The People Have Spoken

Thing should change. The EU should get serious about what matters. The EPP has a responsibility to lead on this.

Wind is blowing from the right. Photo by ALEXANDRE LALLEMAND on Unsplash

At the EU elections the voters punished the left and rewarded the right. In sum total the shift was not a landslide but a shift it was. And yet the men in black in Brussels are turning on their calculators and are telling us that the same coalition under the same commission president should keep calm and carry on. As if nothing happened.

And then, when the dust will settle and armchairs will be comfortably filled, those same men in black will continue complaining about so called the democratic deficit in Europe. The deficit is not in lacking more more qualified majority voting, the deficit is in not responding to the results of the elections.

New coalition

For the European People’s Party the question is weather to continue in the existing coalition with Renew, Greens and the Socialists. It would be stupid to do so for three reasons. First, it is a coalition with the losers. In a democracy winners should be rewarded. Second, the coalition had its problems in the last five years. The left wing of it would side with more extreme left on many issues. The EPP was a minority. Thirdly, the EPP is not in the center but on the right end of the coalition thus the compromise tends to be to the left of what EPP would want to achieve.

The next coalition should be open to any democratic and human rights respecting party who supports for Ukraine, Israel, controlled legal migrations and economically strong and resilient Europe.

Therefore the EPP would be wise to reshape the coalition so that it is the EPP which is at its center. It should do so by bringing many from the ECR, and the ID and the independents to the table and to the sharing of the responsibility for Europe. In some cases this will be hard because former family members or friends make the worst enemies. It is easier for a Polish EPP conservative to work with a Spanish socialist than with a comparably much more like-minded but Polish conservative in Law and Justice. This will need to be overcome, because the are more important issues at hand than local power plays.

New priorities

Which brings us to the programmatic foundation of the new European coalition. The other day I x-ed jokingly that Volodymyr Zelensky should be the next head of the European Commission. Humor aside, the by far most critical issue for Europe are the security issues to its east and south.

On the east there is Russia with its ambition to rebuild the empire. On the south we are challenged by Iran, war in Gaza, proud Islam and migration pressures from Africa and the Middle East. The number one thing Europe should do over the next five years is to get in military and industrial shape so that it will project hard power to its neighborhood and in this way preserve peace and provide military, energy, food and demographic security to its citizens.

The EPP should be at the center of the next coalition.

Yes, there are also issues with green transition, LGBT rights and social policies but this is simply not as vital. Much of it can also be handled individually by the member states. Military and industrial might is something where there is an advantage in size, in numbers, in unity that only Brussels can deliver. Let’s keep an eye on the ball.

The next coalition should be open to any democratic and human-rights-respecting party who supports Ukraine, Israel, controlled legal migrations and economically strong Europe. It should be open to anyone who wants to use the EU to make Europeans safer and its economy more resilient. There are plenty of such parties left and right of the EPP. There are also same extremist, antisemites and fascists. These should be left out. As the winner of this election and as the largest party, the EPP has a duty to organize this coalition.

Essentials first

We do not desperately need a Union to regulate plastic bottle caps, local media or artificial intelligence. This may be nice, but it is not vital. We need the EU to keep Russians in Russia, migrants at home and industrial innovation in Europe. We need leadership that would make Europe stronger not more likable on social media. This was also the message of the citizens. The EPP has a duty to respond.