Zürcher Nachrichten - From wave to washout? Greens face tough time at EU vote

EUR -
AED 4.083149
AFN 77.259035
ALL 99.082915
AMD 430.315371
ANG 2.00411
AOA 1033.295146
ARS 1069.783838
AUD 1.644235
AWG 2.002391
AZN 1.888518
BAM 1.954073
BBD 2.245295
BDT 132.877763
BGN 1.955784
BHD 0.418982
BIF 3216.05365
BMD 1.111667
BND 1.438467
BOB 7.684069
BRL 6.069034
BSD 1.112007
BTN 93.109022
BWP 14.690411
BYN 3.639281
BYR 21788.680102
BZD 2.241478
CAD 1.51259
CDF 3190.485494
CHF 0.940518
CLF 0.037532
CLP 1035.618442
CNY 7.872812
CNH 7.886891
COP 4654.82912
CRC 575.580865
CUC 1.111667
CUP 29.459185
CVE 110.601725
CZK 25.069323
DJF 197.565738
DKK 7.459732
DOP 66.755606
DZD 146.894626
EGP 53.952661
ERN 16.67501
ETB 129.190789
FJD 2.453564
FKP 0.8466
GBP 0.84166
GEL 2.982046
GGP 0.8466
GHS 17.463873
GIP 0.8466
GMD 76.705113
GNF 9615.922593
GTQ 8.60132
GYD 232.720102
HKD 8.662835
HNL 27.746881
HRK 7.558239
HTG 146.72898
HUF 394.524632
IDR 17014.457908
ILS 4.201269
IMP 0.8466
INR 93.145521
IQD 1456.284231
IRR 46806.754259
ISK 152.310201
JEP 0.8466
JMD 174.705571
JOD 0.787836
JPY 158.096865
KES 143.405043
KGS 93.782699
KHR 4524.486525
KMF 491.926191
KPW 1000.499987
KRW 1472.03685
KWD 0.338951
KYD 0.926706
KZT 532.639596
LAK 24578.964872
LBP 99549.811448
LKR 337.328787
LRD 216.775404
LSL 19.55479
LTL 3.282465
LVL 0.672436
LYD 5.286018
MAD 10.846261
MDL 19.321442
MGA 5069.203259
MKD 61.516553
MMK 3610.652196
MNT 3777.445613
MOP 8.92575
MRU 44.126143
MUR 50.970077
MVR 17.064383
MWK 1929.298088
MXN 21.444395
MYR 4.717933
MZN 71.033371
NAD 19.553903
NGN 1822.501105
NIO 40.865161
NOK 11.797542
NPR 148.98133
NZD 1.791411
OMR 0.427951
PAB 1.111997
PEN 4.196711
PGK 4.366463
PHP 62.068282
PKR 309.210144
PLN 4.270918
PYG 8670.258014
QAR 4.047303
RON 4.974489
RSD 117.076374
RUB 104.054404
RWF 1489.634252
SAR 4.171916
SBD 9.249921
SCR 14.975257
SDG 668.670294
SEK 11.352125
SGD 1.439391
SHP 0.8466
SLE 25.398601
SLL 23311.102824
SOS 634.761885
SRD 33.430613
STD 23009.269742
SVC 9.730049
SYP 2793.097501
SZL 19.553982
THB 37.029745
TJS 11.842819
TMT 3.901952
TND 3.369442
TOP 2.612193
TRY 37.877955
TTD 7.553188
TWD 35.563909
TZS 3028.671015
UAH 46.098093
UGX 4136.306543
USD 1.111667
UYU 45.568081
UZS 14168.200292
VEF 4027073.383891
VES 40.835891
VND 27374.808546
VUV 131.979381
WST 3.109848
XAF 655.395356
XAG 0.036967
XAU 0.000434
XCD 3.004337
XDR 0.824194
XOF 655.326236
XPF 119.331742
YER 278.306261
ZAR 19.502646
ZMK 10006.338577
ZMW 29.440447
ZWL 357.956434
  • RBGPF

    3.5000

    60.5

    +5.79%

  • BCC

    1.8200

    137.06

    +1.33%

  • AZN

    0.0500

    78.58

    +0.06%

  • GSK

    -0.1300

    42.43

    -0.31%

  • SCS

    0.1000

    14.11

    +0.71%

  • NGG

    -0.3200

    70.05

    -0.46%

  • BTI

    -0.1300

    37.88

    -0.34%

  • CMSC

    0.0050

    25.055

    +0.02%

  • RELX

    -0.3900

    47.37

    -0.82%

  • CMSD

    -0.0300

    24.98

    -0.12%

  • RIO

    -0.0100

    62.91

    -0.02%

  • JRI

    0.0600

    13.44

    +0.45%

  • BCE

    1.1000

    35.61

    +3.09%

  • VOD

    0.0500

    10.23

    +0.49%

  • RYCEF

    0.0900

    6.55

    +1.37%

  • BP

    -0.1200

    32.43

    -0.37%

From wave to washout? Greens face tough time at EU vote
From wave to washout? Greens face tough time at EU vote / Photo: Simon Wohlfahrt - AFP

From wave to washout? Greens face tough time at EU vote

Five years ago Green parties swept to their best results ever at elections for the European Union's parliament, before helping to push through a sweeping raft of landmark legislation.

Text size:

But this time around, as people across the 27-nation bloc cast ballots later this week, Greens are expected to suffer heavy losses in the face of a right-wing backlash and voter fatigue.

Opinion polls predict the coalition of Green parties could lose one-third of the 72 European Parliament seats they currently hold -- and in France they risk dropping from 12 to zero.

While the last EU Parliament election in 2019 was accompanied by mass rallies over climate change, environmental issues have slipped down the pecking order this year as voters grapple with an array of other global crises.

Top concerns now include the economy, unemployment and security as wars rage in Ukraine and the Middle East and the EU struggles to revive growth after record inflation.

"Environmental issues remain important, but no longer strongly enough to determine the vote," said Phuc-Vinh Nguyen, a researcher at the Jacques Delors Institute think-tank.

Backing up that assertion, a recent poll from EU pollster Eurobarometer found that 84 percent of respondents believe legislation to protect the environment is necessary -- even if it is not their priority.

"But the election result will send a political signal, with the risk of interpreting the weakness of the Greens as a rejection of climate policy in general," Nguyen said.

- Hitting pause? -

But it's not just that other major issues are diluting the Green vote in the race for the 720-seat EU parliament.

As the EU has pushed through its mammoth package of "Green Deal" laws, right-wing parties have seized on discontent to turn it into a political football.

Nathalie Brack, a political scientist at Belgium's ULB university, said the conservative European People's Party (EPP) -- the biggest grouping in the EU parliament -- had set about "discrediting the ecological agenda".

After watering down or rejecting several green laws over the past year, election favourites EPP are now openly calling for a "pause" on any more such legislation to concentrate on competitiveness.

"The centre-right changed its tune and began to present things more and more as a dilemma of choosing between the economy on the one hand and the environment on the other," Brack said.

"That has amplified the far right's message that people are more interested in making ends meet at the end of each month than in the end of the world."

Most prominent in the pushback against the EU's environmental law have been a wave of farmer protests across the bloc that have been fuelled by ire at the perceived excessive regulations.

Philippe Lamberts, co-president of the Green grouping in parliament, said other political factions across the spectrum had increasingly lost the stomach to push through tough reforms.

"They initially supported the Green Deal when it was politically costly to oppose it, before changing course when it was no longer electorally promising and we were entering the hard part of the transition," Lamberts said.

But Green parties also have themselves to blame for their declining poll numbers as their involvement in a number of coalition governments across Europe has forced concessions that angered their base.

For example in Germany, where the Greens are in a three-party ruling coalition, they appear set to see their vote drop from 20.5 percent in 2019 to 14 percent after accepting the reopening of coal power plants in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

- Coalition conundrums -

As they struggle at the polls, the Greens are pinning their hopes on mobilising voters by emphasising the threat posed by a likely surge in the far right to the EU's environmental ambitions.

That is a real risk as numerous laws in the Green Deal have revision clauses or will need to be adapted to match the EU's yet-to-be-adopted 2040 climate goals.

But analysts say not everything is lost.

Even as they face slipping from their ranking as the fourth-largest party in the parliament, the Greens could still play a key role in helping form a majority after the elections.

Current EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, who hails from the EPP, could be scrambling for support to try to secure the backing required for a second term.

That could mean the Greens might be able to exact "guarantees" on sticking to the environmental ambitions in return for backing von der Leyen, said Nguyen.

"A partial unraveling of the Green Deal could be avoided with a 'wider grand coalition' bringing together Greens, social democrats, liberals and the EPP," he said.

I.Widmer--NZN