Is Europe’s Turn to the Right Here to Stay?

Emma Ashford: Hey, Matt, you’ll have to excuse me for a moment here. I was looking forward to writing this column outside, enjoying the lovely summer weather, and then the heavens opened. I’m soaked.

I’m going to blame any mistakes I make on the wet laptop, though.

Matt Kroenig: Aren’t you at Disney World with your kids? My brood and I are envious. The Art of Racing in the Rain was a Disney flick, so it sounds like they are giving you the real-life experience.

And I am confident that whatever mistakes you make can—as usual—just be chalked up to your misguided “restraint” vision for U.S. foreign policy!

EA: Ha, yes, Disney World is great, except for the fact it’s in Florida. Heat, humidity, alligators—and regular thunderstorms. Also, as a realist, “It’s a Small World” seems a bit too peaceful.

And we have a lot to discuss this week: European parliamentary elections, a surprise snap election in France, the ongoing British election, and, of course, further turmoil in Gaza. Where shall we start?

MK: Well, if you need someone to help you escape from the rainstorm, I know just the guys. Have you seen the video circulating online of the daring Israel Defense Forces (IDF) hostage rescue in Gaza? Very impressive.

The story is something out of a James Bond novel. Apparently, the IDF commandos reportedly disguised themselves as refugees or militants, complete with a mattress on top of their car, before they broke in and rescued the hostages.

It is a joyous day for those rescued and their families, although too many remain behind in Hamas’s captivity.

What is your take?

EA: It’s certainly an impressive feat, but with potentially hundreds of civilian casualties. The Israeli armed forces, of course, are known for being far more willing than most other militaries to use any means necessary to achieve their mission. The Mossad intelligence service can be particularly ruthless and brutal. So I am unsurprised that the Israelis mounted this mission, and unsurprised that they succeeded. But it does highlight just how high the continued toll of the war in Gaza is for the civilians of the enclave.

MK: Israel is “ruthless and brutal”? I would use those terms to describe the terrorists (and the upper-class families in Gaza) holding innocent civilians hostage. One good way to avoid unwanted violence is to refrain from imprisoning hostages in your bedroom.

EA: You watch Spielberg’s Munich and tell me that ruthless isn’t the right word to describe Israeli intelligence. Or read Ronen Bergman’s Rise and Kill First about Mossad’s targeted assassination program. Honestly, I rather thought the Israelis were mostly proud of that reputation—that they are willing to do things other nations wouldn’t because of their unique history and dangerous neighborhood. Didn’t you applaud the killing of Iranian Quds Force Gen. Qassem Suleimani? I’m surprised you don’t want U.S. foreign policy to be more like the Israelis!

MK: Call me crazy; I just don’t think it is cruel to remove terrorists from the battlefield, but we can move on.

EA: There are two other issues to talk about. The U.N. Security Council finally passed a resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza—but that’s not going to change anything. And there’s the resignation of Benny Gantz from the Israeli government’s war cabinet, from which he had tried to steer the war in a more moderate or at least more reasonable direction.

But after growing frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to offer a postwar plan, he resigned this past weekend. It’s a sign of the significant strategic problems on the horizon in the war: Netanyahu’s government will collapse if he either suggests a Palestinian government for Gaza or if he accepts more extreme proposals to expel Palestinians and settle Gaza with Israelis. I can’t see how he gets out of this.

MK: Gantz was right to demand that Netanyahu provide a plan for postwar Gaza the day after the war ends. You can’t have a good strategy without a clear end state in mind. If Netanyahu had responded to these reasonable requests from Gantz, the White House, and others, it probably would have helped to quell some of the international criticism and possibly stave off the Security Council resolutions calling for a cease-fire.

But I agree that these developments won’t change the basic dynamics of the conflict. Netanyahu still enjoys majority support in parliament and does not seem interested in altering his approach.

EA: But I don’t want us to get bogged down in the Middle East. This week’s big news is all coming from Europe. In addition to the ongoing British election campaign, which increasingly looks like a slow-motion train wreck for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives, this past weekend’s European parliamentary elections proved quite rewarding for right and far-right candidates, leading French President Emmanuel Macron to call a snap election. Have you been following this?

MK: Yes. Big news. The populist right won big in France, Germany, and elsewhere. Although the center-right European People’s Party continued to hold a plurality.

EA: Yes, though worth noting as my friend Hans Kundnani often does—the center parties have now adopted many more right-leaning policies than in previous years. So the center may hold, but that center has moved right pretty significantly. (And in the case of France, the center-right Les Républicains leader proposed joining forces with the far right, which ended up getting him expelled from his party while he barricaded himself inside the party headquarters insisting he’s still in charge!)

MK: That is true, but it raises a question for me: Is the mainstream media’s pearl-clutching over right-leaning parties winning seats warranted? After all, the concern about out-of-control illegal immigration in Europe and the United States is understandable. And past warnings about the election of supposedly irresponsible right-wing candidates, like Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Italy, have proved incorrect. She has been a steady leader in Europe on foreign policy and the war in Ukraine.

I think some journalists don’t know the difference between conservative policy platforms and literal fascism.

EA: Yes, for all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about Meloni’s victory back in September 2022, she’s governed as a relatively normal politician. And that’s with a leader whose party had open and known ties to actual former fascist parties within Italy.

I do think we’re painting with too broad a brush when it comes to some of these parties. Some are fairly populist, some more traditionally conservative, and others fairly centrist except on immigration or related issues. There’s a fair amount of difference across the continent. But the one commonality is definitely a distaste for what many European voters clearly view as the excesses of liberalism in recent decades.

Even in Britain, where the center has largely held even in the era of Brexit, Nigel Farage is making a serious effort to win seats for his new Reform U.K. party. I won’t mince words about my own feelings on Farage: He is an utter prat whose misogyny should disqualify him from office. But sadly, his new party is polling well and is set to contest key conservative-leaning seats. It looks like a Labour government is pretty inevitable, and the main question is whether Conservatives are a small opposition or a minuscule one.

MK: Yes, but the broader swing to the right in Europe has other interesting implications. For example, I suspect the continued success of populist parties in the developed world bodes well for Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election this November.

EA: I mean, the obvious commonality is immigration and nationalism. European voters appear to be perfectly happy with the single market, and even Meloni has been supportive of Ukraine, but the area where there is significant popular unrest is all about immigration.

And just like the United States, European governments are dealing with a significant influx of foreigners claiming refugee status who are often simply economic migrants. What’s interesting is that some left-leaning European elites, just like Democrats in America, are largely unwilling to crack down on immigration to win elections. It’s become almost an identity issue.

MK: Yes. This is what I mean. The platforms of these “far-right” parties are pragmatic responses to the challenges these countries face. Their policies are often not, as commonly portrayed, somehow beyond the pale. It does not make sense to let anyone stream across one’s borders. There needs to be a managed process for immigration.

Fears of “open borders” in the United States have now led to bipartisan majorities of the U.S. electorate supporting a strengthening of border security. Just last week, President Joe Biden reinstated some of Trump’s former policies and legal arguments on immigration, such as shutting down asylum requests when the average number of encounters between migrants and border control agents exceeds 2,500 per day. But it may be too little, too late. The polls show that American voters still have more confidence in Trump than Biden to handle the illegal immigration problem in the United States.

I suspect even Biden’s own top homeland security officials regret his campaign promise not to build a wall. Barriers have always been part of an effective immigration policy.

EA: They’re not the only thing, though. Immigration in the United States needs a massive overhaul to be friendlier to skilled workers and less focused on extended family reunification. That’s also not on the agenda for either Democrats or Republicans.

MK: Hear, hear! It was one of our arguments in We Win, They Lose!

EA: Always be closing, I guess?

Ultimately, though, immigration will probably cost Democrats more in electoral terms than it will Republicans.

There’s one other interesting EU-U.S. connection that’s worth talking about: For many European voters, this appears to have been a rebuke of green parties and climate policy. Now, the context is slightly different in Europe, where the war in Ukraine and the associated sanctions created a serious energy shortfall, and where the European Commission’s choice to emphasize green tech over traditional fossil fuels undermined economic growth across the bloc.

In the United States, the Orwellian-sounding Inflation Reduction Act—which had nothing to do with reducing inflation and was instead a climate stimulus bill—is not really harming the economy in any significant way.

It’s probably juicing it in some places, as significant government stimulus often does. But many Americans are still opposed to restrictions on the booming oil and gas industry, and green policy could hurt Biden just as it hurt leaders in Europe.

MK: There was some interesting country-by-country variation. Right-wing parties in Sweden, Finland, and Denmark, for example, lost ground to pro-environmental and left-wing parties. Unlike in Southern Europe, immigration did not loom as large for voters in the Nordic countries this election.

But this is not a column for domestic policy. Will any of this matter for foreign policy, such as for the war in Ukraine? And will Macron’s gamble to call early elections pay off?

EA: Well, the French elections are certainly the biggest surprise of this whole thing. I’m not exactly sure what Macron is trying to do here: lock out the National Rally now through a unity government of the left and center? Or give it a couple of years of governing to try to make it look weak before the next round of presidential elections?

The interesting thing is that the French electoral scene actually looks fairly similar to the Europe-wide environment. The notion that the far right is competitive was shocking the first time it happened, when National Rally parliamentary leader Marine Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, advanced to the second round of the presidential election in 2002.

But now it’s almost accepted that the younger Le Pen will do so at the next election as she did in 2017 and 2022—and Macron himself has moved to the right to try to cope with the rightward swing of the French electorate. Will this be the year her party does succeed?

MK: Well, it may not be “her party” anymore as “monsieur selfie,” Jordan Bardella, seems to be the new, young star of the National Rally, without the baggage of Le Pen’s family history.

I think Macron has a clear strategy; it is misguided.

Macron is stinging from the election loss and is essentially daring the French electorate. The European Union elections, like the U.S. midterms, are something of a referendum on the government in power. This vote was clearly a protest vote against Macron. I think by calling these elections, he is essentially saying, “OK. Do you really like the far right? Are you ready to let it govern France?” I think his bet is that when faced with such a prospect, French voters will come flocking back to some sort of centrist coalition.

Why do I think this calculation is a mistake? Emma, you are from the U.K. Please remind us, how did then-Prime Minister David Cameron’s Brexit referendum turn out, which was based on a similar calculation?

EA: Ugh, don’t remind me. It’s funny: I just realized that at no point in this column did we talk about whether the elections to the European Parliament actually matter for Europe directly, and that’s because both of us know—though perhaps some of our readers don’t—that the European Parliament is relatively weak even within the EU apparatus, and elections for it are mostly about protest voting.

So perhaps that is Macron’s gamble: that voters are willing to put their X next to a far-right candidate in a relatively meaningless election but will hesitate when it comes to national elections. I really hope you’re wrong, though. Because that’s a very poor gamble. As we’ve seen in Italy and elsewhere in recent years, once the rightward trend in European politics takes hold, it often pops up in domestic politics, too. If so, Macron will have neutered himself for the last few years of his presidential term.

MK: Yes. If the gamble fails, it is possible Macron will be cohabiting with Bardella in the not-too-distant future. And maybe you are right that Macron is betting this outcome would allow the National Rally to discredit itself before the next French presidential election in 2027.

But we really haven’t answered the question about whether any of this will matter for foreign policy. Do you see the rightward shift in voter preferences affecting, say, European support for NATO, the war in Ukraine, or other major foreign-policy issues?

EA: It’s hard to say. Thus far, it hasn’t. And for those states closest to the war in Ukraine—or with borders closest to Russia—nationalist parties are probably not going to be any different from centrist ones. But we might start to see a backlash in Western European states that are feeling the economic pinch of the war but are significantly farther away from the threat. Perhaps Macron would be less escalatory in his remarks with a hostile parliament. Or perhaps he’d lean in even more on foreign policy to offset his domestic weakness. Who knows?

Two other things occur to me: First, when it comes to NATO, these parties might actually be more realistic and more likely to resist the siren song of U.S. policymakers—notably the Biden administration—telling them that they don’t need to pull their weight on defense. And second, when it comes to the European Union, it’s hard to see how an EU dominated by populist parties would ever let a large, agricultural state like Ukraine achieve full access to the common market.

So I will give my best Magic 8 Ball answer here: “Reply Hazy, Try Again Later.”

MK: Like the skies over Florida, I guess. Well, let’s do this again in two weeks. Maybe the forecast will be clearer by then.

EA: No rain, and no alligators.