Europe’s right turn

Dubai: Europe is at a crossroads with a sharp right turn ahead. And now political leaders from across the European Union are trying to come to grips with the fallout after protest parties drew 31 per cent of ballots from European voters.

Europe has elected 751 people to five-year terms as Members of European Parliament (MEPs) that meets in Strasbourg. The vast majority of the seats were won by traditional parties, but in Britain, France, Italy and Germany, right-wing candidates enjoyed considerable electoral success.

British Prime Minister David Cameron and the French president, François Hollande, led their parties to historic defeats at the hands of the extreme right in Britain and France — leaving both nations with weak positions at the key post-election summit late on Tuesday in Brussels to fill the top European Commission — or cabinet posts from the political blocs.

The first post to be decided in the appointments made every five years is head of the commission, which proposes and enforces EU laws, oversees euro fiscal policy, manages the EU single market and negotiates trade accords.

Europe’s Christian Democrats emerged as the biggest caucus in the new parliament and the main parliamentary leaders on Tuesday claimed that as a mandate for their contender, Jean-Claude Juncker, the former prime minister of Luxembourg, to be nominated as next head of the commission, a choice vehemently opposed by Cameron.

The parliamentary leaders demanded that the summit rubber stamp that nomination. Cameron was joined by the Hungarian and Swedish prime ministers in rejecting Juncker.

“Europe cannot shrug off theses results. We need an approach that recognises that Europe should concentrate on what matters, on growth and jobs and not try and do so much,” said Cameron.

“We need an approach that recognises that Brussels has got too big, too bossy, too interfering. We need more for nation states. It should be nation states wherever possible and Europe only where necessary. Of course we need people running these organisations that really understand that and can build a Europe that is about openness, competitiveness and flexibility, not about the past.”

EU-wide unemployment of 10.5 per cent, the scars of the debt crisis and hostility to immigration led to the anti-establishment groundswell in elections for the parliament, which has growing powers over European legislation.

Speaking at a conference in Berlin, Wolfgang Schuble, the German finance minister and one of the most influential politicians in the EU, deplored the outcome of the European election in France where Marine Le Pen’s National Front made its biggest breakthrough to win the ballot with 25 party of the vote.

“A quarter of the electorate voted not for a rightwing party but for a fascist, extremist party,” said Schuble.

It is not clear how the remarks will be received in France. Relations between Paris and Berlin have been frosty since Hollande was elected president two years ago, with much of the French elite bridling at the perceived hegemony of Berlin at the height of the Euro crisis. Le Pen has previously gone to court in France seeking to ban her party being labelled “fascist”. She lost.

While neo-fascists from Greece, Hungary and Germany won seats in the Strasbourg parliament, the far right also scored dramatic victories in Britain and Denmark and did well in Austria.

On the other side of the political spectrum, the hard left also won the election in Greece, did well in Ireland and boosted its presence in several countries.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said it “horrifies” him that the far-Right National Democratic Party, known by initials NPD, won one of Germany’s seats in European Parliament for the first time, with 1 per cent of the vote.

The far-right party has long attracted neo-Nazis with its anti-immigrant, nationalist platforms, though it officially denies modelling itself on the Nazi party.

New MEP Udo Voigt once said that even though Hitler committed “great crimes” he also “achieved great things.”

Voigt was pictured on a motorcycle on the party’s campaign poster carrying the slogan “step on the gas” — causing widespread offence because of the Nazis’ use of gas chambers in the murder of 6 million Jews. Voigt defended it, saying “you have to stop worrying about things from the past.”