Pro-Europe vote fragments but limits nationalist gains in EU election

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Reuters

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Parties committed to strengthening the European Union held on to two-thirds of seats in the EU parliament, official projections from the bloc’s elections showed on Sunday, though far-right and nationalist opponents saw strong gains.

France’s Emmanuel Macron, who has staked his presidency on persuading Europeans that the EU is the answer to the challenges of an uncertain, globalising world economy, took a personal hit when his centrist movement was edged into second place by Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration, anti-Brussels National Rally.

But Macron’s Renaissance, built on the ruins of centre-left and centre-right parties, added to gains for liberals at the EU level as turnout bounced sharply across the bloc. Along with a surge for the Greens, that meant four groups occupying the pro-EU middle ground lost under 20 seats, securing 505 seats out of 751, according to a projection by the European Parliament.

That may complicate some policymaking, as a two-party “grand coalition” of the conservative European People’s Party (EPP) and the Socialists (S&D) no longer has a majority. The liberals, with over 100 seats and Greens, with nearly 70, want a big say.

But it also dents the hopes of Le Pen, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini and others who have been seeking to disrupt attempts to forge closer EU integration. Salvini called the elections a mandate for a shake-up in Brussels.

But tensions among nationalists, who also include the Polish and Hungarian ruling parties and the new Brexit Party of British campaigner Nigel Farage, have limited their impact on policy.

“The big thing is that the gains for the extremists were not very substantial,” Guntram Wolff, head of the Bruegel economics think-tank in Brussels, told Reuters.

________

 

The center sort of holds?

[Valin]

2 minutes ago, WestVirginiaRebel said:

Reuters

 

The center sort of holds?

 

For Now.

[Valin]

Daniel Hannan survives near-wipeout of Conservatives in European Parliament elections

Joseph Lawler

May 27, 2019

Noted commentator and Washington Examiner columnist Daniel Hannan narrowly won reelection to the European Parliament, making him one of just four Conservatives to survive as the new euroskeptic Brexit Party made huge gains.

Hannan, a top backer of the ‘leave’ campaign in the 2016 Brexit vote, had warned that his party faced losing all of its seats. It had lost 15 as of Monday.

Hannan thanked voters for “falsifying my prediction and having me back - not, I hope, for too long!”

The Brexit Party, created this year and lead by the populist Brexit promoter Nigel Farage, gained 29 seats, out of 73 total for the U.K., many at the expense of the Conservative Party.

Hannan attributed his party’s collapse to its failure to follow through on the 2016 referendum.....................(Snip)