How did the Right get Elected in Europe?

London, 11 June . The results of the European Union’s parliamentary elections last weekend surprised many with the widespread center-right wins. Germany, Italy, France, and Poland all voted in right-leaning leaders. Meanwhile, Socialist Spanish and British administrations took a beating.[br]

London, 11 June . The results of the European Union’s parliamentary elections last weekend surprised many with the widespread center-right wins. Germany, Italy, France, and Poland all voted in right-leaning leaders. Meanwhile, Socialist Spanish and British administrations took a beating.[br]

Many are wondering why Europe is bringing in the Conservatives and Social Democrats while the US has done an about-face from right-wing politics.

Hank Witherspoon, an American expatriate in London said, “People are talking about the collapse of the GOP in the US now that Obama is in. Our values are changing and we are slowly starting to see that the ways of GWB just weren’t cool. So the question now is why is Europe going back? Why is it that now that when we think we are finally following Europe they go conservative?”

To begin with, less than 43 percent of the European Union’s 375 million voters even turned out for the election, which is the lowest since direct voting started in 1979.[br]

Countries like Italy, Spain, and Germany all have notorious far-right histories. In Italy today, it is fashionable for school students to affiliate themselves either with i communisti or i fascisti, with graffiti of each embellishing every school desk and toilet stall wall. (“Col falco e martello ti taglio l’uccello” immediately comes to mind, which directly translated means, With the sickle and the hammer I cut off your bird.) Il Duce, or Mussolini is sort of nostalgically revered by many in Italy even today, and the same can be said for Spain’s Franco.

But make no mistake – it’s not an ideology of eugenics, dictatorship, or even a fully-corporatized state that defines the newly-elected European center-right. They are certainly more socially conservative but where they seem to have won Europe’s votes is in their fiscal and financial restraint.

The irony is that Europe will remain to be more socially-left, through legislation such as the abolition of the death penalty and strong labour laws, much the opposite of the US.

Apparently unemployment, taxes, and decreased government spending – the economy – are more imminent concerns for most Europeans today, and bode well for the right.

Sara Hagemann, from the European Policy Center, a leading Brussels think tank, said, “Voters have turned to the center-right for a stable hand in a time where a lot of Europe’s population are faced with big problems such as unemployment, social welfare questions and the direct impact on their private economies.”

Moreover, Germany’s Merkel and France’s Sarkozy gained center-left votes through their interventionist policies to repair the economy.

In Italy and France, disagreement and fighting within the left hurt their abilities to secure votes.

And in Britain, the struggling labour Party only managed to pull in a dismal 15.3 percent of the votes, amid calls for Prime Minister Gordon Brown to resign. The corruption scandal which has caused a half-dozen ministers to resign did not help.

Exacerbating labour’s woes were elections of two members from the far-right British National Party to serve in the European assembly.

The unusual mix of economic troubles and overall political apathy throughout the European Union converged to give the right unexpected votes. Let’s just forget that it is normally the center-right that endorses the kind of free-market, laissiez-faire policy that led to the massive economic meltdown we are riding out now.

Hector Sim, EconomyWatch.com