Le Pen Storms Into Election Lead: A New Era For France, And Europe?

After suffering major losses in the first round of France’s elections on 30 June, the second round on 7 July looks all the more ominous for President Emmanuel Macron, and for the rest of Europe fearing Marine Le Pen and her potential influence on the EU agenda.

In contrast, general elections in the UK are all but guaranteed to see a huge victory for the Labour Party, which could look to re-energise relations with Europe, starting with the European Political Community meeting at Blenheim Palace, England, on 18 July.

Upcoming on Visegrad Insight:

• ONLINE EVENT: Today, 1 July at 3 PM CET/ 9 AM ET French Election Results. Click here for information and how to register
• The Q2 2024 Democratic Security Brief will be published today: Poland and Hungary To Steer EU Agenda But in Conflicting Directions 
  
• Oleksandr Kostryba analyses how many of the gaps in Europe’s security framework can be shored up with Ukrainian materials and know-how.
• Philipp Fritz breaks down the current state of the Weimar Triangle.

Le Pen takes the lead and Orbán shapes new, CEE far-right faction

EU/regional

• Marine Le Pen’s far-right party is within reach of taking over the French parliament after final results give National Rally (RN) a first place showing with 29.3% support.
• A left-wing alliance headed by Jean-Luc Mélenchon received 28% of the vote, while Macron’s centrist alliance came third with only 20% support.
• Whoever ends up taking up the role of PM, Macron has warned the result on 7 July could spark a “civil war” at home, and there will be serious questions about France’s ability to carry out the vision Macron laid out for Europe in his Sorbonne II speech.
• If RN is successful, this would usher in Jordan Bardella as prime minister who would undoubtedly introduce a more confrontational stance toward Brussels and changes in policy. In contrast to Macron, for example, Bardella has already said that, while he would continue to provide ammunition to Ukraine, he would not send French troops to the war-torn country nor send long-range missiles.
• Contrastingly, people close to Keir Starmer, who polls suggest will undoubtedly replace Rishi Sunak as PM after the 4 July UK elections, expect him to use the upcoming European Political Community summit to begin establishing a “new geopolitical partnership” with the EU and start to ease post-Brexit trade relations.

• Hungary’s Fidesz Party, the populist Czech ANO Party and Austria’s far-right Freedom Party are forming a new alliance in the European Parliament.
• The move was announced on 30 June and would reorder, but also possibly splinter, nationalist forces in the assembly, provided more MEPs join – parties from at least a quarter of the European Union’s 27 member states are needed to form a new group.
• It comes amidst rumours that Viktor Orbán is trying to create a CEE-based populist grouping, including Fidesz, Andrej Babiš’s ANO Party – which recently left the Renew group – but also Janez Janša’s Slovenian Democrats and Robert Fico’s Smer Party.
• Orbán had previously failed to get Meloni and Le Pen to team up and had also reiterated that Fidesz would not join the ECR while the Romanian AUR party was included, which he labelled “anti-Hungarian” for vilifying its Hungarian minority.

• Ursula von der Leyen, António Costa and Kaja Kallas were all selected for the EU’s top jobs, with negotiators from the EU’s three centrist parties wrapping up discussions before the European Council summit on 27 June.
• That was clearly the last straw for Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, who was already angered after being excluded from previous discussions, as she voted against both Kallas and Costa and abstained from the vote on von der Leyen.
• EU diplomats have said this does not bode well for the relationship between von der Leyen and Meloni and could have a serious impact on the Brussels-Rome axis.
• Von der Leyen still needs to build a Parliamentary majority by the 18 July vote, which may be a more difficult task than expected given Macron’s Renew group is fast losing seats and the Socialists and Democrats’ threaten to block a deal with the hard right.

• The European Council adopted a 14th package of economic and individual restrictive measures against Russia on 24 June.
• The measures target high-value sectors of the Russian economy, like energy, finance and trade, making it more difficult to circumvent EU sanctions. They also target 116 individuals and entities responsible for actions threatening Ukraine.
• The Council also approved additional restrictive measures against six persons involved in cyber-attacks affecting information systems in EU member states.
• At the same time, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich went on trial in Russia, in the first occasion since the Cold War that Russia has put a US reporter on trial for espionage. Russia also banned 81 European news outlets on its territory.

• Brussels and Beijing agreed to start talks on the bloc’s plans to impose levies on EVs shipped from China from July.
• The consultations began as Germany’s Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck also visited China, where Beijing reportedly promised perks for Germany’s luxury carmakers if Berlin could convince the EU to drop tariffs. (Read more about the tariffs here)

• EU watchdogs warned Apple over its app store practices and the need to comply with the bloc’s new Digital Markets Act. 
• The move could lead to more fines for the iPhone maker, just months after a €1.8 billion penalty for thwarting music-streaming rivals.
• Regulators also accused Microsoft of abusing its market power by bundling its Teams video-conferencing app with other business software.
• The Council for European Public Space think tank called for a European media platform financed by EU institutions to battle disinformation.

EU seals €1.4 billion deal and Ukraine security pact 

UKRAINE