In recent weeks, two things have happened within the European center-right that have weakened it: in Germany the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, led for 18 years by the influential and popular outgoing chancellor Angela Merkel, lost the elections . In Austria, the equally influential former chancellor Sebastian Kurz, head of the center-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), resigned from his post after becoming embroiled in a corruption scandal.
The center-right crisis does not concern only Germany and Austria, however: in other European countries the center-right has also weakened, and at the European level the most important center-right party, the European People’s Party (EPP), has remained, as he wrote Politico, «without rudder».
In addition to being the most important and influential political figure in Europe for years, Angela Merkel had led the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party for 18 years. one of the main parties within the EPP, and was also considered the informal guide of European training.
Merkel had not re-nominated in the last elections in Germany and the party’s executive committee had chosen Armin Laschet, prime minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, as a candidate for her role. Laschet did not manage to attract much consensus, consequently causing even those of the CDU to fall and losing the elections, won, albeit slightly, by the center-left. Social Democratic leader Olaf Scholz he has decided to try to govern without the center-right, which for the first time in 16 years will almost certainly be ousted from the government.
In the German elections, then, has strengthened very much also the far right.
Angela Merkel at an EPP congress in 2011 (AP Photo / Lionel Cironneau, Pool)
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Merkel’s decision not to run again and the result of the German elections have therefore greatly weakened one of the most influential center-right parties in the European Union, e what happened in Germany reflects a wider situation of crisis of the center-right in other countries.
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In Italy, France, Cyprus, Poland and Hungary, for example, they are much stronger or are gaining support parties of the right or extreme right, rather than center-right, and anything but moderates and pro-Europeans. And the center-left has more support than the center-right in Germany, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. One of the EPP members he said a Politico: “We are not in enough governments within member states”.
The situation could be summarized as follows: in many European countries, the center-right and it is finding itself crushed on the one hand on the right, with populist and nationalist parties that gather a lot of support, on the other on the left, where parties attentive to the issues of climate change and environmental sustainability are especially gathering consensus.
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One possible solution to this problem was represented by the former Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz. Kurz – also defined as wunderkind, “Child prodigy”, for his political talents and because he was elected chancellor for the first time at 31 – he is the leader of the center-right party ÖVP (Popular Party) and in 2017, having just become chancellor, he managed to reach an agreement to govern with the Greens, thus uniting the center-right forces with the environmentalist and progressive ones.
– Read also: The coalition between the Greens and the center-right in Austria
For this reason, many in the main European party they hoped that Kurz became the next leader of the EPP and that he managed to coordinate and restore strength to the various center-right parties in the European Union through this role, keeping clear the priorities of the center-right on issues such as immigration and security (on which Kurz has very rigid positions) and at the same time gathering support from European citizens on issues such as the environment.
Kurz, however, resigned a week ago after staying involved in a corruption scandal that brought down the previous government in 2019 (Kurz is accused of having misrepresented), and although the ruling coalition remained standing, its reputation was greatly weakened. It is not yet known what he will do, of course, or how the investigation concerning him will end. According to some analysesKurz could still maintain his political influence, within his party and beyond.
Sebastian Kurz nel 2020 (AP Photo/Ronald Zak)
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There is also a contribution to the crisis of the European center-right the problem of the leadership of the EPP, which brings together conservative parties in the European Union.
The current EPP group leader is Manfred Weber. German, 49, Weber has long been considered one of the most promising and precocious European politicians in Europe: he belongs to the Social Christian Union (CSU), the historic conservative ally of Merkel’s CDU, and in 2003, to 29 years, he became the youngest member of parliament ever elected to the regional parliament of Bavaria. Despite this, not everyone thinks that he has the political skills necessary to succeed in creating important coalitions at the European level – and so far the results have been modest.
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Manfred Weber (AP Photo / Domenico Stinellis)
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According to members of his party, Weber would be more suitable to important positions within the European institutions and to the presidency of the party, to revive which they think there is a need for new faces.
The EPP had in fact nominated him first for the presidency of the European Commission in 2019 – but his candidacy was not accepted – and then for the presidency of the European Parliament (occupied by David Sassoli until 2022). Weber, however, recently he claimed he was not interested in becoming president of parliament, saying he is more interested in becoming the EPP president. Weber would take over from former European Council President Donald Tusk, who in July he said that he will leave his role to return to the politics of his country, Poland.
For the Polish center-right this could be a good sign: Poland it is governed by nationalist and far-right forces, and many they hope that Tusk’s return will help the center-right win the next elections (to be held in 2023).
– Read also: Will European sovereignists split up?
In Poland as in Hungary, in fact, there is a clear split between the center-right and the extreme right (to the detriment of the former, now less influential than the latter). In Hungary, for example, the numerous clashes between the EPP and Viktor Orbán’s party have led to Orban’s party to leave the EPP.
In Italy, from this point of view, the situation is not yet clear: we speak for example cyclically of a possible rapprochement between the EPP and the Lega, in Italy: the EPP would agree, because it would regain a precious new ally in Italy after the decline of Forza Italia, as well as a good number of European parliamentarians who would strengthen their relative majority of seats. On the other hand, however, a large part of the EPP, especially in Northern Europe, is opposed to this approach and wants to draw an ever clearer border between the pro-European and moderate center-right and the extreme right.
– Read also: Joseph Daul, the discreet and powerful former president of the European People’s Party
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