“The very soul of Europe is at risk,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez warned fellow European centre-left politicians who had gathered in Rome ahead of a difficult EU election campaign.
At stake was how to halt the seemingly unstoppable rise of right-wing and far-right parties in the European Parliament vote, which starts on Thursday in the Netherlands and continues across all 27 EU member states until Sunday.
Only four EU member states have centre-left or left-wing parties in government and recent performances at the ballot box have been poor. The omens for the coming days are not good.
The European left is in “bad health”, says Prof Marc Lazar of Sciences Po in Paris and Rome’s Luiss University, the result of a steady decline that began in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
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In only four countries are the Socialists and Democrats projected to come out on top - in Sweden, Denmark, Lithuania and Malta. Even then, Denmark’s Social Democrats under Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen are geared up for a big drop in support.
Hers is one of only four out of 27 member states with centre-left or left-wing parties at the helm.Spain, Germany, and Malta are the others.
Netherlands had a right wing government. They messed up greatly. People voted even more right because “obviously” the previous government was actually left wing.
Perception matters a lot for a large group of people.
And it’s funny because when certain parties make promises there interpretation differs depending if they like the party or not.
E.g. making promises to improve things: who will pay for it? E.g. left wing is spending money they don’t have, or they care too much about lazy people.
If a right wing party makes a promise to improve things and financially it is pretty much certain it’ll not work out: don’t be negative, just saying that because of x/y/z.
It’s too easy to blame left wing parties for what is happening. Pretty sure there’s various causes, and people often aren’t logical or rational.