'We talk a lot about the climate emergency, but we're not ready to change our way of life'
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00:00We can speak to Vivian Gravy who is a lecturer in European politics at Queen's University in Belfast.
00:05Thank you so much for joining us. Can I just start by asking you what stood out for you as being
00:10the top headline news story from these European elections?
00:15I think the fact that so as a French citizen I think I was looking a lot at what was happening
00:20in France but it's a completely different picture if you look at the overall split of parties in the
00:26European Parliament and what happened in France. A big story in Brussels is that the EPP so the
00:31centre-right actually has made gains while in France of course the centre-right Les Républicains
00:38is at seven percent. Similarly the far-right hasn't done so well apart from the countries
00:44you were talking about. Actually if you look at the numbers of MEPs in the far-right in the European
00:49Parliament it's a bit more than the last time which is never good news but it's not a huge
00:54rise. France is really bucking the trend here. Now whereas France where France is quite similar
01:01to most European countries though is the fact that the Greens and the centrists have not done well
01:07and that raises very big questions for what's coming next out of the European Union in terms of
01:14policies. So von der Leyen announced you know back in 2019 after that green wave a European
01:20Green Deal and that's very much in question now because the parties such as the EPP so her party
01:26so the central right campaigned against the Green Deal, campaigned against a lot of environmental
01:34ambition and that won them a lot of votes. So huge amount of questions in terms of what the EU is
01:41going to do even though we haven't actually seen this big far-right rise in Brussels just mostly
01:48in France. Okay do you think there's a message that the electorate in Europe is trying to send
01:52people in Brussels by just looking at the results of these elections and if so for example why do
01:58you think it is that the Greens have been so squarely rejected by Europe's voters?
02:06I think we're at a moment where we are realising we're talking a lot about climate
02:15emergency, biodiversity emergency, all of those big crises but actually we're not yet ready to
02:21make the big shift in our way of life and we're not ready to put the money where that is needed
02:27to fund just transition. So what you have is a situation where workers in key industries but
02:32also people living in rural area feel that a lot of the pressure of that transition is going to be
02:38on them and they're going to lose out and they're not ready to do so and it is quite striking if you
02:44look at areas that voted for the far-right for example in France, if you look at the Mediterranean
02:50coast, I mean we're talking about areas where with the rise of sea level these are villages
02:55and towns that are going to be severely hit by climate change and yet they voted en masse for
03:01a party that doesn't want to do anything about climate change. So we really have that kind of
03:06hypocrisy in a lot of the electorate right now in Europe where we're not yet really ready to
03:12actually put our money and to actually suffer a bit just now for a much better future
03:19for future generations and that's really problematic when we think about the fact
03:24that Europe for a very long time has been a leader in terms of environmental action, climate action
03:29in the world. So if Europeans are starting to tell the European Parliament and European governments
03:35we want to do less, we want to do it more slowly at a time when we know we're not doing enough for
03:41to fulfil our commitments for the Paris Agreement, it's really worrying. Indeed I mean obviously the
03:48nature of any election is the outcome might be an outcome that someone doesn't like and you know
03:53there will be people watching who say oh no the far-right is taking over Europe but as you've
03:58said that's not really the case on a European, a pan-European basis, it may be the case in
04:02individual countries. But would you say that overall these elections say to you that the
04:08democratic and political health of our continent is sound or would you say there are any alarm bells?
04:15I think it really depends if you look east or west. For you know the last 10 years especially
04:22a bit more there was lots of concerns around Hungary, around Poland in terms of rule of law
04:28and yet what we've seen is a new Polish government from Donald Tusk has done well and that Fidesz
04:34as you mentioned in the report has done the worst it has ever done in European election.
04:39So there's actually a good message of hope for the health of democracies in eastern Europe.
04:46Now when it comes to the rule of law in centre and western Europe if talking about
04:53Austria, if talking about the Netherlands or France and Italy, which are the countries where
04:57you have a rise of the far-right, that is much much more worrying. And so I think in a way what
05:03we're potentially seeing is you know for now apart from actually Maloney, for now what we've seen is
05:12when you've had leaders of far-right populist leaders in Brussels they've tended to have
05:17actually less influence than the size of the country should dictate. So this could actually
05:23lead to realignment and a bit more power to the more functioning democracies right now perhaps
05:29in eastern Europe compared to the one in western Europe. And of course we're never slow to hear
05:35about Russian interference in these sorts of democratic exercises. You know we've even had
05:41a segment on it this evening on potential Russian interference. I mean looking at the outcome of
05:46these elections would you say that any aspect of the outcome in any of the countries is somehow or
05:53other to the benefit or to the advantage of the Kremlin or do you think too much is being made
05:58of these claims? I think I mean irrespective of whether there's been successful interference or
06:06not in any case European elections mean not much happening for the next six months in Brussels
06:12right. We have all four major EU institutions that are standing still. We have you know the
06:19Belgian prime minister had to resign and it's a Belgian presidency of the council of the European
06:24Union right now. So the council is not going to work well. The European council we've got the two
06:29big countries France and Germany both having just major setback with the European election. So
06:36Schultz and Macron are not going to pull a lot of weight with their peers. The European parliament
06:42we have so many MEPs that we don't know in which group they're going to fit. So we don't know what's
06:46going to be the balance of power. Who's going to get the big jobs there and what kind of agenda
06:51we're going to get. The problem is we also don't know exactly who's going to be next president of
06:55the European Commission because von der Leyen wants to do a second term. But the European council where
07:02she could be put forward by the member states is only two days before that European and that French
07:08election 27 28th of June. And whether Macron will actually endorse von der Leyen that has become a
07:14bit of a lightning rod in France is very unlikely. So you're now in a situation where we're not even
07:20sure who we're going to get for the European Commission president. And even if we know it's
07:24going to be her she won't actually start her new job her or someone else before the 1st of December.
07:30And that's around then December January that we'll know whether all of those files those green files
07:35for example things are on you know electric cars and all of that are going to be dropped or are
07:40going to be picked up again. So for the next six months basically it's just going to be a lot of
07:46just you know just very much uncertainty in Brussels. And so in a way that really helps
07:53Russia. But that's kind of that's you know democracy. After big elections you have to shuffle
07:59things and we have to kind of decide on a new agenda. And whether a member states can actually
08:05keep the boat rolling and respond quickly. It is any new absurd from Russia is quite uncertain so
08:12far. Okay. All right. Well thank you very much for taking the time to speak to us. Vivian Gravy
08:16lecturer in European politics at Queen's University in Belfast. Thank you very much to you.