ROME — Europe’s center-left stuck to their guns without presenting many fresh ideas as the threat of a far-right surge loomed over a pre-election gathering in Rome.
The Party of European Socialists launched its campaign for the European Parliament election with a focus on core tenets of their political philosophy: protecting workers’ rights, securing salaries and fighting climate change.
“The far right is a poison for democracy. They have no project other than to destroy democracy and our common social Europe,” said Nicolas Schmit, Luxembourg’s EU commissioner, after being chosen as the face of the campaign and the candidate to challenge his boss, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, for her job.
“Instead, we Socialists bring a message of hope, we want to shape a new Europe that protects and includes,” Schmit said.
Under current projections, for example in POLITICO’s Poll of Polls, polls suggest both the far right and the nationalistic right will make gains in the Parliament vote in June. In contrast, the center-left Socialists and Democrats faction should roughly retain the same number of seats in the European legislature, even as the gap between them and the stronger center-right force looks set to grow.
Schmit took the fight to von der Leyen’s center-right European People’s Party (EPP) family, and the liberals, challenging them to stick to the center of the political spectrum and accusing them of dangerously and irresponsibly normalizing the far right in countries such as Italy and the Netherlands.
“Be coherent with yourselves, stay faithful to your own history, to your European commitment,” the Luxembourger urged.
To make matters worse for the center left, the far right is polling highly in some of its last true bastions of power in the EU, namely Germany, Portugal and Romania.
Campaign priorities
The leader of the Italian Democratic Party, Elly Schlein, sent a similar warning shot to the conservatives, who are governing with two further right parties in her country. “Where is the limit for the EPP?” she asked.
“The very soul of Europe is at risk,” warned Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
During the two-day meeting in Rome, politicians cast around for ideas and strategies to reverse the curve.
“We should respond to the worries of our citizens,” Belgian Socialist Party lead candidate Elio Di Rupo told POLITICO, noting that the far right is polling highest in the Flemish region of his country. “The first worry is purchasing power,” he said, adding that the EU should help raise minimum salaries. The other two main topics for the campaign should be security and the environment, he said.
Another strategy is to broaden the parties in their camp. In the Netherlands, the Labor party is fighting the election in tandem with the Greens, while there was favorable chatter among MEPs behind the scenes at the congress about Italy’s 5 Star Movement sitting with them in the European Parliament at some point, regardless of questions about the party’s stance on Ukraine.
Lars Klingbeil, co-leader of the German Social Democrats, said the campaign priorities should be on people’s earnings, affordable housing and pensions. “If we do that, then I’m convinced that we will get people back that in the moment would say I will vote for the right-wing populists.”
He suggested the Socialists should not seek to interfere too much in voters’ personal choices, such as “if people use their car, or use an airplane, or eat meat or speak gendered language,” he said.
He added that recent mass protests against the far-right Alternative for Germany should be a source of motivation that they could do better than expected in June.
On Friday, MEPs, national politicians and activists gathered behind closed doors for a conference on the top floor of the Italian Democratic Party’s headquarters titled: “Understanding rightwing populism and how to respond to it.” Academics from two English universities addressed a packed room of politicians on “why [far-right populism] poses a threat to democracy” and “how to respond to it.” One attendee from Lithuania said the discussion focused on what to do about a far right that not only talks about immigration but a whole gamut of issues.
With Schmit unlikely to present a serious challenge to von der Leyen, politicians’ minds were already turning to what policy concessions they can extract from her, as a future Commission president will require a simple majority of MEPs to support her in a confirmatory vote.
“We cannot accept a candidate who doesn’t accept our policies,” said Iratxe García, a Spanish lawmaker who leads the group of Socialists and Democrats in Parliament.