The provisional results of the European elections are now almost all stabilized. If we add the center-right to the populist nebula, which goes from sovereignism to the far-right, the newly elected Parliament will be predominantly right-wing (362 seats out of 720). Migration, borders, cooperation are, for example, among the key campaign topics for the most right-wing parties, but will the latter be able to exercise real influence on Europe?
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With our correspondent in Brussels, Pierre Benazet
The push to the right predicted by the polls has come true. There will be in the future Parliament an absolute majority of right-wing deputies, all tendencies combined. Populist and far-right parties are expected to send 176 MEPs to the European Parliament, just ten fewer than the center-right. In theory, they should therefore have considerable weight since it is a quarter of the hemicycle. With their numbers, parties can claim speaking time, funding and above all chairs of parliamentary committees. The real power is exercised in the design and sorting of legislative texts.
Form parliamentary groups
In the outgoing Parliament, the extreme right had 18% of deputies, but only had one parliamentary committee chair out of twenty. To obtain it, it is better to be in the majority coalition. However, the center-right says it does not want to ally with them. It is also necessary to form parliamentary groups. For the moment, there are two and they are not intended to merge, because many of these parties are incompatible with each other.
Their desire to close Europe’s borders to migrants should mainly be exercised outside Parliament, if they manage to change the positions of the 27 governments.
I think that what has just happened seems to be the confirmation of a Europe that is barricading itself. We have seen since Frontex that Europe is in the process of externalizing its borders. In African spheres, we saw Tunisia unfortunately supported by Europe, Mauritania supported by Europe. Everything that has just happened seems to be confirmation of the commodification of mobility.
Aly Tandian heads the Senegalese Migration Observatory.
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