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The rise of both nationalists and greens lays bare the increasing polarisation of EU politics. The results delivered a not entirely unwelcome slap for the traditional parties of the centre-right and centre-left. The mainstream European political families should be jolted into listening harder to the full range of concerns, from migration to the environment. Climate change, in particular, offers a challenge and an opportunity. If the traditional parties and the greens can turn the EU into more of a global leader on the issue, they will make the bloc appear more relevant to a new generation of voters.
But these polls have produced a more diverse, fragmented legislature. The loss of the combined centre-right/centre-left majority for the first time since 1979 will force pro-European parties to work in broader coalitions. Legislative majorities will become harder, though not impossible, to build.
The political initiative will also lie more with national governments sitting in the EU Council. Some governments have been weakened, however, by these elections — especially Germany’s, but also Italy, Greece and perhaps France. That makes progress on crucial issues such a eurozone reform difficult to foresee. The next EU budget will be highly contentious.
The diminished vote for Europe’s biggest political families raises serious questions, too, over the Spitzenkandidat system, where parliament groups nominate candidates for president of the European Commission. It is hardly a confidence vote for Manfred Weber, candidate of the biggest group, the centre-right EPP. European leaders now have an opportunity to pick a strong commission president better equipped than recent incumbents or Mr Weber to steer the renewal and reinvigoration that — as these elections have again made clear — the EU vitally needs. [...]
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