“The very soul of Europe is at risk,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez warned fellow European centre-left politicians who had gathered in Rome ahead of a difficult EU election campaign.
At stake was how to halt the seemingly unstoppable rise of right-wing and far-right parties in the European Parliament vote, which starts on Thursday in the Netherlands and continues across all 27 EU member states until Sunday.
Only four EU member states have centre-left or left-wing parties in government and recent performances at the ballot box have been poor. The omens for the coming days are not good.
The European left is in “bad health”, says Prof Marc Lazar of Sciences Po in Paris and Rome’s Luiss University, the result of a steady decline that began in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
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In only four countries are the Socialists and Democrats projected to come out on top - in Sweden, Denmark, Lithuania and Malta. Even then, Denmark’s Social Democrats under Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen are geared up for a big drop in support.
Hers is one of only four out of 27 member states with centre-left or left-wing parties at the helm.Spain, Germany, and Malta are the others.
It maybe also does not help that as part of the left’s inclusion and equity stance the focus in a lot of policy and rhetoric is about marginalized groups.
If too much of your focus is on these groups then you are appearing to underrepresent the bulk of the lower classes. The fact that these people would also greatly benefit from the suggested policies does not resonate because these people don’t identify with the marginalized groups.
A little like poor and middle-class Americans that all have been fooled I to thinking they are just temporarily embarrassed millionaires and vote for tax cuts for the rich.
A Dutch lower and middle-class will vote right wing becuase “the left” only cares about asylum seekers and poor colored folks in big cities. The fact that strengthening the social security and protections also benefit them does not seem to factor in.
To me it always feels like a messaging failure. And the fact that the biggest opposition party in the Netherlands has since the right wing pvv won our national elections… only spoke about excluding POC. They forget that their messaging failed to reach a majority of lower class voters who will be exploited by the right wing policies… but hey.