- Ousting of Rajoy the latest blow for traditional parties
- Outflanked by populists and centrists
- Macron and Rivera turn heat on group
Europe’s traditional centre-right parties suddenly seem vulnerable to the same electoral convulsions that crushed the moderate left in many places after the financial crisis: the rise of identity politics and the fading of traditional ideological cleavages.
The ousting of Mariano Rajoy in Spain this month is the latest calamity for a political machine that has dominated European policymaking since the millennium. Out of power in France, overturned in Poland, bypassed in Italy and looking tired even in Germany under Angela Merkel, the centre-right is in retreat.
On one side it is outflanked by a motley group of anti-immigrant, anti-EU populists, aiming their fire at Berlin and the Brussels establishment. Matteo Salvini of Italy’s far-right League is its most recent incarnation.
On the other it is feeling the heat from disruptive, fresh-faced centrists, notably Emmanuel Macron in France and Albert Rivera in Spain.
La République, en Marche and Ciudadanos, respectively, are at least pro-EU. But with Mr Macron seeking to smash the grip of old parties in the European Parliament, to the centre-right the French president looks more enemy than friend. “We draw the line at the Rhine!” thundered one senior German politician attending a conference in Munich this week, referring to the French onslaught.
EPP fears for its future
Each year the big beasts of the European People’s party — the conservative umbrella group — gather for what they like to bill as “study days”. At this week’s incarnation in the Bavarian capital there was little doubt of the main topic of study: the fate of the EPP itself.
The EPP is the EU’s dominant political caucus. It controls the European Parliament; the presidents of the European Commission and Council hail from its ranks. But its electoral slide — if not as dramatic as that of the centre-left — is clear.
Orban didn’t win the election for the EPP, Orban ran against the EPP
Back in 2011, at the height of its influence, 17 of 27 EU leaders around the EU summit table hailed from the centre-right group. Today that number is down to just eight.
The trend looks likely to be reinforced in next year’s European elections. While the EPP is set to remain the biggest party in the European parliament, polling analysis by Hanbury Strategy suggests its seat-share would fall from 29 to 25 per cent if the vote were today.
To make matters worse for the party mainstreamers, one of the few EPP leaders doing well is Hungary’s Viktor Orban, who romped home in his election with anti-semitic invective and tirades against Brussels and Ms Merkel’s refugee policy. “Orban didn’t win the election for the EPP, Orban ran against the EPP,” said one MEP.
New generation may hold the key
EPP adherents are split over what to do. Swedish and Dutch groups on its liberal wing want the Hungarian strongman thrown out. Others see him as a flawed political sage, who was first to foresee the political price of Ms Merkel’s open-door approach to the migration crisis.
It brings the group to the kind of crossroads it faced in the early 1990s, when the EPP, founded around Christian Democrats, threw open its doors to more disparate centre-right factions from France, Spain, Italy, and central and eastern Europe — the places that are now suffering electorally, or straying from its core “values”.
Now the choice is to retrench to a more coherent platform — or turn a blind eye to Mr Orban and others in the group who are choosing to give populists a run for their money. “This is the consequence of being a big family,” said Janusz Lewandowski, a Polish MEP and former EU commissioner. “A big family is not as united as a small political family.”
The choice may be made for them by another factor: youth appeal. Ms Merkel, the queen bee of the EPP for more than a decade, gave a speech in Munich that was passionate and well received.
But it was not a patch on the applause and enthusiasm for Sebastian Kurz, the 31-year old Austrian chancellor, who earned his spurs running against Ms Merkel’s migration policy. It feels as if solving the EPP’s dilemma will fall to a new generation .
alex.barker@ft.com
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