This edition of State of the Union focuses on the outcome of the European elections that led French president Macron to call for a national vote in a few weeks - plunging France into political uncertainty. Another topic: a week of intense diplomatic activity over Ukraine.
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00:00Hello and welcome to State of the Union, I'm Stefan Grobe in Brussels.
00:10The European elections are over and the horse trading over future alliances, coalitions
00:15and top positions has begun.
00:17In meetings, meetings and more meetings, the winners and losers of the verdict of the voters
00:24started to get themselves ready for the next five years of legislative battles.
00:29I'll come back to that in a minute.
00:31But first, it was a week of intense diplomatic activity for Ukraine.
00:37President Volodymyr Zelensky traveled to the country's recovery conference in Berlin, the
00:42G7 summit in Italy and a global peace summit in Switzerland.
00:46He appealed for short-term help in repairing Ukraine's electricity network, long-term investment
00:52in its energy system and he renewed his calls for more help in repelling missile attacks
00:58by Russia.
00:59Thanking German lawmakers at the Bundestag for their continuing support, the defiant
01:05Zelensky made clear what he thinks about compromise with Moscow and that is next to nothing.
01:28On a European level, support for Ukraine seems to be assured as the European elections ushered
01:40in the same majority of centrist parties.
01:43At the same time, voters also strengthened the far right as expected, especially in France.
01:50Marine Le Pen's national rally party scored spectacular gains and moved closer to the
01:55gates of power in Paris.
01:57This political earthquake let President Emmanuel Macron call for snap elections in just a
02:02few weeks.
02:04Some observers believe this to be a high-stake gamble, but Macron called upon moderate forces
02:10to unite against extremes on the right and on the left.
02:27Let's discuss this week's events now with Jacob Kierkegaard, senior fellow at the German
02:42Marshall Fund and the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
02:46Welcome to the program.
02:47My pleasure.
02:48Glad to be here.
02:50So the center held in the European elections and their parties keep a solid majority.
02:56What can we expect now?
02:57Will it be business as usual?
02:59I think it will be quite close to business as usual, actually.
03:04I think, for instance, that the process of selecting the next leadership team, I mean,
03:11the presidencies of the commission, council, high representative, et cetera, I think that
03:16will go quite quickly, clearly led by the reappointment, in my opinion, of Ursula von
03:23der Leyen as president of the commission, buoyed by the fact that the EPP did well,
03:31the CDU did well in Germany.
03:34So while you wouldn't say that she has a strong democratic mandate behind her, but she nonetheless
03:40has better than any alternative candidate.
03:43Let's assume that you're right and that parliament will reelect Ursula von der Leyen as commission
03:48president.
03:49Will she try to reach out to the far right?
03:51And what impact will that have on her political agenda?
03:53No, I don't think that would be her first strategy.
03:57She still has a majority based on the liberals, center right, center left.
04:03On top of that, we should remember that the Green Party were among those that suffered
04:09significant losses in this election.
04:12What that means is that the Greens, who clearly will be fearful that Ursula von der Leyen
04:20in a new term will water down aspects of the Green deal, well, they need to seek influence
04:27more than they did before because they are fewer in numbers.
04:31So if she needs to reach out, well, I would say the Greens would be a much better opportunity
04:38because it wouldn't really cost her very much, in my opinion, in terms of support from within
04:44her own party and others.
04:45The real shocker, of course, was Emmanuel Macron calling for snap elections in just
04:51a few weeks.
04:53What do you expect is going to happen there?
04:54Well, I mean, yes, the irony here is that the European election seems to have caused
04:59more waves at some national levels, first and foremost, of course, France.
05:04No, I mean, I think we're now in a period of acute uncertainty for France.
05:12The French parliamentary election system is a two round system that makes it very difficult
05:18to predict.
05:20It puts a premium on these party coalition agreements.
05:26And we're seeing those being struck and then unstruck.
05:30We saw the Republicans, or at least the leader of the Republicans, Eric Cotty, trying to
05:35gang up with Le Pen.
05:38We saw similar moves for a new Front Populaire on the left, except that the winner of the
05:46left wing vote getter in the European election, Glucksmann, said, without me.
05:51So it's very, very unclear what will happen.
05:53All right, Jacob Kierkegaard, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund.
05:57Thanks for sharing your views with us today.
05:59My pleasure.
06:01One of the worrying features of politics recently has been physical violence against politicians.
06:07But in France, the authorities are also worried about violent incidents during the Paris Olympics
06:12that will start in six weeks.
06:15That's why special police units organized a drill together with colleagues from Spain.
06:21Bocca Salen staged an attack where they took hostages and barricaded up.
06:26Police units activated protocols for handling such incidents during the surprise exercise
06:31aimed at enhancing response capabilities using dogs, robots and special security groups.
06:39In the end, the hostage takers were overwhelmed and forcefully arrested.
06:44The message coming from the drill?
06:46Don't mess with the police and with the French-Spanish cooperation.
06:54That's it for this edition.
06:55I'm Stefan Grober.
06:56Thank you for watching.
06:58Have an excellent week.