Why far-right EU gains and a French snap election could send a chill through European renewables

Populist far-right parties were the big winners of the EU elections, which will likely make it harder for current EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to push through her Green Deal and could even derail her bid for re-election.

The decision by French President Emmanuel Macron to call snap national elections in three weeks in reaction to the country’s wind power-hating National Rally becoming the strongest party in the EU election in France could make matters even worse if Marine Le Pen’s party were to win.

Alongside Le Pen's National Rally winning close to a third of votes – more than double Macron’s centrist alliance – the climate-sceptic Alternative for Germany (AfD) with almost 16% became the country’s second-most voted party, while Giorgia Meloni’s post-fascist Fratelli D’Italia according to preliminary results garnered around 29% of the vote.

Green Parties, the strongest backers of wind and solar power, meanwhile tanked, with Germany’s Greens down more than eight percentage points to less than 12% and France’s equivalent halving to little more than 5%.

Von der Leyen's complex task

Shocking as this may seem, the hard right is still far from a majority. According to preliminary results the European People’s Party (EPP), which includes for example Germany’s Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU), came out on top, winning 185 out of the European Parliament’s 720 seats. Add to that the 137 seats of the Socialist & Democrat group and 80 seats of the liberal Renew Europe group (including Macron’s party), and von der Leyen could still count on a majority of 402 votes and continue in her role.

The 52 seats of the Greens, even if diminished from its former glory, may also help her win, as the EU Commission President’s policies in the past five years have often catered more to a Green constituency than that of her own conservative CDU.

Pan-European lobby group WindEurope hopes for those policies to continue.

"Wind energy is 20% of the electricity consumed in Europe. The EU want it to be 35% by 2030. And over half by 2050," a WindEurope spokesperson said.

"The wind industry’s priorities for the next five years are: investing massively in the electricity grid, accelerating permitting, helping heavy industry electrify, ensuring a level playing feels for European clean tech, and focusing innovation on scaling up clean technologies.

"We look forward to working with the new European Parliament to make Europe more competitive, resilient and secure as it delivers on the EU Green Deal."

BWO, a German offshore wind group, stressed how Europe is playing a central role in the expansion of offshore wind energy in the German North and Baltic Seas.

"The supply chains for offshore wind are internationally linked, the electricity markets are connected, and many rules have already been harmonised," BWO managing director Stefan Thimm said.

"The EU Commission and the EU Parliament recently launched important rules and guidelines with the Wind Power Package, the EU Wind Charter and the Net Zero Industry Act to strategically secure the European energy transition and combine it with a high proportion of European value creation and employment.

"Now it is important to continue to pursue this path rigorously."

But the wind industry and larger renewables industry's interests may be more difficult to push through than with the outgoing European Commission and Parliament.

A second term for von der Leyen cannot be taken for granted as not all members of the European Parliament may vote according to party lines.

In the complex path to the top of the Commission, member states nominate a candidate for the post, which then needs to win an absolute majority in parliament.

Among member states, von der Leyen needs a so-called qualified majority of countries representing 65% of the EU’s population. Last time, in 2019, she had the backing of Macron and several Eastern European governments, but this time Macron has been touting former Italian Prime Minister and ECB President Mario Draghi as someone who could play a role in top EU jobs, while Eastern European have become lukewarm about von der Leyen due to policies considered too green.

At the same time, members of von der Leyen’s own EPP have grumbled about the Green Deal, and for example want to revert parts of it again, such as the 2035 end for combustion engine cars. Already in 2019, some 100 MEPs from the EPP, Socialists and Liberals did not vote for von der Leyen.

Support from the Greens would come in handy here, but both the Greens and Socialists have said they would refuse to vote for the current EU Commission president if she relied on support from Italy’s Meloni.

Von der Leyen and Meloni have met on various occasions in recent months and are said to get along quite well, and von der Leyen has signalled she may cooperate on important issues with the European Conservatives and Reformists Party (ECR) which includes Meloni’s Fratelli and Spain’s far-right Vox party.

The coming weeks will show whether von der Leyen manages to garner the support needed both among EU governments and in parliament.

France could hold shock for renewables

Negotiations will be complicated by a very short, and likely aggressive, election campaign in France.

Shocked by the strong showing of the National Rally, Macron said “I cannot act as if nothing had happened” and called for snap elections on June 30 and July 7.

Distinct from EU elections where parties win seats in a proportional election system – meaning a party with 32% of the vote will also get 32% of seats – French national elections have two rounds. Candidates in each constituency either win an outright majority of more than 50% in the first round or face a run-off in the second round with the second-best candidate.

In the past, that system has favoured big, traditional parties, which often have pooled their resources in run-offs against the National Rally, just as they did in the second round of presidential elections, keeping Marine Le Pen from winning several times.

But with the increased strength of the National Rally and its youthful and very popular party chief Jordan Bardella, it is far from certain that this strategy will work again in parliamentary elections this time. Bardella has been instrumental in winning over many centrist voters in the European elections and has also been put forward as a potential prime minister. The 28-year-old has railed against "intermittent renewable energy" that he claimed would lead to black-outs and power shortages.

Germany’s engineering sector group VDMA, which also includes a very active section for wind turbine manufacturers, has called for a rapid agreement for a centrist EU coalition, but without naming von der Leyen directly.

"We must not waste any time and must position ourselves strongly and quickly in Europe. This means that the European parties should reach an agreement promptly, form a centrist coalition and determine their candidate for the office of Commission President so that the next European Commission can come together and start work,” VDMA managing director Thilo Brodtmann said.

“The member states are also called upon to subordinate the EU's ability to act to national interests. In particular, the developments in France must not lead to a blockade."