Oliver Roethig

BRUSSELS – In early June, European citizens will elect a new European Parliament. Polls predict that pro-European Union centrists will still prevail, albeit with a slim majority. Most worryingly, far-right parties are projected to make significant gains in many European countries, including Germany, France, and Italy.

Political leaders from across the spectrum recognize the danger and are lining up to renounce any coalition with these parties. Nicolas Schmit, the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats’ Spitzenkandidat (lead candidate for president of the European Commission), promised “no cooperation with the far right.” The European Commission’s current president, Ursula von der Leyen, the candidate of the center-right European People’s Party, made a similar pledge. She vowed to work only with “clear supporters of our democratic values,” though she is ambiguous about cooperating with the far-right European Conservatives and Reformists Group, which includes Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s party. The European Left’s Spitzenkandidat, Walter Baier, said that “fighting the far right is a moral and a cultural obligation,” while the European Greens’ lead candidates, Terry Reintke and Bas Eickhout, also pledged to “fight the fascists.”

It is not particularly surprising that EU leaders agree on the far right’s threat to democracy, the rule of law, and the European social model. One need only look at Finland, where a coalition government featuring the populist Finns Party has launched an assault on workers’ rights and the welfare state, to see the damage it can........

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