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Can Europe’s economy ever hope to rival the US again? As EU policymakers scramble for ways to inject some dynamism, we analyse the continent’s chronic underperformance.
Revival
Raphaël Glucksmann, a Parisian writer and activist turned EU lawmaker now running for re-election, has a message for his fellow compatriots on the fragmented French left: smile more.
“The left cannot be the camp that sulks all the time,” he tells Leila Abboud. “That is often how we appear.”
Context: The June 6-9 European elections are forecast to result in a more fractured European parliament, as a rise in support for far-right parties pressures the continent’s traditionally dominant centre-right and centre-left groups.
Glucksmann’s campaign as the head of the election list for the Socialist party and his own small Place Publique party has been more joyful as evidenced by crowded rallies and motivated campaign volunteers — such “Glucksmania” is a big change for the French centre-left that has been moribund for more than a decade.
He is polling only three points behind President Emmanuel Macron’s struggling candidate, MEP Valérie Hayer, but both are still far behind the far-right Rassemblement National.
But the price to pay for a potential revival of the moderate left is the return of the vicious infighting with the radical left led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed party.
Although the different factions of the left were in a shortlived alliance in 2022, the European elections have exposed again their deep rifts, especially on foreign affairs, from EU integration to the war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas conflict.
“We all know that what divided the French left and what was swept under the rug was primarily the question of the EU and international issues,” he said.
Glucksmann argued the election will “settle the line” by finally ending such debates. That optimism may prove unfounded if the centre-left’s revival just brings back old ghosts of les gauches irréconciliables — the irreconcilable factions on the left.
What to watch today
The prime ministers of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden meet Germany’s chancellor in Stockholm.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis visits Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara.
Eurozone finance ministers meet in Brussels.
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Publish date : 2024-05-12 07:00:00
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