With the European Parliament elections happening already and culminating in most countries voting on 9 June (Sunday), a few ideas/predictions - not about the results but rather the media/political context right after and in the next 5 years:
- narrative pushing: every pundit and media outlet will be pushing their core messages using the election data to 'prove' their claims instead of taking a dispassionate view (it sells more clicks and subscriptions to scare readers about the rise of the 'far right' or to tell hero stories about how this has been fended off)
- no serious reflection about the political mistakes: I've not seen any in-depth or honest hindsight about EU policies that proved to be rolled out too quickly or in an overly ambitious manner in the past 5 years, which have (likely) led to conservative parties getting stronger (assuming that's actually going to be the case)
- undefined terms like 'progressives', 'liberals', 'hard-right': their meaning and definition have changed a lot since 2019 and have become rather subjective depending on the speaker's vantage point... so it can and will be thrown around quite liberally (excuse the pun) instead of analytically
- misunderstanding how the European Parliament works: there are no fixed coalitions, only ad hoc, case-by-case alliances and deals, depending on the issue. Any and every combination under the sun is possible as a result of horse-trading as long as it can secure a 361 MEP majority for a vote as no single party (or, to be accurate, political group) will remotely have a majority by itself
- ideology trumps science/evidence: Europe can't escape global trends due to technology, media, political changes and while it has remarkably competent and knowledgable institutions, politics and ideology increasingly overwrite facts, evidence, 'science' and common sense due to identitarianism, opportunistic calculations (these always backfire, btw), and/or just sheer prejudice against people, nations, or ideas
- federation vs. confederation: the defining question in the EU will be a fundamental difference/disagreement between those favoring a 'federal Europe' where vetoes are minimized or phased out and more power is given to the 'EU institutions' vs. a 'confederal Europe' where Member States, currently 27 but possibly a few more in the next 5 years, only work together on core issues like the single market and its offshoots but are reluctant to cede more of their sovereign powers to 'Brussels'
Vive l'Europe 🍿