Political revolution looks likely in Europe in the next 12 months, with seven game changing elections scheduled. First the Netherlands election in March, with Geert Wilders’ party lengthening their lead, suggesting 31-37 seats in the 150-seat Parliament, according to the poll of polls, presuming at the moment the anti-EU and anti-Islam candidate has the support of roughly 20%-25% of the electorate. Although in 2016 the Netherlands received only 26,600 asylum applications up till November, it is immigration that will be the defining factor of the vote. Wilders is campaigning for an end to immigration from Muslim countries. The Dutch use a proportional representation system across a single nationwide constituency, ensuring the share of the 150 seats each party will receive is in line with the number of votes received. The right wing Prime Minister Mark Rutte currently has 40 seats. Rutte’s welfare reforms have allowed him to be an accomplished political survivor. Might an uncomfortable coalition be in the offing?
Beginning 23 April is the two-step French Presidential election, populist Marine le Pen billed as the far right candidate is contesting against Francois Fillon (a Sarkozy left-over: also tough on integration and immigration) representing the conservatives and enter former Economic Minister Emmanuel Macron, who is grabbing the attention as a credible centre-left candidate, in the Bernie Sanders genre. Macon is suddenly gaining more right wing sympathisers than left. For the French people the most important job for the President will be to create jobs and get the economy into good shape. France has an unusual two-tier voting system, designed with built-in safeguards to prevent populists and demagogues from sweeping to power, this prevented Le Pen winning in 2002.
Presidential elections will also be held in Serbia in April. Serbia is a thoroughfare for migrants, Europe expects Serbia to come into the EU family, but Serbia is dependent on gas and oil imports from Russia. Serbia and Russia have a history of cultural, religious, economic and military ties. They regularly hold joint military exercises with both Russia and the West. The EU are already concerned about nationalist sentiments in Serbia, as many Serbs fiercely oppose joining the EU after NATO bombed Serbia in 1999 attempting to end the Kosovo war. It is anticipated that the free-market conservative Progressive party will continue its incumbency by defeating the Serbian Radical party but the present Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic has said that Belgrade should not be forced to choose between west and east.
The Norwegian election is set for September, with 169 seats up for grabs, Norway has a long tradition of minority rule and eight parties are represented in Parliament. Norway can afford to be independent of the EU as it sits on a sea of oil; this election will be fought about how to achieve economic growth and solve unemployment during this time of rising immigration and how to prevent social division, fighting global warming in the Arctic will also be important. According to the Sentio December poll the liberal-conservative Progress Party, who advocate free-market policies and tax cuts, increased its voting intention by more than twice that of Norway’s Labour Party and is likely for another victory in September.
In October, the Czech Republic holds Prime Ministerial elections. The Trump sympathetic, euro-sceptic party “Yes”, aka the ANO party, led by media billionaire Andrej Babiš is currently more favoured than incumbent Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka’s Social Democratic party.
Will Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel survive to lead the political alliance of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union and the polarised country into the next decade? Or will she pay the price for compassion via the repeated fatal consequences of her immigration policies and make a space for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to disengage from liberalism? Experts have noted that many AfD supporters have previously supported Merkel. Although the AfD is far from mainstream, it does hold 10 seats in the Bunderstag. The signs are their ilk will have increased traction this autumn. AfD’s alternative take on foreign policy integration will be refreshing to euro-sceptics. “NATO is and remains the staple of a transatlantic security architecture, whose decisive anchor is the alliance with the USA. There is no room for a European Defence Minister or even a European army.” To reflect the concern of German citizens that they do not want to be the resource that bails out failing EU economies such as Italy and Greece, even Roland Berger, founder of Germany’s leading global consultancy of strategists and previously a monetary union enthusiast, has called on his country to leave the euro to stabilise Europe.
Then there is Italy with an unhealthy banking system demanding loans from the European Central Bank, the concern is if one bank is in serious trouble there must also be others with the same problems. With Matteo Renzi’s defeat, Italy is on track for a premature election. Renzi has plans to reform a government, he wants to transform Italy constitutionally and prevent the Senate from gridlocking legislation, but Beppe Grillo, a former comedian and leader of the far-right Five Star Movement (M5S), has campaigned vigorously against the proposed changes. He calls for nationalisation of Italian banks and a referendum on exit from the euro. Alessandro Di Battista, a promising Italian politician with M5S, said the euro had caused misery and “a fall in purchasing power, wages and industrial competitiveness, as well as social disintegration and unemployment”. He campaigns for Italians to decide on their own currency.
In America at DePauw University, former British Prime Minister David Cameron said to students, in his first speech since resigning, that he feared the future of the single currency was limited. His former Foreign Secretary William Hague has written that monetary union has caused unemployment, economic stagnation and populist fury; that the euro has caused booms for some countries and busts for others, pointing out the Italians have lower per capita income than in 2000, while the average German is 20% better off.
The underlying question is how stable the EU is. Two things are certain, all the European election results will in some way have been inspired by Donald Trump and all the above will have not only chronological implications, but illogical reverberations through institutions and citizens all over Europe, just as the UK is triggering Article 50 and beginning the official Brexit negotiations that will drive Brussels crazy.