Elections and Parties
Brexit marks one of the biggest crises to face the European Union. The outcome of the upcoming elections will be crucial to Europe’s future. On the one hand, this section will analyse the electoral situation in individual countries, including the formation of a government in Sweden and the parliamentary elections in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece and Poland and the local council elections in Germany, Spain and Turkey. On the other hand, the political developments surrounding the European Parliament elections will be a major focus. Social issues in particular will be discussed with respect to the European left from both country-specific and Europe-wide perspectives, and strategies will be developed that the left can use to counter nationalist and right-wing populist movements.
MARTIN HEINLEIN
Version française ci-dessous Co-chairs Ines Schwerdtner and Jan van Aken on the party’s remarkable comeback When we announced our candidacy for the chair of Die Linke last summer, the situation seemed hopeless: the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) had split from the party and we were limping into the state elections in eastern... Read More "How Die Linke Turned the Tide"
imago images/Achille Abboud
Version française ci-dessous The 2025 German federal election, held some eight months ahead of schedule following the collapse of the governing coalition late last year, largely proceeded as expected, with losses for the coalition partners, gains for the centre-right, and big gains for the far-right... Read More "The 2025 German Election: First Impressions and Implications"
John Nielsen
Despite being one of the first countries to sign the UN Refugee Convention, Denmark has also been a frequent first-mover on harsh immigration policies in Europe. An increasing number of political parties – not all of them right-wing or nationalist – across Europe point to the “Danish model” as... Read More "Why Europe should avoid modelling its migration policy on Denmark"
IMAGO/Pacific Press Agency
Although European elections are traditionally considered as being second-order in nature, it is quite clear that at least those of 2024 have had a clear first-order impact in several European countries, with the snap national elections in France and the subsequent formation of the New Popular Front by the... Read More "Second-Order Elections with a First-Order Impact"
IMAGO/CTK Photo
In the Czech Republic, elections to the European Parliament are among the least popular with voters. In 2014, turnout was 18.2 percent, and in 2019, it was 28.7 percent. Surveys for this year estimate it will be somewhere between 20 and 30 percent. This means that the European elections are mainly the arena of highly... Read More "Czech Politics and the European Elections"
IMAGO/ZUMA Wire
The European Parliament elections on 9 June will be the third nationwide elections to take place in Poland in eight months. They are expected to set the course for the 2025 presidential elections and will serve as an important test of whether the new coalition of the liberal Koalicja Obywatelska (Civic Coalition), the conservative Trzecia Droga (Third... Read More "The EU Elections in Poland"
IMAGO/Nik Erik Neubauer
Since joining the European Union in 2004, Slovenia has consistently exhibited one of the lowest voter turnouts in European elections. Indeed, statistics reveal that in 2019, only the Czech Republic (28.72 percent) and Slovakia (24.74 percent) recorded lower turnouts than Slovenia’s 28.89 percent. Remarkably, voter... Read More "Slovenia’s Political Pendulum Swings Back"
IMAGO/Lehtikuva
As the European Parliament elections this June draw nearer, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation is conducting a series of interviews with left-wing parties and candidates from across the EU on the election campaign, their political programmes, and the challenges facing left-wing forces domestically and at a European level. The foundation’s Duroyan Fertl spoke... Read More "Opposing Finland’s Thatcherist Turn"