Few issues divide reliable centrist dads from rightwing and leftwing outliers as much as the European Union. Traditionally, the idea of European integration was favoured by the sensible majority. The proud nation state, on the other hand, was brandished by troublemakers with a penchant for collective self-harm. But could this all be about to change?
Europeans have reaped the dividends of the US security umbrella and of a western-led world economic order for decades. Our tanks rusted and our factories exported. The centrist dads unimaginatively administered the placid world of yesterday; the troublemakers protested against fictitious EU rules on the curvature of bananas.
But the world of today is a more confusing place. Wars on Europe’s borders combine with economic and demographic decline at home. We produce too few missiles and import too many solar panels. Our proud nations are the size of Asian cities.
The centrists have taken notice. Emmanuel Macron warns that Europe could wither and die if it doesn’t transform. Olaf Scholz debates reintroducing conscription. Mario Draghi calls for radical change. Let us cheer this unlikely group of novel sans-culottes as they storm the Bastille of European navel-gazing.
Or will they? From the financial crisis of 2008 to this day, there has been no scarcity of opportunities to drive European integration forward. Angela Merkel, that great centrist mother, towers as a monument to the inability of pro-European elites to seize any of them.
Sure, past performance is not indicative of future results. The same, however, applies to elections. And while clear centrist majorities have governed the EU and most of its member states for the past two decades, this is no longer the case – from Italy to the Netherlands.
Europe has traditionally stuttered forward thanks to its centrist engine. Modern planes can fly great distances with just one engine, but as passengers keep on moving to the right of the aisle, and as turbulence increases, have we reached the point where a second engine needs to be switched on? Could Europe’s right even take on that role?
In the comfortable world of yesterday, the answer would have been a clear no. The traditional far right was in the juvenile business of shouting at migrants, queer people and women while letting centrists get on with fixing the economy.
That may remain so. In a refresh of the UK’s old EU banana wars, Matteo Salvini has covered Italian cities with posters of crickets: allegedly, the EU wants Italians to eat pasta made from insects. For Marine Le Pen or Geert Wilders, Europe’s problem is an excess of mosques and wind turbines, and not a lack of ambitious economic and foreign policies. This narrow-mindedness was on display at the recent far-right leaders’ meet-up in Madrid.
And yet, the world of today makes it so patently clear that Europe either unites or declines, that thefar right’s anti-EU rhetoric sounds completely disconnected from reality. What is more, this discourse objectively undermines the interests of the European countries it claims to protect.
Nor is Euroscepticism necessarily what people want. A new study by Italian youth magazine Scomodo has unearthed an interesting correlation: 65% of Italians under 35 are in favour of closer ties and they are less anxious about the future than those who are against. In other words, those who believe in the possibility of a more unified Europe feel a sense of protection that translates into a better life experience.
“A Europe that protects” has been Macron’s longstanding slogan. This is a slogan ripe for rightwing adoption. What would such a shift look like? It would be a pragmatic turn towards closer European cooperation on a limited but key set of issues.
Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, provides a glimpse into such a world. As rightwing as her government may be, it advocates for common European investment to raise Europe’s competitiveness – a key priority that Italy’s former prime minister Draghi is expected to raise in a report on competitiveness to be published after the European elections. Meloni’s government is in favour of a common European army, or at least joint defence spending. And it seeks a common migration policy – albeit one building on Merkel’s blueprint of co-opting authoritarian regimes to halt irregular migrants. Is this mere Italian exceptionalism or could it become a model for the new right?
Macron and Meloni like to duel at a distance. But imagine a world where the two came together with a joint proposal for European reform. Macron as the spokesperson of centrist dads. Meloni as the spokesperson for the rightwing mothers.
The novelty alone would make headlines. And it would provide much-needed clarity in Europe: leaving no alibi for centrist leaders like Olaf Scholz to drag their feet on European reform, while sorting pragmatic rightwing parties from the fundamentalist kind.
It is a mistake to equate liberal democracy with polarisation: democracy is a stupendous engine of compromise, not a zero-sum game. If they could leave ideological grandstanding and senseless attacks on woke to domestic politics, Macron and Meloni could come together to advance a few, urgent issues that Europe must unite around. Top of this agenda is joint investment and commitment to the energy and digital transition; joint defence; elements of a common foreign and security policy; and deepening the single market to regain competitiveness against China and the US.
Europe is in many ways a microcosm of the world. It has a clear, selfish interest in closer cooperation. And yet, that interest is jeopardised by mistrust and ideological divergence. If even Macron and Meloni can’t set aside their differences and advance the common interests of Europeans, what chance is there that, for instance, the US and China bridge their divide and cooperate on tackling the climate crisis?
As the European elections become polarised, could it be a post-ideological compromise instead that benefits voters by driving the next round of European integration? A spell of European pragmatism would show the world a realistic alternative to nationalism and conflict.
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Lorenzo Marsili is a philosopher, activist, author and director of the Berggruen Institute Europe