Fight the Far-Right With Distinctions
There is indeed a yawning chasm between Bolkestein’s views on the EU and those of Verhofstadt, for all that one is a Dutch liberal and the other a Belgian liberal. But that does not mean that Verhofstadt is right to suggest that the only meaningful distinction will be between the Eurosceptics and federalists. Politics both before and after May 2014 is more complicated than that.
Wilders and Le Pen will stage the occasional joint meeting. And Europe’s main political families will try to put up cross-party candidates for the presidency of the European Commission. But for the most part voters will still make their choices in next May’s elections according to national politics.
In some countries, that will mean making a choice between Eurosceptic and Euro-enthusiast candidates. In France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, for instance, Eurosceptic parties will feature prominently in the campaigns and will perform strongly in the elections. But in other countries - for instance, Spain, Italy, Germany and Ireland - Euroscepticism will be much less visible. In turn, that will mean that those elected to the Parliament will not necessarily have a clear mandate for scepticism or enthusiasm.
To suggest otherwise is to do voters a disservice and serve the interests of either Le Pen or Verhofstadt.
One of the strongest reasons not to blur the national distinctions is that nuances matter when combating the extreme right. In the Netherlands, for instance, Wilders is libertarian and socially liberal (except on race) in a way that is not the case with the far-right in France, which is more socially conservative. Countering racism requires an appreciation of the local context. The European Union should have learnt that lesson by now, not least from the unedifying experience of 1999-2000, when it attempted to dictate to Austria’s centre-right party that it should not allow Jörg Haider’s Freedom Party into government