take his place. And that’s exactly what Matteo Salvini is doing with this new, let’s say, statesmanlike attitude.”

Seeking common influence

It is also in the European Parliament that Eurosceptics are (time and again) looking for a common path. The question of a large Eurosceptic political group is back on the table since Fidesz, the party of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, left the EPP, the assembly’s centre-right group.

For Oliver Grimm, the time is particularly opportune and luck could be on the side of the EP’s sovereignists. Their success, however, will not depend on the Fidesz leader – whom, he notes, is in trouble at home for the first time in 10 years – but on Jarosław Kaczyński, the “grey eminence” of the PiS. Kaczyński believes that this is the right time in the face of the increasing weakening of the Parliament’s presidency, according to Grimm.

“We have a political situation in the European Parliament that is really very favourable for a new political force. Even if the Rassemblement National is financed by the Russians and PiS doesn’t like the Russians, who cares because it’s foreign relations, we can put that aside. And this is Kaczyński’s thinking: he hates the Russians (almost more than the Germans) but in fact he doesn’t want to argue with the French and Italians because of foreign relations with Russia. What matters to him is to use the European Parliament as a vehicle for his political interests; it is the fight against an open society, against fundamental rights, against the European Court, etc. That’s why I think that this time there is really a prospect that this group will materialise, which will be perhaps the second largest group in the European Parliament, larger than the Socialists & Democrats.”

For Gigi Donelli, however, nothing is won yet in the EP. In Italy alone, the right is having trouble coordinating.

Vues d’🇮🇹, les chances de succès du @FideszEP de créer un grand groupe eurosceptique au @Europarl_FR sont mitigées: ces partis nationalistes n’ont souvent de commun que leur euroscepticisme, explique @gigidonelli @radio24 dans notre club presse #EUinMotion https://t.co/ujXNLCMWmp pic.twitter.com/ark3J2nRPH
— Euranet Plus (@EuranetPlus) June 10, 2021