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The Populist Takeaways From Europe’s Elections

The Populist Takeaways From Europe’s Elections

(Bloomberg) --

The storm has passed and the house is still standing.

Voting across the European Union’s 28 members was forecast as the moment that nationalist populist forces would take enough seats to set the bloc on a more EU-skeptic, anti-immigrant, Trump-like course. Instead, the center held, the Greens surged and the populist challenge has been contained to a few main countries. That poses a dilemma for the nationalists in all their many guises.

In Italy, Matteo Salvini scored a notable victory for his League party. But the danger for Salvini now is rather than leading like-minded forces across Europe, his EU baiting only further isolates Rome.

Viktor Orban consolidated his dominance of Hungary’s political landscape, yet he must now choose whether to exit Europe’s mainstream center-right family from which his party is currently suspended, robbing him of leverage.

In France, Emmanuel Macron lost to Marine Le Pen, but the wafer-thin margin of the defeat means his vision of a more integrated Europe lives on. And in Poland, the ruling Law & Justice Party saw off a challenge by a pro-EU coalition that sets up an intriguing rerun in national elections this fall.

Europe has shown resilience in the face of crises over debt, migration and Brexit. It’s a lesson the populists are now having to learn.

The Populist Takeaways From Europe’s Elections

Global Headlines

Leader blowback | EU elections are often dismissed as of little consequence, but in Greece and Romania the results threaten to seal the fate of national leaders. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called a snap election after his party took a pounding, while Romania's de-facto leader, Liviu Dragnea, is under pressure to quit after voters turned out in droves to punish his ruling Social Democrats.

Parade of hopefuls | Against a backdrop of a Conservative drubbing at the hands of Nigel Farage in the EU elections, a string of candidates vying to take over from Theresa May as party leader emerged over the weekend. Eight hopefuls have now declared themselves in the running to succeed where May failed and become the prime minister to deliver Brexit.

Auto detente | Could a proposed merger between Fiat and Renault help to calm political tension? Recent cross-border transactions have fanned nationalist sentiment in Italy and France. But as John Follain and Geraldine Amiel report, the proposed tie-up of the carmakers is welcomed in Rome and Paris, at least in some quarters.

Trade war | Beijing is not backing down as the U.S. piles pressure on Huawei amid a trade war between the two nations. After U.S. President Donald Trump barred China’s global tech champion from buying American components, CEO Ren Zhengfei told Bloomberg Television that Huawei will ramp up its own chip supply or find alternatives. President Xi Jinping separately urged giants including Alibaba, Tencent and Huawei to develop new technologies such as artificial intelligence in cooperation with other nations as the dispute continued to rattle markets.

No deal | Trump said the U.S. isn’t ready to make a trade deal with China, but gave Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe some breathing room. Speaking in Tokyo, Trump said he wasn't planning to raise tariffs on Japan's automakers ahead of the ruling party's leadership contest and flagged a potential U.S.-Japan trade announcement in August. In a less conciliatory turn, he also said he agreed with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that former U.S. vice president Joe Biden was a ‘low IQ individual.’

What to Watch

  • Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz is on track to be ousted today after his former coalition partners in the nationalist Freedom Party lined up behind a motion to dismiss Europe’s youngest leader.
  • Envoys from Venezuela’s political rivals President Nicolas Maduro and Juan Guaido, recognized as interim president by 50 nations, will resume talks in Oslo later this week in an attempt to break the political stalemate.
  • Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu is facing the possibility of new elections as he scrambles to form a government ahead of Wednesday’s deadline.

And finally... As China makes lunar advances of its own, Trump announced the U.S. and Japan plan a dramatic expansion of their cooperation in outer space, with missions to Mars and the moon coming “very soon.” Space presents perhaps the most astronomical front in the race for global dominance between the world’s two largest economies — while the U.S. hasn’t landed an astronaut on the moon since 1972, China became the first country to land a spacecraft on its far side last year.

The Populist Takeaways From Europe’s Elections

--With assistance from Iain Marlow, Shivani Kumaresan and Karen Leigh.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Ruth Pollard at rpollard2@bloomberg.net

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.