European socialists conspire to stop Europe’s turn to the right |

European socialists and democrats are mobilizing to stop Europe’s shift to the right. Just under 100 days before the elections to the European Parliament, the leaders of the European Socialist Party (PES) have warned this Saturday regarding the risk for green and social Europe of the increase in ultra-conservative forces with the backing of the right. A pattern that already sets the surveys; especially in France and Italy. “The soul of Europe is at risk,” launched the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, at the La Nuvola congress palace in Rome, where he warned regarding the right that stirs up fear and the ghosts of the past, authoritarianism, climate change denialism.

Sánchez in Europe continues to be seen as one of the very few social democratic leaders who has managed not to succumb to the wave of the right and, above all, the extreme right that is crossing the continent. “We will defeat them to continue building a better Europe, which continues to be a ray of freedom and democracy,” remarked the Spanish president, one of the most outspoken leaders on the ultra threat. “Let us offer hope where everyone spreads fear and fragmentation,” he claimed.

In the capital of Italy, a country in which the extreme right governs thanks to the support of the conservatives in an alliance once morest which the socialists cry out, the PES has elevated Nicolas Schmit, current Commissioner for Employment and Social Rights, as a global candidate to preside over the European Commission. The Luxembourg politician, with a discreet profile, will face the German conservative Ursula von der Leyen (European People’s Party), the head of the community Executive, favorite to repeat her term, with an agenda very focused on shielding Europe and who has already rushed to make concessions on environmental issues—such as shelving the pesticide directive—to the most right-wing sectors; also within her party, which this week in the European Parliament voted once morest one of its star green measures (even already modified and decaffeinated), the law for the restoration of nature.

“The extreme right is on the rise in practically all of our countries,” warned German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. “Right-wing populism is campaigning once morest a Europe united in its values. “They seek a nationalist Europe, to undermine our sovereign States that are stronger in a united Europe,” added the German socialist at the congress in Rome.

The latest polls suggest that the European socialists will be the second force in the next European Parliament with the EPP as the first force, while the liberals fight to maintain a third position with the extreme right and the ultra-conservatives. Indeed, a right-wing populist coalition made up of Christian Democrats, conservatives and radical right MEPs might emerge with a majority for the first time, according to an analysis by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

And this “sharp turn to the right,” ECFR researchers say, is likely to have significant consequences, especially on foreign policy and environmental issues, as the new majority might oppose (as it does now) more ambitious measures to address the climate crisis.

And with these calculations, aware of the disadvantage of the polls and Von der Leyen’s strength, the PES has decided to push to try to shift the agenda further to the left and to try to place more social measures in the new European Commission , which this legislature—partly marked by the covid-19 pandemic—have already set the agenda.

“We need fair and balanced policies,” stressed Danish Prime Minister Mette Frediksen. “We are experiencing one of the greatest transformations in Europe and we have to work for a future in which a fair green transition is carried out, where the rule of law is placed at the center and with equality as a basis,” highlighted Iratxe García, president of the group of social democrats in the European Parliament.

“The extreme right is a poison for democracy,” states the manifesto of the PES, which brings together 33 diverse European parties (and has twenty associates and observers) who have not been able to agree, for example, to demand a halt to the fire in the Gaza Strip, a reality equivalent to that of the EU.

This fight once morest populism is the common thread of the socialist campaign. And following Italy in 2022 was the laboratory for the alliances of the EPP with the extreme right, which has later been repeated in more countries – and in Spanish regions and city councils, where the PP has agreed with the eurosceptic ultras of VOX – it is also being for alliances focused on stopping the ultra-conservatives. It has worked in Sardinia, where the coalition formed by the social democrats of the Democratic Party (PD) and the 5 Star Movement (M5S, for its acronym in Italian) defeated a candidate imposed by the ultra-conservative Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni a few days ago.

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