The tenth elections to the European Parliament are taking place against an unprecedented double political backdrop: the rise of populist and/or far-right parties hostile to European integration, and a war at our borders. Against this backdrop, five campaign themes stand out. While the first two are in the spotlight, there are three others that will be crucial to voters’ choices: migration policy, maintaining social peace and sustainable development. These are the five issues we will be looking at. First up, the expected shift to the right of the European Parliament.

Of course, nothing is certain before the voter puts his or her ballot paper in the box. But the polls seem to agree on one thing: the election is likely to be marked by a decline in the three major European parties that currently make up the majority--the European People's Party (EPP) on the right, Renew in the centre and the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) on the left--to the benefit of the radical right: the sovereignist European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and Identity and Democracy (ID) on the far right. The far left is also expected to make progress.

Greens and Liberals in decline

The parties that currently support the European Commission are likely to retain their majority, with between 400 and 420 MEPs out of the 720 to be elected. But in a European Parliament where voting discipline as we know it in national parliaments marked by the summa divisio majority-opposition is not the first rule--all the ex-MEPs interviewed by Paperjam during this campaign insisted that majorities were most often achieved on the basis of the projects presented--this could prove insufficient. The current majority can count on 424 MEPs. Polls put the gains for the far right and sovereignists at between 40 and 45 seats, with the far left gaining between five and 10. These are seats taken mainly from the Greens and Renew. The EPP is also expected to increase its number of elected members slightly.

Does this mean that Ursula von der Leyen’s selection as commission chief is a foregone conclusion? No. First, because it is the European Council that must appoint the president of the European Commission. It is up to the president to put together his or her team and have it approved by the MEPs. Second, because the EPP is divided over the personality of the outgoing president. The Republicans--the French component of the EPP with 16 outgoing MEPs--have announced that they will never vote for her. While the outgoing president’s record is solid, with the management of the covid pandemic, the post-crisis recovery of the economy, the management of Russia’s war against Ukraine and the launch of the Green Deal, von der Leyen is penalised by a number of controversies, such as her tendency to go it alone. We saw this in relation to Gaza and also with the direct negotiations with the CEO of Pfizer to obtain vaccines against covid.

Cost of living and immigration

How can we explain this shift to the right in European opinion? A shift that also benefits the EPP.

Again according to the polls, the far right or populist parties would win the European election at national level in nine countries: France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium--four founding members of the EU--as well as Austria, Latvia, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland. In these countries, inflation and the cost of living are among people’s top concerns. Immigration comes second. In Italy and France, immigration is the number one concern. As in Germany, the far right is openly capitalising on this concern. The “traditional” right-wing parties are tempted to play this card, but in a slightly more “restrained” way, like the Républicains party in France. The reform of the pact on migration has not helped to reassure public opinion. If anything, it has divided them.

The LSAP and déi Gréng stand as a bulwark against the far right

And in Luxembourg?

The head of the LSAP list, , said he was “proud that Luxembourg has never sent a far-right MEP to the European Parliament. This must continue. It will do our country’s reputation good too.” A large part of the , specifically the Pirates and the ADR.

The head of the déi Gréng list, takes the same line. “I want to be a strong voice against the far right,” she . For both parties, the far right plays on people’s fears and seeks to divide them. “These people play on people’s fears to make them believe that the big issues are asylum, immigration and insecurity. But that’s not true. The first insecurity is not being able to live on your salary. If we look at the Eurobarometer survey, what worries our fellow citizens are climate change and widening social inequalities,” said Angel.

“Faced with the far right, we will always be a bulwark,” said Metz. Will voters follow her lead? After a calamitous electoral sequence for the Greens, the party is hoping to turn its fortunes around at a poll where it has always scored well. But their seats are clearly under threat. On the evening of Luxembourg’s national elections, the party had 8.55% of the vote compared with 9.27% for the ADR. Keeping in mind that the electorate is different between the national parliamentary elections and the European elections, the ADR seems to be closer to the 11% mark considered to be the threshold for obtaining an elected seat.

ADR aiming for a seat

The head of the ADR list, , is . But for him, that’s not the main thing: the party has already won by having made its favourite themes. “We have already succeeded in making ADR issues important points in the election campaign,” he told Paperjam. However, the ADR faces a twofold problem in winning a seat. The Luxembourg electorate is by far one of the most pro-European on the continent. And in terms of form, other parties have positioned themselves on the ADR’s sovereignty issues. Like the Fokus party which, if elected, would join the Liberal family, told Paperjam in an . A catch-all party par excellence, the Pirates could also grab a few votes from the ADR. And the CSV, the winning party in the electoral sequence that began in June 2023 with the municipal elections, is , while at the same time making sovereign issues a key focus of its campaign.

This article was first published in French on . It has been translated and edited for Delano.