European Elections 2024: Repercussions and Consequences

Just as important as an election result are the political repercussions and consequences that flow from that result. Following the June 2024 European Parliamentary election, the winning centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) has made a series of political choices that are stress-testing the parliament’s erstwhile informal modus operandi - the ‘Grand coalition’ and the ‘cordon sanitaire’ - like never before. Not surprisingly, this has raised all manner of speculation about the sustainability of these two operational practices. Are we witnessing an irredeemable dismantling of the cordon sanitaire that had sought to marginalize the Eurosceptic groups on the EPP’s right-flank? Do developments foretell a fundamental shift that threatens the future viability of the grand coalition? Have events given the EPP the ‘best of both worlds’ where it has the option to construct majorities with either the political groups to its left or right depending on the issue at hand?Giorgia Meloni (Italian Prime Minister) ‘Our objective is clear, we want to do in Brussels what we did in Rome a year and a half ago. To build a right-wing government in Europe too.’ (May, 2024)Andrzej Halicki (EPP, Polish Civic Platform, MEP) ‘We should not give space to the enemies of Europe and have a naïve view that they act in good faith…’ (Oct. 2024)