The last few days have witnessed political turmoil in major countries, starting last Sunday when the results of the second round of the French legislative round began to emerge. French President Emmanuel Macron, who had already lost his parliamentary majority in 2022, has further reduced its parliamentary base. A hung parliament has resulted from the surge of the extreme right and extreme left, which will make it even harder to form a government in coming weeks.
Also in Europe, Victor Orbán, the PM of Hungary, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU, visited both Volodymir Zelensky in Kiev and Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Orban is reportedly seeking a diplomatic solution, but his visit to Moscow allowed Putin to say that the EU is trying to re-establish a dialogue with Russia, which is by no means the EU’s official position. The outgoing President of the EU Council, Charles Michel, said that Orbán has “no mandate” from the EU to open a diplomatic channel with Russia, and that the EU needs to show “unity” not “cracks” in its unwavering support for Ukraine.
Yet these cracks are already emerging, and they are likely to intensify in the coming months. Marine Le Pen said that if the RN reaches power, it will withdraw its authorisation to use the long-distance weapons France has supplied to Ukraine, a move that will certainly please Putin. Putin himself was also pleased to hear that US presidential candidate Donald Trump “sincerely” intends to reach an agreement between the two sides by allowing Russia to remain in Ukraine’s territory, and by promising that Ukraine will never join NATO. More than a compromise, that would seem like a capitulation to Putin’s pretences.
These “cracks” could eventually lead to an internal division within the EU, with the creation by Victor Orbán of a new group of “Patriots” within the EU parliament, which has already attracted the participation of Spain’s Vox, Italy’s’ Lega, Czechia’s ANO, and Austria’s FPÖ.
Where is the US in all this? The race for the November 5th presidential election continues, but both camps seem in trouble. The Democrats – and especially their powerful donors – are actively considering replacing Joe Biden as their nominee, on the back of the disastrous showing by him in the CNN debate with Trump. But Biden reiterated he will remain in the race, running on the real achievements of his government, including the massive job creation: on Friday, the June Non-Farm Payroll showed an increase of 206K jobs, above market expectations of a 190K figure.
The Republican camp is well presided over by Trump, who is certain to win the nomination by the party in a few days. But two major scandals are emerging. First is Trump’s alleged potential involvement in Jeffrey Epstein’s organisation, as hs emerged by the de-classification of official documents. Second, there is the emergence of his links with the authors of Project 2025, a sort of guide to establish an autocratic regime in the US starting from the inauguration of Trump in January 2025, with around 20,000 people reportedly on call to replace the employees of the current administration, in order to make the “deep state” loyal to Trumpism.
In all this chaos, which could lead to any outcome, the UK, which completely changed its political colour following its general election last week, with a massive defeat of the Tories and a resounding victory by Labour, led by Keir Starmer, seems to be an island of peace and stability, considering the orderly and civilised transition of power that occurred between outgoing PM Sunak and incoming PM Starmer.
by Brunello Rosa
1 July 2024
Last week the world moved another inch close to chaos. In the first US presidential debate, President Biden and Donald Trump staged one of the worst performances in American political history, with allegations and counter-allegations on personal matters and little space for policy discussion.
Joe Biden looked confused and weak, and even the press that is closer to the Democrats could not defend his appearance. Many voices emerged asking him to step down from the race, or else for the Democratic Convention, which is scheduled to take place in Chicago on 19-22 August, to replace him. Biden responded that he will carry on with the race. Donald Trump, who on stage performed better than Biden, still did not have much more substance to add to his usual rhetoric. The vast majority of polled people thought that Trump won the debate, and his chances of being re-elected have meaningfully increased since the debate.
In Europe, the EU sped up the process of appointing its top representatives on Thursday, with an agreement being reached on Ursula von der Leyen getting a second mandate as Commission president, Antonio Costa, the former Portuguese prime minister, being the next EU Council president, and Kaja Kallas, former prime minister of Estonia, becoming the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Maltese Roberta Metsola is confirmed as President of the EU Parliament. The Council, with the opposition of Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Hungary’s Victor Orban, wanted to make sure that all these appointments were made before the first round of the French legislative election, which took place during the weekend. This is because the Council did not want to negotiate these matters with Marine Le Pen calling the shots from the heavy chair of France.
In France, as discussed in our trip report, Le Pen’s party, Ressemblement National, is set to gain power for its first time in history, either with an absolute majority in parliament or a plurality just shy of a majority which can be reached with the addition of 10-20 MPs from other right-wing parties. In our opinion this will set the scene for her victory in the presidential election of April 2027, or earlier than that in the event that Emmanuel Macron resigns.
This turn of events could effectively lead to a situation in which Trump returns as US president and Le Pen controls the French political system until her ascent to power in 2027. Two right-wing populist leaders at the helm of two of the oldest liberal democracies in the world, at the same time as Putin, Xi, and a series of other autocratic leaders are already in power. Even the “moderate” Giorgia Meloni, who already displays autocratic tendencies, would likely show her true colours in such a mutated international context, likely returning to her radical right-wing ideas of the past. And we need to wait to see what happens in Germany, where the neo-nazi party AfD is already second behind the CDU, and first in many Eastern states.
Needless to say, a world in which Trump, Le Pen, Meloni, possibly the AfD in some form, plus Xi, Putin and many other autocrats are all in power at the same time, does not look terribly good in terms of international security and domestic defense of liberal democratic values, including the independence of the judiciary and the freedom of
