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The elections for the European Parliament brought gains for parties belonging to both its populist far- right factions — European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and the more radical Identity and Democracy (ID) group. Parties of the populist or far right (ECR, ID or unaffiliated) came in first in five countries: France, Italy, Austria, Hungary, and Slovakia.In Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands, such parties made a strong second place showing. These elections produced highly unsettling developments in France and Germany, the two most influential EU member countries. In France, the party of Marine Le Pen, National Rally (RN, a member of the ID group) won just over 30% of the vote, twice the support gained by Macron's liberal Renaissance party. As a result, Macron called snap national parliamentary elections for the end of this month, opening the possibility of "cohabitation" with a far-right prime minister for the remainder of Macron's final term in office. In Germany, the far right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) took just under 16% of the vote, a second-place finish behind the Christian Democrats at 30%, and ahead of the Social Democrats at 14%, Greens at 12% and FDP (liberals) at 5%. These three latter parties form Germany's governing coalition, and their combined 30% showing exposes deep popular disaffection with those in power. The new anti-war left populist BSW (Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht) enters the European Parliament with 6%. The gains by populist far right parties were more modest than predicted by polls taken earlier this year. Overall, the relative balance in the parliament is not radically changed: centrists (EPP, S&D and Renew) retain a slightly diminished majority (403 of 720 seats). The ECR gained four seats to win 73, and ID gained nine seats to end with 58 in the new parliament. The latter score reflects the move of AfD (which won 15 seats) from ID to the unaffiliated category. Turnout averaged 51% across the 27 member countries, only marginally higher than in 2019. A range of factors seem to have driven the relative success of the far right: migration flows, economic insecurity, the alleged impact of Europe's green policies, anti-elite Euro-skepticism, and (in some instances) opposition to funding and arming Ukraine. The relatively stronger far right in the new parliament can be expected to press on these issues.The right of center European People's Party remains easily the biggest delegation in the parliament with 189 seats, more than a quarter of the total. The center-left Social Democrats lost only four seats to win 135, with the pro-business centrist liberals (Renew) losing 23 seats to remain in third place with 79 seats. These three groups have served as a de facto coalition in support of the legislative agenda of the Commission president, German Christian Democrat Ursula von der Leyen. The coalition will have a slightly diminished majority of seats, so that von der Leyen's election to a second term as president of the European Commission could be at some risk. The ballot is secret, and a defection rate of about 10% is considered normal. The EPP may owe its strong performance to its having toughened its stance on migration and on the green transition in part to slow the momentum of the far right. This will complicate EPP's cooperation with S&D. It is possible that the EPP will enact legislation in these two policy areas with votes from the ECR, which will raise the profile and significance of the populist right in the new parliament. The Greens lost 18 seats and fall to 53 in the new parliament.Maneuvers on the rightThe ECR and ID delegations — if merged — would make the far right the third largest grouping. A barrier to such a merger has been the role of Germany's AfD, which was expelled from ID just before the elections, after AfD's lead candidate Maximilian Krah stated in a press interview that membership in the Nazi-era SS did not by itself imply personal criminality. In response, Marine Le Pen successfully pushed for the AfD's expulsion from the ID ranks.Ursula von der Leyen has courted Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni (Brothers of Italy — ECR) in support of her re-election to a second term as president of the European Commission. But Meloni (one of the few European leaders currently enjoying strong popular support) has sought to convince EPP to govern with ECR and ID rather than with the S&D and Liberals. As a step toward this aim, she has called for a merger of the ECR and ID. Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orban, and former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki (of the Law and Justice party — ECR) have endorsed such an effort. The combined strength of ECR and ID could increase its already significant leverage over the positions taken by the center right EPP. Although the aggregate performance of the ID and ECR fell short of producing a major "wave" reshaping the European Parliament, the results in France and Germany in particular were momentous. European parliamentary elections remain fundamentally national contests, tests of strength for ruling and opposition parties. The results in Germany and France risk domestic political gridlockand undermine the already troubled Franco-German tandem so essential to defining the EU agenda. The election result has also underscored the role of Italy's Meloni in reinvigorating the far right's role in European politics.

With NATO's 75th anniversary summit drawing near, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told the Munich Security Conference in February that Germany would this year meet NATO's 2% of GDP target for defense spending and would sustain this level "through the 2020s and 2030s."But Bastian Giegerich, the head of the London-based International Institute for Security Studies, has said that reversing the effects across Europe of more than 20 years of underfunding of defense capabilities will take at least a decade of substantially increased defense spending. He's not alone in thinking this way, and for good reason. Germany's 2024 budget allocates 51.8 billion euros for defense, by itself short of the 2% of GDP NATO benchmark. Germany seems on course, however, to meet the target by drawing down the 100 billion euro emergency fund announced by Scholz in his famous Zeitenwende (epochal change) speech to the Bundestag in February 2022. Disbursements from this fund are projected to keep Germany's defense spending at or above the 2% of GDP mark through 2028, after which Germany plans to fund defense through the regular budget process. Achieving this will require an increase of approximately 30 billion euros over the 2024 defense outlay. An increase of this magnitude to defense spending from the regular budget process will require overcoming very serious obstacles. Germany has well established limits on the fiscal deficit, which will create politically destabilizing distributional conflict when other spending priorities are forced to adjust to make room for a bigger defense budget.. This constraint will be even more binding if the economy, expected to grow at only 0.2% this year, remains weak. Fiscal probity is baked into German political culture and shored up by formal legal constraints. The "debt brake" written into the constitution in 2009 holds the federal budget deficit to 0.35% in any budget year. The opposition Christian Democratic (CDU/CSU) party, which, according to current polling trends, seems likely to return to power in the 2025 elections, is wary of any attempt to circumvent or reform the debt brake, which legally can be suspended only by invoking "emergency" conditions, as was done to fund pandemic spending, and to unlock 100 billion euros for defense spending in 2022. Last November, Germany's Constitutional Court ruled against the government's plan to repurpose 60 billion euros of unspent COVID funding to pay for green energy transition programs. The ruling coalition had to scramble to fill the hole in its budget, exposing the vulnerability of Germany's fiscal policy to distributional constraints. Farmers took protests onto the streets of Berlin to demand restoration of their diesel fuel subsidy. This kind of social tension is likely to follow any attempt to shift massive resources to the defense sector by cutting other programs. The green energy transition remains a priority for the coalition's two main parties — the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens — even though both are fully convinced of the need to boost defense spending. The fiscally conservative Free Democrats (FDP) and their leader, Finance Minister Christian Lindner, adamantly oppose reforming the debt brake or raising taxes. The only obvious way to square this circle would be to consider the continuing war in Ukraine an emergency and thereby unlock another 100 billion euros. This is obviously not an ideal way to finance a program of rearmament that might take decades, and such a maneuver might not survive scrutiny by the Constitutional Court in any case. It is becoming evident that, even with the provision of emergency funding, the defense industrial base can expand only gradually, and weapons procurement processes are limited by the time needed to manufacture new weapons and equipment, whether from Germany, elsewhere in Europe or the United States. For example, the 18 Leopard 2 battle tanks ordered to replace those supplied to Ukraine will arrive two years from now at the earliest. Meanwhile, Ukrainian president Zelensky recently assailed Germany for not delivering the Taurus missiles; he claimed Berlin decided the missiles were necessary for defending Germany instead.Social Constraints: Leadership and Public AttitudesThe German military was underfunded for years before February 2022, because the political leadership absorbed the liberal triumphalism of the 1989 democratic revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe and believed history pointed to global convergence on the liberal democratic model.Efforts to expand military recruitment began after the 2014 Russian takeover of Crimea, but has failed to attract new recruits in sufficient numbers. The number of troops remains stuck at 180,000. Some are now calling for reinstituting mandatory military service.The most effective and vocal advocate for Germany's rearmament is Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, an SDP politician widely touted as a possible successor to Scholz. Pistorius has said that the Bundeswehr must be made "kriegstüchtig" (war ready) and warned that Russia might attack a NATO member within the coming 8-10 years.These statements, very much against the grain of Germany's antecedent anti-militarist political culture, have not dented Pistorius' popularity. German elites and, to a lesser extent, the broader society seem to be moving toward greater acceptance of the need for national rearmament.The European Vision: Too Many Cooks?The European Commission has advanced its own plans to coordinate the financing of rearmament across Europe, favoring and fostering synergies among European defense-industrial firms. In principle, this initiative should pose no problem for Germany since Scholz, a committed European, has repeatedly stated that the EU is the framework for Germany foreign and security policy.Nevertheless, the Commission risks competing with member nations for available resources for equipment and weapons acquisition. Most member countries, including Germany and France, conceive of defense cooperation in a multilateral pan-European context, but would insist that member nations remain in the driver's seat.Emmanuel Macron's exhaustive vision for Europe— the "Sorbonne II" speech of April 26 — dealt extensively with the European imperative to develop a more capable conventional deterrent, albeit within NATO.His framing of the issue was the stark warning that "Our Europe can die," but he did not endorse any pooling of national sovereignty on defense policy. On the contrary, he pledged personally to convene "all partners" to develop a "new defense paradigm" for the "credible defense of the European continent."This is an intergovernmental framework rather than one featuring a leading role for the European Commission.Why the Path Ahead is DifficultBastian Giegerich of IISS says that for Germany "the mental shift, the societal resilience" needed to underpin rearmament "has not happened." This is true, but it is not only a matter of changing hearts and minds. Germany's limitations are embodied in its institutional framework and very resistant to change, given the perceived challenges from the populist right, the climate policy imperative, its generous social safety net, the fragmented party system, the self-imposed but broadly popular fiscal constraints, and complex coordination problems with key partners (above all France) and the European Commission. This transformation, even if embraced without reservation by Scholz or his successors, is a vastly complex and fraught agenda.

Relations among the European backers of Ukraine have been roiled by recent battlefield developments indicating momentum may have passed to Russia amid stalled American funding for military support to Ukraine.The Franco-German "tandem," which has underpinned European integration for decades, has been disturbed by obvious disagreements between French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The recent friction comes from the continued refusal by Scholz to consider providing long-range Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine and from Macron's highly contested declaration on February 26 that the deployment of NATO forces in Ukraine should not be excluded. The next day, Scholz categorically ruled out any deployment of German or NATO forces in Ukraine.Over the past two years of war, Germany has surprised critics by rising to second place behind the U.S. as a supplier of weapons for Ukraine. In recent weeks, however, Germany has returned to whipping-boy status, as Scholz has refused to grant Ukraine's long-standing request for Taurus missiles. This seems to be a replay of the 2022 debate over supplying German Leopard tanks, but the then-hopeful prospects for eventual Ukrainian victory have faded considerably. Scholz's objection to providing the Taurus missile is contested within his governing coalition (which includes the Greens and the liberal Free Democrats, as well as his own Social Democrats). He has stated, most recently on March 4, that his main reservation is that the Taurus missile could not be used by Ukraine except with the help and presence on Ukrainian soil of some German military personnel. A public opinion poll published on February 27 showed that 56% of Germans opposed sending the Taurus missile to Ukraine. A plurality of SPD supporters opposed the deployment (46% versus 41%), while a plurality of FDP supported it (48% to 46%). Among the governing parties, the Greens were the only party supporters who favored sending the missiles by a majority (52% to 34%). Surprisingly, more respondents who identified with the main center-right opposition Christian Democrats opposed the deployment than supported it (48% versus 45%), despite the support of their parliamentary delegation for providing the missiles. Finally, a huge majority (87%) who identified with the populist far-right AfD opposed the proposed deployment.Russian leak of air force officers on Taurus deploymentA conversation of Luftwaffe chief General Ingo Gerwartz and three other senior German air force officers on February 19 was intercepted and published online on March 1. The conversation dealt extensively with how Taurus missiles could be deployed without having German military personnel on-site. The officers were preparing a briefing for Defense Minister Boris Pistorius addressing the feasibility, timing, and practicalities of the deployment, but not clearly endorsing or opposing it.
The officers discussed how Taurus missiles could be used to destroy the Kerch Bridge, but did not themselves advocate the selection of this target. Their discussion reached no conclusion about how Germany could deploy the missiles effectively without breaching the political red line about a German military presence in Ukraine.
Moreover, Gerwartz indicated that the destruction of the Kerch Bridge, while technically achievable, was unlikely to change the course of the war. The transcript of this conversation was published by the Russian state broadcaster RT and is presumed to have been intercepted by Russian intelligence. The Russian official press has falsely characterized the officers' conversation as amounting to a plot being hatched to ensure the missiles are deployed, and to force the hand of the chancellor.
Pistorius has called the release of the transcript a case of Russian information warfare intended to sow discord among the Western supporters of Ukraine. The German domestic debate on this scandal has mainly focused on assigning responsibility for the egregious failure of communications security. Advocates of deploying the Taurus have used the incident to redouble their efforts to force Scholz to change his mind.
Since the release of the conversation, Scholz has reiterated that the problem of providing Taurus missiles boils down to the insuperable problem of how to ensure effective use of the Taurus missiles without itself becoming a party to the conflict. The leaked conversation alluded to the alleged presence and involvement of UK and French military personnel in the operation of the Storm Shadow and Scalp cruise missiles provided to Ukraine by Britain and France, respectively. Both countries have expressed outrage at the lax security that permitted the conversation's interception.Macron rises to the occasion?With Germany locked in its characteristic caution, French President Macron launched an effort to mobilize a united European drive to re-vitalize support for Ukraine by convening a hastily organized meeting of European leaders on the defense of Ukraine in Paris on February 26.
This followed on the heels of the fairly downbeat mood about the prospects of reviving Ukraine's military fortunes that prevailed at the annual Munich Security Conference the previous week. At the closing press conference of the Paris meeting, Macron made his surprising assertion that the deployment of NATO troops should not be ruled out, though he acknowledged that "no consensus" had yet formed around this idea. Macron seems to have in mind the deployment of French or NATO troops in non-combatant roles, such as de-mining. This idea has nevertheless come under fire from much of the political opposition in France.
The leaders at the conference decided to pursue a Czech proposal to increase European bilateral funding to buy 800,000 artillery shells for Ukraine from non-EU countries to make up for the inadequate supplies of shells in Europe. Macron traveled to Prague on March 5 to explore this idea further and insisted that eventual deployment of NATO forces should not be ruled out, and that allies should not be "cowardly." Germany's Pistorius quickly called this language unhelpful.It is galling to Germans that France, which has given far less military support to Ukraine than Germany, should chide others for being timid. The Ukraine Support Tracker at the Kiel Institute in Germany (last updated on January 15) puts German military aid commitments at $17.7 billion and the U.S. at $42.2 billion, with France well down the list at $0.6 billion. Paris has challenged Kiel's methodology.Why it mattersThe New York Times' Roger Cohen recently noted that, without any obvious attempt to build advance support for his initiative, Macron sought to reinject confidence among European supporters of Ukraine and produce "strategic ambiguity" to shake Russian confidence. Instead, he laid bare the divisions among allies about how far they are willing to go in defense of Ukraine and provoked an open breach with Germany. Macron's own twisted path toward his latest hawkish incarnation limits his credibility to mobilize Europe behind him.
German resistance to providing Taurus missiles is directly related to its alarm at what it sees as Macron's reckless stance on eventual NATO deployments in Ukraine. Germany apparently remains determined not to cross the line between assisting Ukraine in its self-defense and becoming a party to the conflict. The opposition to deploying the Taurus from the German public across the political spectrum (with the Greens as the noteworthy exception) bolsters Scholz's stance.
Even if Macron's initiative seems to have divided rather than mobilized a united European front to defend Ukraine, his activism demonstrates the dawning awareness that Europe will have more responsibility for arming Ukraine due to the stalled American aid package and the approaching U.S. elections.
The unfortunate upshot of these recent developments is to hobble the Franco-German tandem that has been crucial to the effective functioning of the EU for decades. This open rift is unwelcome when the EU as a whole is groping toward a more unified, coordinated, and generously funded rearmament, in which Berlin and Paris must be leading players.

Elections to the European Parliament in June are shaping up as a test of the potential ascendency of the nationalist-populist right across the European Union, further complicating regional support for Ukraine.Turnout for the EU parliamentary contest is expected to be unusually high because of a much-anticipated populist surge, and efforts by establishment parties to counter and reverse this evident trend. While the populists' projected success in the coming elections appears mainly reflective of popular anxiety over unchecked "irregular arrivals" of asylum seekers and other migrants, many question the EU's strong commitment to sustaining a high level of military financial aid to Ukraine.Ukraine fatigue, therefore, is a subtext rather than the theme of the June election, with both immigration and EU measures to advance its green agenda mobilizing populist parties' support. The European Parliament elections are contested only within each member country by its domestic political parties. The elected MEPs from national parties join broad ideological or programmatic groupings (composite parties) in the European parliament. To date, a pro-European cordon sanitaire against the extremes of left and right has been formed by the center-right (European People's Party or EPP), the center-left (Socialists & Democrats or SD) and the centrist liberals (Renew).The Greens join this coalition on many issues as well. This "grand coalition" is expected to lose seats in the coming elections, with the national populist right parties gaining in relative strength. As this forecast has been broadly understood, it is possible that the mainstream parties can modify and energize their appeal to voters in the months before June. This challenge will in any case mean the European Parliament election has a much higher profile and significance than usual.The Identity and Democracy (ID) party grouping, whose principal members are the Alternative for Germany (AfD), Marine le Pen's National Rally (RN), Geert Wilders Party for Freedom (PVV), Italy's League, and Austria's Freedom Party, is expected to become the third largest EP grouping, up from its sixth-place finish in the elections of 2019. The national parties in ID advocate cultural traditionalism, tighter controls on immigration, moving authority from Brussels back to national governments, and a negotiated outcome in the Ukraine-Russia war.Slightly more centrist than ID, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) grouping, is also forecast to gain seats. The ECR includes Georgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy, Poland's Law and Justice, and Spain's Vox. The ECR parties are more disposed than those of the ID group to continue NATO and EU backing, including weapons exports, to Ukraine. Hungary's ruling Fidesz party quit the center right EPP in 2019 under threat of expulsion or suspension over its rule of law dispute with the European Commission, and its MEPs have since been formally unaffiliated. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has indicated interest in joining the ECR group. Even if they remain unaffiliated, Fidesz MEPs will in practical terms belong to the populist bloc formed by ID and ECR. Hungary will also have the rotating presidency of the EU in the second half of 2024, which places Orban in the chair of the European Council of EU heads of government, which has the leading role in foreign and security policy.The ID and ECR currently are the fourth and fifth largest factions in the parliament with 67 and 58 seats respectively in the 705-member body. Polls predict big increases in the seats held by ID and ECR in the June elections. A January study from the European Council on Foreign Relations based on national polls in all member countries shows ID with 98 seats and ECR with 85 (with an additional margin of about 14 if Hungary's Fidesz joins). The center right EPP and center left SD will each lose a few seats, while liberals (Renew) and Greens will slide substantially. The cordon sanitaire of EPP, SD and Renew pro-European bloc will hold 54% rather than their current 60% of seats. The countries where ID or ECR parties have commanding leads for the European Parliament races are Austria (FPÖ), Belgium (Vlamms Belang), France (RN), Italy (Brothers of Italy), and the Netherlands (PVV). Parties under the ID or ECR banners are forecast to finish in a strong second place in Poland (PiS) and Germany (AfD). The EPP, SD, Liberals and Greens disagree on certain economic, environmental and social issues, but close ranks on support for Ukraine. A smooth re-election of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen — an unshakeable advocate of backing Ukraine — to a second term depends upon the majority in the parliament for pro-European mainstream parties. Her EPP party would preserve its agenda-setting power.Looming over this new parliament will of course be the U.S. presidential election and what it may mean for continued provision of U.S. military support for Ukraine. If Washington reduces its support for Ukraine's war effort, Ukraine's European backers will be obliged to dramatically boost their own defense-industrial capacity and to commit domestic resources to this priority over all other contenders. This would require a politically risky and wrenching adjustment to national and EU budgetary priorities.Germany, the biggest single contributor to the EU budget, is hamstrung in any such scenario by the legal limits on deficit spending (the so-called "debt brake") and by its unpopular governing coalition. A go-it-alone drive by the EU to arm and finance Ukraine would meet potent resistance from an enlarged populist bloc in the European Parliament.Populist voices of right and left combined are forecast to hold more than a third of the seats in the European Parliament after this election — more than at any time since direct election to the body began in 1979. If the forecasts are borne out, this development will certainly weigh heavily in EU decision-making over support for Ukraine's war effort and on the promised enlargement of the EU to include Ukraine.

The EU Council summit of December 14-15 offered a significant, if perhaps mainly symbolic, gesture toward Ukraine in agreeing to the formal opening of accession negotiations. But at the same meeting, the bloc failed to approve financial (not military) support for Ukraine for the four-year period through 2027, amounting to 50 billion euros. Approval of this aid was vetoed by Hungary. Thus, a very muddled message about how EU countries are dealing with the Ukraine war issue, nearly two years from the start of the Russian invasion in Feb. 2022. Supporters of the aid package have agreed to take it up again in January, and, if necessary, to get commitments from the 26 supporters of the package to provide the funding for Ukraine bilaterally, rather than as part of the EU budget. In the lead-up to the meeting, Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban pledged to block both the opening of accession talks and the financial aid package. In the end, he left the room just before the vote to open accession talks was held. He may have done so because, days before the Council meeting, the Commission unblocked 10 billion euros of funding for Hungary that had been suspended because of Hungary's failure to meet EU rule-of-law standards. In acquiescing to the opening of accession talks for Ukraine, Orban is very much aware that the process will require unanimous approval by the Council at many junctures ahead. Moreover, it may be very protracted: accession talks are still ongoing with North Macedonia (since 2020), Montenegro (2012), Serbia (2014) and Albania (2022). But the war aid issue is much more urgent. According to the Kiel Institute's Ukraine assistance scorecard, the EU institutions have been to date by far the largest provider of financial support to Ukraine. The IMF has cautioned that even a brief delay in providing this support could potentially destabilize Ukraine's precarious fiscal situation and the provision of essential services to its people. ​The mood in Europe shifting?Efforts to persuade Orban to end his opposition to the Ukraine aid package could well produce results in time for a January reconsideration, but the optics of the EU hesitations are not good, coming as they do in lockstep with those of Washington. These developments have been widely depicted in Western media as a failure of President Zelensky's personal lobbying efforts to unblock essential U.S. and EU aid before the end of 2023. Hungary was alone in open opposition to the two measures of support for Ukraine. It is nevertheless clear that the mood in Europe has turned cooler on Ukraine, given the Eurozone's weak economic performance and the failure of the counteroffensive to make any significant territorial gains. The recent electoral success of the populist, Euro-skeptic Freedom Party in the Netherlands, whose leader Geert Wilders has long opposed military aid to Ukraine, can be interpreted as part of a trend toward Ukraine fatigue in Europe. On the other side of the ledger, pro-European and pro-Ukraine Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who led liberal forces to victory in October against the nationalist-populist former ruling party, made his inaugural appearance at the Council summit and firmly aligned himself against Orban. Although French President Emmanuel Macron had also personally lobbied Orban to change his position, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz claimed credit for persuading him to leave the room when the accession vote was about to be taken. Interpreting the accession decision— strategic intent and economic constraintsThe EU Council voted unanimously to open EU accession talks with Ukraine for "strategic" reasons — because not doing so would have been seen as a rebuke to Ukraine's deepest aspirations. The appeal of this message of encouragement to Ukraine apparently was enough to assuage the worries in several member states in Central and Eastern Europe about the potential impact on their own national economics of eventual EU membership for Ukraine. A leaked internal analysis from the Commission estimates the budgetary impacts of an EU enlarged to include Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and six western Balkans states. By far the most significant impact would be due to Ukraine's accession. The study found that EU agricultural and cohesion funds for Ukraine as an EU member would amount to 186 billion euros in the first seven years. Agricultural support to other EU members would need to fall by about a fifth, and the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Estonia, Cyprus and Malta – would no longer be eligible to receive cohesion funding. Unless there were a dramatic reform of EU programs, the enlargement to include nine new members would turn several net recipient countries into net contributors to the EU budget. The politics of such a dramatic reversal of fortunes in countries accustomed to EU largesse could be difficult to manage and might well give rise to greater popular euro-skepticism. Early indications of this potential impact have arisen in Poland, where popular support for the Ukrainian war effort remains quite robust. However, the situation has been clouded since mid-2023 by emerging grievances among those affected by competition from Ukraine. Troubles arose earlier this year among Polish grain producers affected by cheaper Ukrainian grain. Since November 6, Polish truckers' grievances have erupted in protests involving hundreds of trucks at all major border crossings, bringing Ukrainian trucks' passage to a standstill. The protesters claim that a relaxation of permit requirements for Ukrainians trucks entering the EU — a measure adopted by the European Commission to support Ukraine's economy after Russia's invasion — has harmed the livelihood of Polish truckers. In recent weeks, Hungarian and Slovakian truckers have joined in blocking major border crossings with Ukraine to their respective countries. Prime Minister Donald Tusk has stated that he will end the blockade but will do so in a way that meets some of the Polish truckers' grievances. Even as a convinced European, Tusk is proceeding cautiously. The opening of accession talks is a substantial watershed for Ukraine, but it seems highly unlikely that Ukraine could accomplish the daunting agenda of legal and institutional reforms required for accession while being engaged in a full-scale military confrontation on its territory. Bulgarian regional expert Ivan Krastev argues that the providing of this long-term perspective to Ukraine in fulfillment of its aspirations to be recognized as fully European and a part of the West may induce greater willingness by Ukraine's leaders to consider pursuing a negotiated settlement. "Only strong security guarantees and a promised European future could persuade Ukrainians to accept territorial concessions at some point," he said.In other words, the promise of Europe, while genuine on its own terms, may also serve as encouragement of efforts to end the war short of the full accomplishment of Ukrainian war aims.

The long-anticipated move by leftist MP Sahra Wagenknecht to form a new left-populist party opens the prospect of a more active debate within Germany on the policy course taken by the now highly unpopular coalition of Social Democrats, Greens and liberal Free Democrats (FDP).The potential appeal of this new party will depend largely on whether voters agree that the policy of supporting Ukraine is responsible for Germany's economic downturn.Party ConfigurationThe German political scene has evolved in recent decades away from the alternation in power of the center right Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and the center left Social Democrats (SPD), often with the FDP in coalition with one or the other of these, to present a spectrum of parties including the center left Green party, the far-left Die Linke (the Left) party and the right-wing nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD).With the lone exception of AfD, these parties all broadly support Ukraine's war effort, until Ukraine itself is ready to seek a negotiated settlement. CDU/CSU support now stands at 29.4%. The AfD comes second with 21.2%. Support for the three governing parties together has fallen to 35.6%. The AfD's spectacular rise in polls seems to many analysts to suggest a generalized dissatisfaction with the status quo, and not necessarily the sudden conversion of many Germans to far-right extremist views. Wagenknecht has called this a "representation gap," one that her party would seek to exploit. The long-anticipated announcement on October 23 of the launch of a new party led by Die Linke MP Sahra Wagenknecht makes the course of German politics much less predictable. Even more than the AfD, the new party foregrounds its opposition to the prevailing stance on the war in Ukraine. Antiwar politics and the "representation gap"A majority of Die Linke's Bundestag delegation has backed tough sanctions against Russia, while still opposing weapons exports to Ukraine. Tensions within the parliamentary delegation grew as Wagenknecht, in public and in the Bundestag, assailed the sanctions policy and called for the opening of negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. The party has hovered since the last election just below the 5% threshold of support needed to win representation in the Bundestag. The breaking away of Wagenknecht and her nine colleagues from the Die Linke faction reduces that party to a parliamentary group, rather than a faction, affecting its funding and other prerogatives in the Bundestag.Wagenknecht and the nine other Die Linke MPs who have joined her effort to form the new party have provisionally named it the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance. They plan to have the party officially formed and ready to contest the European Parliament elections of June 2024 and three state elections in Saxony, Thuringia, and Brandenburg (all in the former East Germany) later next year. This timing seems well chosen: European Parliament elections are typically favorable to smaller parties, and many voters in the eastern states are, for various reasons, favorable to the Wagenknecht initiative. A snap poll reported on October 31 found that 14% of voters could imagine themselves voting for the new party. This would immediately place it in fourth place, behind the CDU/CSU, AfD, and the SPD, and ahead of the Green party. The new party's impact would be felt mostly on the AfD, but would attract support from all parties other than the Greens and Die Linke itself. Wagenknecht's stated aim is to fill a "representation gap," which means her party will seek to represent those German voters who do not support further arming of Ukraine and who favor efforts to settle the conflict through diplomacy. Evidence of the existence of this gap is the spectacular rise of AfD which began just after Russia's invasion in February of 2022 (when AfD support stood at 9.5%) and more recent polls placing AfD support above 20% since mid 2023. As of March of this year, about 30% of Germans found the arming of Ukraine to have been excessive, and a small majority — 52% — said diplomatic efforts to end the conflict had not been adequate. More recently, a majority (52%) opposed providing Taurus missiles to Ukraine.Wagenknecht's anti-war popularityWagenknecht has been an MP since 2009 and was co-leader of Die Linke in the Bundestag from 2015 to 2019. Born in East Germany, she became active after 1989 in the post-communist Party of Democratic Socialism, initially heading its leftmost, avowedly communist wing. The PDS merged with disaffected leftists of the west German SPD in 2007 and became Die Linke, which for some time enjoyed some electoral success, including in western Germany. Former SPD leader and finance minister, Oskar Lafontaine, was co-founder of Die Linke and is Wagenknecht's husband.Because of her frequent appearances on political talk shows, Wagenknecht is fairly well known to the German public. Often the lone dissenter against the prevailing posture on Ukraine, her arguments are always persuasive, articulate and above all dispassionate. She is a controversial figure, but one that remains among the most popular German politicians. A recent poll showed her finishing third behind Defense Minister Pistorius and CSU leader Markus Söder in national approval ratings.Ukraine War positions: AfD and WagenknechtAlthough AfD's published program states that there can be no viable security order in Europe that excludes Russia, this issue is not often emphasized in their appeal to voters. By contrast, Sahra Wagenknecht's notoriety is entirely wedded to her very public antiwar stance. In February 2023, Wagenknecht joined Alice Schwarzer, a leading anti-war activist and editor of the feminist journal EMMA, to put forward a Manifest für Frieden (Manifesto for Peace) and inviting signatures online.The antiwar demonstration in Berlin on February 25, led by Wagenknecht and Schwarzer, attracted participation by about 10,000 people, but did not produce the momentum that the organizers might have hoped for.Wagenknecht has called herself a "conservative leftist," faulting Die Linke with having built its support base among younger, urban progressive voters while allegedly neglecting voters of the working class. This dispute has taken the form of a contest between an identity vs a class basis of leftist politics. Wagenknecht argues for the refocus of the left on defense of the interests of the German working class. She has sounded some caution about what she sees as excessive openness to flows of migrants.What does it mean?The launch of organizational efforts to form Wagenknecht's new party opens the prospect of a more active debate within Germany on the policy course taken by the weak governing coalition. Wagenknecht has stated that she and her party will not cooperate with AfD. The AfD made a very strong showing in recent state elections in the prosperous western states of Hesse and Bavaria, suggesting that its own potential is not confined to eastern Germany. By filling a tempting "gap" in German politics, the Wagenknecht alliance could endeavor to to curb the rise of AfD.

Recent elections in Central Europe swept out incumbents, but in opposite directions, with the nearby Ukraine war and its impact on citizens and the economies never far from the political surface.Poland's liberal opposition managed to defeat the stubborn hold on power of the conservative nationalist party that has ruled since 2015. With the exception of the far-right Konfederacja party, the victors and the vanquished in Poland both support Ukraine's war effort. However, the campaign period exposed some economic grievances related to supporting Ukraine's European Union membership bid.In Slovakia, former prime minister Robert Fico, whose SMER party combines social democratic welfare policies with conservative nationalism, defeated the pro-EU and pro-Ukraine incumbents by emphatically opposing further military aid for Ukraine. Poland: Return to the European fold?The victory of Poland's liberal opposition in the October 15 parliamentary elections was momentous for the European Union, since it could signal the end of the uneasy relations with Europe under Poland's conservative Law and Justice party (PiS).The prospective coalition will be composed of the Civic Platform led by former Prime Minister Donald Tusk, along with the centrist Third Way coalition and the New Left bloc. Together, these three parties won 54% of the vote in a record turnout. Tusk, who served as president of the EU Council from 2014 to 2019, is committed to unblocking over 30 billion euros withheld by the EU pending the reversal of measures taken by PiS seen as having curbed judicial independence.Although it has no obvious coalition partner, PiS got the largest share of votes of any single party at 35.6 percent, allowing their leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski to claim a victory of sorts. The Law and Justice party, having governed for eight years, will be formidable in opposition, in part because the PiS-aligned President Andrzej Duda's term ends only in 2025. Even if Duda bows to the election arithmetic and allows Tusk and partners to form a new government, PiS can rely on the presidential veto and court challenges to hobble Tusk's policy agenda.Law and Justice took a stubborn anti-German stance while in power and has sought to depict Tusk and other liberal opponents as agents of Germany. Moreover, Kaczynski has long accused Tusk of conspiring with Russia to cause the Polish presidential aircraft to crash as it attempted to land in the Russian city of Smolensk in 2010. For several years prior to this event, Tusk had, as Prime Minister, pursued a limited rapprochement with Russia, part of his attempt to bring Polish diplomacy more into alignment with that of France and Germany.A rare exception among nationalist-populist parties in Europe, PiS enthusiastically pushed for greater and more advanced weapons deliveries to Ukraine. However, during the election campaign this fall, PiS exploited Ukraine fatigue among Polish farmers calling for barring Ukrainian grain from the Polish market. In mid-September, in the midst of the electoral campaign, Duda likened Ukraine to a drowning man that risked taking others down with it.Polls indicate that many Poles resent the alleged economic impact of the roughly 1 million Ukrainian refugees resettled in the country. The Polish population seems to be torn between this resentment and the otherwise still solid support for Ukraine's war effort. There are also unresolved historical grievances held by some Poles against Ukrainians. Insightful polling last year concluded that Poles love Ukraine but not Ukrainians. PiS in opposition will likely seek to block Ukrainian EU accession, which can easily be depicted as disadvantageous to Polish economic interests and will respond to the frustrations exposed by the swing in public opinion.Slovakia's elections move country away from Ukraine supportSlovakia's elections of September 30 brought former Prime Minister Robert Fico's SMER (Direction) party back to power in coalition with two other parties. Fico and his coalition partners — the social democratic Voice Party and the hard-right nationalist Slovak National Party — campaigned openly on halting military support to Ukraine and on resisting any new sanctions on Russia. The pro-EU and pro-Ukraine Progressive Slovakia finished a distant second.Slovak public opinion shows a swelling Ukraine fatigue. Inflation, a weak economy and a general positive disposition among many Slovaks toward Russia are among the causes.At his first EU summit on October 27, Fico announced an end of any further military support from Slovakia to Ukraine and called for the EU to press for a negotiated settlement. He pledged to oppose any new sanctions against Russia that would adversely affect Slovakia's economy. In these positions, Fico and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban were in close alignment. Since matters of foreign and security policy in the EU are decided unanimously, Hungary and Slovakia have some leverage over policy outcomes.How might the balance have shifted?The Polish election result may well reinforce Poland's already pronounced Atlanticist orientation. But Tusk's government may also align Poland more closely with the somewhat more nuanced and reserved position taken by Germany on supporting Ukraine. Germany has been cautious to avoid escalation of the conflict in Ukraine and has only reluctantly come on board with the US in the provision of longer-range and more advanced weaponry. Poland, under its conservative government, publicly derided German hesitations. This may change under Tusk.Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French president Macron have also championed intensified cooperation in defense-industrial modernization for Europe, a cause which Poland has not heretofore espoused. This could also change under Tusk's leadership. But Tusk's role will be under constant challenge, since PiS will hope to divide his coalition and bring forward new elections. The ongoing drag on the Polish economy will ensure that the question of balancing support for Ukraine with other objectives will not disappear from public discourse.Kaczynski's PiS was strongly in sympathy with Orban's Hungary in decrying the imposition of the European normative agenda on the scope of their powers. But the two parties never began to close the gap between their views on questions of war and peace. Relations between the two countries will now be far less cordial.Slovakia, on the other hand, is a small but unreserved ally for Hungary in resisting further military support for Ukraine. Fico has already fully committed Slovakia to opposing new military aid from the EU to Ukraine and any new sanctions against Russia. This will on balance reduce the marginalization of Hungary in the EU and in NATO.The net effect of these two elections leave the disposition of Europe as a whole toward support for Ukraine still very much in play. Poland returns to the top table of European decision-making but in doing so will be expected to accommodate to some extent the views of Germany and France. Slovakia under Fico will offer important cover to Orban's Hungary, which would otherwise be isolated.

1. Small business owners and regional democracy -- 2. Small business owners and regional democracy : quantitative analysis -- 3. Elaborated process mapping and case selection -- 4. The Samara region : a tale of two cities -- 5. The Smolensk region : small business and the uses of adversity -- 6. The Rostov region : limits of patrimonial exchange -- 7. The Perm region : entrepreneurship and elite transformation -- 8. Concluding arguments.

The new European Commission has signaled its commitment to advance the work of its predecessor in asserting European Union (EU) authority to prevent - and, if necessary, respond to - breaches in the rule of law by member states. A new toolbox of measures to accomplish this aim would build upon the Rule of Law Framework, adopted in 2014, and rulings by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) requiring compliance by member country courts and judicial systems with EU legal principles of judicial independence and separation of powers. The first two principal aims of the reinforced toolbox of measures are to foster, through public outreach, a rule of law culture across the EU, and to expand the scope of monitoring and report­ing to all member countries while deepening the Commission's institutional expertise to achieve a timely and detailed understanding of developments. The third aim is to reinforce the leverage of the EU to respond in cases where there is serious deviation from rule of law norms. This latter aspect of the reinforced "toolbox" includes adopt­ing a strategic approach to bringing anti-infringement cases to the CJEU and the intro­duction of rule of law conditionality to EU funding in member countries.

The new European Commission has signaled its commitment to advance the work of its predecessor in asserting European Union (EU) authority to prevent - and, if necessary, respond to - breaches in the rule of law by member states. A new toolbox of measures to accomplish this aim would build upon the Rule of Law Framework, adopt­ed in 2014, and rulings by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) requiring compliance by member country courts and judicial systems with EU legal principles of judicial independence and separation of powers. The first two principal aims of the reinforced toolbox of measures are to foster, through public outreach, a rule of law culture across the EU, and to expand the scope of monitoring and report­ing to all member countries while deepening the Commission's institutional expertise to achieve a timely and detailed understanding of developments. The third aim is to reinforce the leverage of the EU to respond in cases where there is serious deviation from rule of law norms. This latter aspect of the reinforced "toolbox" includes adopt­ing a strategic approach to bringing anti-infringement cases to the CJEU and the intro­duction of rule of law conditionality to EU funding in member countries. (author's abstract)