NEWSLETTERS
BRUSSELS
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Macron still thinks he can defeat Bardella
BY NICHOLAS
VINOCUR
16 MINS
READ
JUNE 10,
2024 7:11 AM CET
https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/brussels-playbook/macron-still-thinks-he-can-defeat-bardella/
Brussels
Playbook
By NICHOLAS
VINOCUR
with ZOYA
SHEFTALOVICH
DRIVING THE DAY: FAR RIGHT VICTORY IN FRANCE
MACRON
CALLS SNAP ELECTION: There’s plenty to digest from last night’s European
Parliament election results, but let’s start with the shocker: French President
Emmanuel Macron announcing a snap election after his Renaissance party suffered
a humiliating defeat to the far-right National Rally. That could open the door
to Jordan Bardella becoming France’s next prime minister.
Shock and
awe: No one was prepared for what Macron would say when he went live on TV
shortly after France’s result was announced, least of all his party
rank-and-file. Watch this montage of supporters dismissing the idea of a snap
election just minutes before the president started speaking. POLITICO’s Nicolas
Camut writes in to report that when the plan was revealed, the crowd at his
party’s HQ burst into shouts of “Oh no!”
What this
means: French voters will return to the polls in two rounds, on June 30 and
July 7, to elect a new national parliament. If the National Rally comes out on
top in that contest, Bardella — a 28-year-old political wunderkind who took
over the National Rally less than two years ago — could become France’s
youngest-ever prime minister.
Stranger
than fiction: Many fictional “what if” scenarios imagining a Le Pen
presidential victory have been written, including this multi-tome best-selling
comic. But there’s a big stretch between those musings and reality. And few
people had imagined the far right taking over the reins of government as part
of a “cohabitation” with a president from a rival party.
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Need it be
said? The National Rally taking over France’s government would be one of the
biggest political disruptions in the country’s postwar history — and almost the
final step on the party’s path to “normalization.”
Gobsmacked:
Not even the National Rally’s diehard backers seemed ready for Macron’s
announcement. Supporters at their election event were busy booing the
president’s address when he called the snap election, at which point they burst
into cheers and clapping and chants of “démission! démission!” (“resign!
resign!”), Giorgi Leali reports from the party’s event space in the Bois de
Vincennes, near Paris.
All about
Brussels: Three-time presidential contender Marine Le Pen used her address to
direct a warning at the seat of EU institutions: “Tonight’s message, including
the dissolution, is also addressed to the leaders of Brussels,” she said,
flanked by Bardella. “This great victory for patriotic movements is in line
with the direction of history … It closes this painful globalist interlude that
has caused so much suffering to the world’s peoples.”
Bring it
on: “We’re ready to exercise power,” she added. (Would it be Le Pen, or
Bardella? Polls suggests that National Rally supporters are leaning toward the
younger option.)
What’s
behind Macron’s move: Macron, who was an investment banker before his startling
rise to the presidency, has a track record of making huge political bets. In
2016, he wagered that a centrist insurgent candidate could create his own party
and disrupt France’s mainstream center-right and center-left parties, and
succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest guess. Now he’s rolling the dice again,
challenging the National Rally to prove they can govern and not just shout from
the sidelines.
It’s risky,
but not irrational. For better or worse, the European Parliament election is
seen in France as a chance for voters to vent frustration with the country’s
leadership in a relatively low-stakes contest. They might feel differently
about voting to install a party that has never been near government —
especially amid the war in Ukraine and an increasingly volatile international
context.
If Bardella
pulls it off in July, he would most likely become prime minister as part of a
“cohabitation” with Macron. That’s an unenviable position that’s historically
translated to governmental paralysis. It doesn’t help that prime ministers in
France are highly exposed and tend to be disposable: Macron is on his fourth
prime minister with Gabriel Attal.
Once
installed at Matignon, the prime minister’s office, Bardella would be
hard-pressed to govern with a civil service that could well be hostile. Three
years of ineffectual government would set the stage for a revanche by one of
Macron’s acolytes in 2027. (The president himself is constitutionally barred
from seeking a third term.)
How the
Macronites see it: “Sometimes you need to have balls,” Maxime, a 26-year-old
Macron supporter, told Nicolas. “I am afraid of the rise of the far right but
it’s a brave decision [to call the snap election]. We’ll only be able to say on
July 7 if it was the right one.”
How others
see it, 1 … Olivier Blanchard, an economist at the Peterson Institute for
International Economic in Washington, tweeted that it was “smart and the right
move,” because the “incoherence” of the National Rally’s program will be
discredited either in the campaign or soon after winning. “In this case, we get
two bad years, compared to five if they won the 2027 elections.”
How others
see it, 2 … But Simon Hix, a political scientist at the European University
Institute, tweeted: “Macron is crazy! Suicidal move calling a snap election.
What is he expecting, that every other party except RN joins a ‘save the
Republic’ coalition?”
How others
see it, 3 … “It will almost certainly put a brake on Le Pen,” Mujtaba Rahman,
Europe head of the Eurasia Group, a risk consultancy, told my colleague Clea
Caulcutt. “I don’t think Le Pen will do as well in the legislative election,
it’s a two round election, it’s a different group of voters who will be
mobilized.”
Eurostar to
nowhere: Valérie Hayer, Macron’s lead candidate, was badly defeated but her
backers argue she was put in an impossible position after several male
Renaissance officials turned down offers to run Macron’s campaign. The feeling
among some observers was that she’d been set up for a certain political defeat.
According
to one senior Renew official who spoke to my colleague Elisa Braün, Hayer’s
party had booked her a Eurostar train ticket to Brussels departing on Sunday
evening so she could start negotiations immediately with European People’s
Party (EPP) chief Manfred Weber and others. Hayer never boarded the train.
Will
Macron’s move delay the EU top jobs race? That’s unlikely, my colleague Eddy
Wax is hearing. An EU official predicted that the timetable of holding the key
top jobs European Council summit at the end of June will stay the same. “This
is gonna happen regardless of what [Macron] wants … I don’t see how anyone else
can justify in their countries saying: ‘France has an election so we’ll have to
put Europe on hold’.”
WINNERS AND
LOSERS Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on Linkedin Share on Handclap1
THE GOOD,
THE BAD AND THE UGLY: With 27 countries all reporting results, the European
Parliament election can be dizzying. Eddy breaks down the key takeaways into 12
“winners and losers,” with help from Elisa.
IT WAS A GOOD NIGHT FOR …
Ursula von
der Leyen: Who can stop her now? The European Commission president emerged from
Sunday’s vote with a possible coalition of Socialists, liberals and her own
center-right EPP. Together, these three groups — which supported her during her
current term — are expected to have some 407 votes in the chamber. That’s more
than the 361 she will need, but because of possible defections, her victory
still isn’t a done deal.
My
colleagues Stuart Lau, Barbara Moens, Eddy and Elisa report in this piece that
von der Leyen is now scrambling for a political deal to secure a second term as
Commission president.
Manfred
Weber, the EPP leader, called on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Macron to
support von der Leyen for five more years. That carries weight after the EPP
won in Germany, Spain, Poland, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Lithuania, Luxembourg,
Cyprus, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Croatia and Greece. The center-right party
also picked up six seats in the Netherlands, outperforming expectations.
Giorgia
Meloni: The Italian prime minister was one of the few leaders of a large EU
country (along with Poland’s Donald Tusk) who could claim a victory after her
hard-right Brothers of Italy substantially increased its support to finish top
of the polls there.
The far
right: France’s National Rally was the big story of the night after its strong
performance forced Macron’s election gamble — but far-right parties also came
first in Austria, tied for first in the Netherlands and came second in Germany
and Romania. French firebrand Éric Zemmour’s Reconquest also scraped into
Parliament.
Socialists:
Well, kinda. While they didn’t exactly dazzle, the Socialists maintained their
size, coming second in Spain and Italy and a close third in France, where
Raphaël Glucksmann appears to have resurrected the center-left. They won in
Sweden and may have beaten the center-right by a whisker in Portugal. Just
don’t mention Germany, where Scholz’s Socalists came in a sad third.
Péter
Magyar: An ally-turned-rival of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Magyar
has emerged as the undisputed face of Hungary’s opposition, winning some 30
percent of the vote after throwing his hat into the ring earlier this year.
Roberta
Metsola: The Maltese president of the European Parliament got her party an
extra seat, having racked up more than 87,000 first preferences. Maltese media
reported that she won more votes than any MEP candidate since the country
joined the EU. The ruling Labor party claimed victory but lost a seat.
IN THE LOSERS’ CAMP…
Emmanuel
Macron: The French president was dealt a blow after his party came in a distant
second, barely ahead of the Socialists he was once thought to have consigned to
the margins.
Olaf
Scholz: The German Chancellor’s Social Democrats were crushed by the
center-right Christian Democrats and the far-right Alternative for Germany.
With just 14 percent of the vote, the SPD endured its worst result in a
national election in more than a century. Scholz is facing calls from the
center-right to do a Macron and call an early election.
Viktor
Orbán: The Hungarian nationalist leader did worse than expected. The emergence
of Magyar as a challenger put the ruling Fidesz on track for its worst ever
result in a European Parliament election, its 43.8 percent significantly lower
than polls had predicted. POLITICO’s Victor Jack has more here. Whether Orbán
maneuvers his MEPs into ECR remains one of the big unanswered questions of the
election.
Greens:
After a strong performance in 2019, the Greens took a thumping in Germany,
slipping from 21 seats to perhaps just 12, barely clung on in France and got
nothing in Portugal. Overall, they lost around 20 seats on a bleak night for
the Green Deal enthusiasts. Putting on a brave face, Dutch MEP Bas Eickhout
said the Greens would seek to play a “constructive” role in coalition talks — that is, if von der Leyen is interested in talking to them.
Though von
der Leyen avoided saying whether she would open negotiations with the Greens,
the picture was different behind the scenes. According to two sources, lead
candidate Eickhout had a warm one-to-one chat with her off stage in the
hemicycle; one said they even hugged. Eickhout and von der Leyen are said to
get on well personally. Could there be hope for the Greens who want to join the
coalition yet?
Matteo
Salvini: The Italian deputy prime minister’s League party, which has 22 MEPs in
the current parliament and presides over the ID group, received just 8.6
percent of the vote. Ciao to them.
Alexander
De Croo: The Belgian PM’s Flemish liberals fell into the single digits in the
national election on Sunday, as the country shifted to the right. It wasn’t the
landslide for the radical right that many expected, but the result prompted De
Croo to resign as prime minister; he will stay on as caretaker until a new
government is formed. The far-right separatist Vlaams Belang party, which had
led the polls in recent months, grabbed 21 percent of Flemish votes Sunday but
did not overtake its Flemish conservative rivals New Flemish Alliance (N-VA),
which became Belgium’s biggest party with around 25 percent of Flemish votes.
Pieter Haeck and Camille Gijs have the details.
IN OTHER
NEWS
ISRAEL-GAZA
LATEST: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is returning to the Middle East
today with the proposed cease-fire between Israel and Hamas hanging in the
balance, the Associated Press reports. With Hamas still to respond to the
proposal it received 10 days ago, Blinken will meet with Egyptian President
Abdel Fattah el-Sissi in Cairo before traveling to Israel, Jordan and Qatar.
ICYMI …
Centrist Israeli minister Benny Gantz resigned from Benjamin Netanyahu’s
emergency government on Sunday, claiming the prime minister’s approach is
“preventing us from advancing toward true victory” in Gaza. Gantz’s resignation
will not immediately collapse the coalition government but will leave Netanyahu
more reliant on nationalist hardliners … It came after Israel on Saturday
rescued four hostages who were kidnapped in a Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7.
Gaza’s health authorities said 274 Palestinians were killed in the rescue
operation. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the U.S.
offered assistance with the rescue but did not provide specific details.
‘BEER TENT’
POLITICS: A tirade by the head of Germany’s stock exchange savaging the
coalition government of Olaf Scholz and warning that the EU’s largest economy
risked becoming a “developing country” has gone viral, the FT reports, to the
fury of the chancellor’s allies. The speech by Deutsche Börse CEO Theodor
Weimer was “bizarre” and “more beer tent than Dax-listed company executive,”
the Social Democrats’ Verena Hubertz told the paper.
HUNGER
CRISIS IN SUDAN: An escalating civil war in Sudan has already killed more than
15,000 and displaced millions. Now Sudan is on the brink of becoming the
“world’s largest humanitarian crisis,” the head of the World Food Programme
warned on Sunday.
**It's
happening next week – POLITICO's Financial Regulation Reporter Kathryn Carlson
will run a panel discussion with four experts to debate the Commission's CMU
agenda, the role of non-banks and new legislation. Sign up now to tune in live
on June 19!**
AGENDA
—
Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager is in Kajaani, Finland,
where she will visit the LUMI Supercomputer Center and the DestinE exhibition
with Arto Satonen, Finland’s employment minister … she will also meet Ilkka
Hämälä, CEO of Metsä Group, and Niklas Von Weymarn, CEO of Metsä Spring.
—
Commission Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis is in Berlin, Germany,
participating in a discussion on Germany’s Ukraine policy.
—
Commission Executive Vice President Maroš Šefčovič is in Berlin, Germany, where
he will deliver a keynote speech at the Europe-Ukraine Energy Transition Hub
event … meets Anne-Laure de Chammard, a member of Siemens Energy group
executive board … visits Siemens Energy and Air Liquide’s gigawatt electrolyzer
production facility.
— Equality
Commissioner Helena Dalli visits New York, U.S., where she will meet José
Viera, director of the International Disability Alliance, in the margins of the
17th Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons
with Disabilities … meets Alessandra Locatelli, minister for disabilities in
Italy … meets a delegation of the U.N. Partnership on the Rights of Persons
with Disabilities.
— Home
Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson is in Stockholm, Sweden, where she will
deliver the keynote address at the closing conference of the Promise
Transnational Referral Mechanism Project for child victims of trafficking.
— Crisis
Management Commissioner Janez Lenarčič receives Yehuda Shaul, co-director of
OFEK, the Israeli Center for Public Affairs.
—
International Partnerships Commissioner Jutta Urpilainen in Vilnius, Lithuania;
meets Gabrielius Landsbergis, minister of foreign affairs of Lithuania.
—
Innovation Commissioner Iliana Ivanova delivers a video message at the launch
of the LOFAR European research infrastructure … delivers a video message at the
opening ceremony of the Science and Technology Park of Montenegro … delivers a
video message at the EURAXESS biannual conference.
— Climate
Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra in Stockholm, Sweden; meets Magdalena Andersson,
former Swedish prime minister and finance minister, in Riksdagen … meets Anko
van der Werff, president and CEO of Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) Group, in Solna
… meets students at Tallbacka school, in Solna … visits the facilities of
Skanska construction company.
**Your
feedback matters! Help us improve your morning read by filling out this quick
survey. We appreciate your time and input.**
BRUSSELS
CORNER Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on Linkedin Share on Handclap1
WEATHER:
High of 13C, rain.
ONE FOR
YOUR EATING-OUT LIST: POLITICO’s Carlo Martuscelli ventured deep into Uccle to
check out Chez Luma, a restaurant with a modern take on French bistro food, and
he reckons it was worth the hike. Its owners, he found, have “managed to create
something that feels like a cozy neighborhood restaurant, but that looks a lot
better.” Read Carlo’s full review here.
NEW LOOK
FOR THE FLOWER CARPET: The annual event that turns the Grand Place into a giant
floral display will return in August but its design will be refreshed for the
first time in decades, its organizers said. This year’s flower carpet has been
designed by the young street artist Océane Cornille and will mostly use dahlias
instead of the traditional begonias.
HOUSING
DEVELOPMENT: Regional authorities have approved the redevelopment of one of the
big Proximus office towers in the north of the city into a residential housing
complex with 272 apartments and accommodation for more than 90 student rooms,
Brussels Times reported.
ELECTRIC
CARRIAGES ON GRAND PLACE: Tour operator Thibault Danthine has launched what he
claims is Europe’s first electric carriage service for tourists, replacing the
horse and cart rides that historically carried tourists around the city center.
Danthine stopped running the old horse and cart services two years ago because
it was too hard to find staff and criticism that it was cruel to the horses.
Three electric carriages will operate from the Grand Place, which the city
hopes will attract 15,000 tourists annually.
BIRTHDAYS:
Belgium’s Deputy Prime Minister Petra de Sutter; MEP Juan Fernando López
Aguilar; former MEPs Michał Boni and Filiz Hyusmenova; POLITICO contributor
Simon Marks; European Parliament’s Neil Corlett; Elysée’s Rhizlane Bouachra;
Deputy Director of the Jacques Delors Centre in Berlin Nils Redeker; ERCST’s
Chiara Cavallera. Portugal Day.
THANKS TO:
Clea Caulcutt, Giorgio Leali, Nicolas Camut, Elisa Braun, Eddy Wax, Jakob Hanke
Vela, Playbook editor Alex Spence, reporter Ketrin Jochecová and producer Dato
Parulava.
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