Weidel after Le Pen: the far right no longer wants to leave the EU, it wants to remake it in its own image

One week apart, Europe's two main far-right forces have unveiled their plans for the Union. On 14 October, Marine Le Pen set out hers in Brussels, on the eve of the European Council devoted to the future budget. On Wednesday 21 October, it was the turn of Alice Weidel, co-leader of Germany's AfD, to present at the European Parliament in Strasbourg a document entitled "Our New Deal for Europe". Neither of them is calling for leaving the Union any longer. Both, however, propose to profoundly change its nature.

The facts

According to the Italian agency Adnkronos, the AfD text provides for abolishing the direct election of Members of the European Parliament, who would be appointed by national parliaments. The Commission would lose its power of legislative initiative and become an administrative body. The Court of Justice of the European Union would be replaced by an arbitration body between states, and national constitutions would take precedence over European law. The party also calls for opt-outs for Germany on immigration, taxation, social policy, defence and common debt, as well as an exit from the Schengen area. According to the same source, a referendum on Germany's membership of the Union would remain possible if the renegotiation of the treaties failed.

Speaking to the press, the website Eunews reports, Alice Weidel said she wanted to "rebuild and reform" the Union, not leave it. She criticised the Green Deal, which she blames for rising energy prices, and called for a "pragmatic" approach on Ukraine, while denying that her party wants Kyiv to capitulate.

Marine Le Pen's project, detailed by AFP, follows a similar logic. She proposes capping France's net contribution to the European budget at 5 billion euros a year, rejecting any further enlargement, Ukraine included, and turning the Commission into a secretariat serving the member states. She described the idea of adopting the next multiannual budget before the elections scheduled for 2027 in France, Spain, Italy and Poland as a "democratic scandal". According to Euronews, she believes France could only fund aid to Ukraine for six more months, and wants to end European sanctions against Russia.

The positions at stake

These projects respond to real concerns, which it would be dishonest to brush aside. Many Europeans find the Union distant and complex. Rising energy prices weigh on households and industry, and border control is an issue raised in many countries. And the idea of giving more power back to national parliaments may seem, at first glance, a democratic gain.

The two parties do not agree on everything, either. Euronews notes that Marine Le Pen supports a carbon border tax and European taxes on tobacco, alcohol and large companies, whereas the AfD rejects any transfer of fiscal sovereignty and defends each country's freedom over its energy mix, coal included. L'Express also points out that the proposal to cap the French contribution has not been publicly taken up by any ally in the Patriots group.

The specialists interviewed by Euronews mainly point to practical limits. Eulalia Rubio, of the Jacques Delors Institute, observes that a fixed contribution is unrealistic since spending varies every year, and that any French reduction would have to be offset by the other states. Elie Tenenbaum, of Ifri, believes that weakening European mechanisms would harm Ukraine more than a reduction in bilateral aid.

The analysis

The change of strategy is real: the talk is no longer of leaving, but of transforming from within. Yet the intended result would be, in many respects, a Union without its foundations. Abolishing the election of MEPs means taking away from citizens the only direct vote they cast at continental level. Replacing the Court of Justice with arbitration between governments means depriving individuals and businesses of a common judge, and making the law dependent on the balance of power between states. In such a Europe, the most powerful impose and the others endure.

For France, the stakes are concrete. According to Toute l'Europe, cited by Public Sénat, France received around 9.5 billion euros under the common agricultural policy, excluding the recovery plan, making it the leading beneficiary. A slimmed-down European budget, which every state would like to see reduced for itself, would weigh first on these common policies: agriculture, territorial cohesion, research. Solidarity between regions, long defended by both the Gaullist right and the left, would not survive a Europe reduced to a market.

There is also a paradox. The AfD wants the largest economies to carry more weight at the European Central Bank and to exempt Germany from common debt. Such a project, carried out in Berlin, would serve French interests poorly. The alliance of nationalisms quickly reaches its limit. As for Ukraine, weakening the common tools would amount to letting European security be negotiated without the Europeans.

A response to be built

Gaullism never confused sovereignty with withdrawal. General de Gaulle wanted a Europe of states, but a Europe that carries weight. The best response to these projects is not to defend the Union as it is, with its cumbersome ways, but to make it clearer, more protective and more social: greater oversight by national parliaments of European decisions, common investment in energy and industry, upward social convergence.

We want to rebuild and reform the European Union. — Alice Weidel, quoted by Eunews

The question remains open for the parties of government, in France as in Germany: will they be able, by 2027 and 2029, to propose a reform of Europe ambitious enough that voters do not have to choose between the status quo and dismantlement?

Article written with the help of artificial intelligence.