BRYSSEL | Trots framgångarna i EU-valet kommer Marine Le Pen och hennes Front National inte lyckas montera ner EU i första taget.
Så frågan återstår vad nästa steg blir när man nu trots allt fått ökade möjligheter att arbeta inifrån Europaparlamentet för att avveckla EU-projektet.
Vivienne Walt skrev i Time strax innan EU-valet om vad Le Pen troligtvis kommer att göra om hon skulle lyckas forma en slagkraftig grupp av likasinnade inom EU-parlamentet.
For all their blustery rhetoric, the European politicians who would destroy the E.U. know they can only bring about their revolution in increments. Le Pen and her allies in other countries know they won’t win nearly enough seats in the upcoming elections to win passage of radical proposals likes closing Europe’s internal borders or severely limiting immigration to E.U. countries. Yet if the bloc expands in the coming years, as Le Pen plans, it could, for example, succeed in pushing a few countries to hold referendums on E.U. membership – with the prospect of perhaps one member exiting. That would be a disastrous scenario in the eyes of many analysts.
Le Pen’s bloc would likely try to stifle all moves within the E.U. at increasing European integration, including sabotaging current plans for a new fiscal and banking union, which economists believe is key to ending the euro crisis and restoring growth. “We’ve transferred legislative, budgetary, monetary powers [to the E.U.],” she says. “Countries have fewer powers that each of the 50 states in the U.S.”
It Le Pen does put together an influential far-right bloc, then she will inevitably run the risk of becoming part of the Establishment – rather than fighting to topple it. Much like [Geert] Wilders and Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP, she has won voters and fame by rattling the gilded cage of those in power, with blunt talk and canny leadership. Her challenge now will be to change the French and European political systems from within while still appealing to voters who warm to outsiders.
Mer: Läs även Walts intervju med Le Pen i Time. Tidskriftsomslag: Time, 26 maj 2014.