In today’s special edition, we look back at the round of elections in Luxembourg and the German states of Bavaria and Hesse. Finally, we analyse the political landscape in Poland on the eve of a crucial election for the country and the European Union.

Enjoy!

The Grand Duchy of Uncertainty

On Monday, Luxembourg woke up amid major political uncertainty, confirming all the projections of the eve of the vote. As predicted by the polls, the centre-right Christian Social People’s Party (EPP) confirmed itself as the leading political force with 29 per cent of the preferences. Still, the game of alliances to return to power after 10 years of opposition can last over a month. In the meantime, the government coalition led by the liberal PM Xavier Bettel suffered a severe setback that will prevent it from continuing the parliamentary majority experience as it has been set up over the past decade.

The results of the national elections held last Sunday leave Bettel with a bitter taste in his mouth for not being able to chase a third term as Prime Minister, although his Democratic Party (Renew) exceeded pre-vote expectations (18.7 per cent), confirming itself as the third force in the Chamber of Deputies with two seats gained compared to the 2018 round (14). The coalition allies of the Luxembourg Socialist Workers’ Party (S&D) came second and saw an increase of one seat (11) with 18,9 per cent of the score, but what brought down Bettel’s dream of a 15-year term in power – as only Pierre Werner (1959-1974) and Jean-Claude Juncker (1995-2013) have managed in the country’s history – was the collapse of the Greens (8,5 per cent), who after their exploit five years ago have lost more than half of their seats, dropping from 9 to 4 and being overtaken even by the conservatives of the Alternative Democratic Reformist Party (ECR) with 5 seats and 9,2 per cent of the votes.

Thus, adding up the numbers for the next Chamber of Deputies, the Liberal-Socialist-Green coalition stops at 29 seats, two less than the minimum threshold of 31. If a government experiment without the centre-right were to continue, the 3 MPs of the Pirate Party or the 2 of the Left would have had to be brought on board. This is how the party led by Luc Frieden – former finance minister from 1998 to 2013 and former president between 2022 and 2023 of Eurochambres, the association of European Chambers of Commerce and Industry – is taking centre stage in the inter-party discussions for the formation of the next government in Luxembourg, which will no longer be led by Bettel. For the Christian Social People’s Party, it is a victory mostly due to the demerits of its opponents than to an excellent showing at the ballot box, given the fact that the number of MPs has not increased and remains well below the quota with which the last centre-right Prime Minister, Juncker, had governed with the Socialists between 2009 and 2013 (26 compared to 21 today).

Negotiations between Frieden and Bettel have already started on Wednesday. Bettel has said he is willing to remain in government even without being prime minister, but there has been speculation that he is gunning for a top European job in Brussels.

If the talks are successful, the new government will have a clear majority, holding 35 out of 60 parliamentary seats.

Together, the two parties can guarantee a comfortable majority of 35 MPs, while waiting to know the intentions of the Socialists, always part of the different majorities since 2004. What will happen in Luxembourg in the coming weeks will also be closely watched in neighbouring Germany, whose executive, led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz and composed of the same political families as the previous Luxembourg coalition, is in clear difficulty, as demonstrated by Sunday’s elections in the federal states of Hesse and Bavaria. Luxembourg has often carved out a role for itself as a forerunner of the political alliances later implemented by Berlin, despite the fact that Germany is experiencing an almost overwhelming advance of the far-right, which in the Grand Duchy has remained rather limited.

What the German state elections tell us

Sunday, 8 October, was also the day of the state elections in Bavaria and Hesse. In Bavaria, one of the richest and most populous Länder in Germany, more than 9 million people have voted, and the elections are considered particularly important to gauge consensus on the work of the federal government led by the Socialist Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The Christian-Social Union (CSU), the conservative Bavarian party and historical ally of the CDU at the national level, obtained the majority of votes, 36.7 per cent. However, as was the case in 2018, it will not have an absolute majority of seats in the local parliament and will need to ally with the liberals of the Freie Wähler to form a government.

In Hesse, the result was a clear victory for the CDU, which took almost 35 per cent of the vote on a swing of 7.6 percentage points.

What calls us to reflect is the result of the AfD, the far-right party, in both elections In Bavaria, AfD is the third political force (with 14.6 per cent, it will be the first opposition force and announces a “radical turnaround”); in Hesse, it is the second political force with 18.4 per cent. In both cases, there is a growth compared to the 2018 elections: in Hesse by 5.3 per cent (about 140,000 votes) and in Bavaria by 4.4 per cent (almost 700,000 votes).

German state elections have always focused on issues related to local politics, such as transport, education or security. Still, in recent years, discussions have increasingly focused on nationally relevant issues, such as immigration, the green transition and – more recently – the stagnant situation of the German economy.

AfD has capitalised on all of it. These are scores that should not be underestimated as they signal the advance of the far-right, especially because of the immigration issue and its consequences, and it is reasonable to think they will establish a trend in the 2024 European elections.

Die Grünen (Greens) are suffering like the other majority parties mainly for two reasons. On the one hand, the limits of the party’s project are beginning to emerge, as it seems less capable of making a synthesis that brings together the environmental topic with others, starting from the social one; on the other, the wear and tear of government experience, with Green ministers often coming under fire for their choices: for example, after two years, there is still no clarity on Annalena Baerbock’s foreign policy. A party that will increasingly have to deal with the limits and, indeed, the difficulties of an identity that is too “plural”, whose souls are not always able to reconcile.

Chancellor Scholz’s SPD did not achieve what was hoped for, and in Hesse it even witnessed the rejection of the Federal Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, candidate for President and clearly defeated (minus 4.7 per cent and the party ending up behind the AfD and having the worst result ever).

The Chancellor knows that the country is called upon to make an enormous effort on several fronts: the radical transformation of energy policy and the need to confirm itself as an industrial power, the management of the new defence policy starting from a German turning point initiated with the Zeitenwende, the management of the migratory phenomenon. All of this forms a complex scenario that can only be faced with the governance of these processes. This explains his request to the centre-right opposition for collaboration made to the Bundestag weeks ago: the awareness of a truly common challenge rather than a sign of weakness.

This should not induce us to doubt the “quality” of German democracy, which seems capable of offering different solutions to the crises thanks to the spectrum of authentically “democratic” parties: different government coalitions and clear (democratic) oppositions are still possible, both at state and federal levels. What really matters is the political will to do that.

Polarised Poland

Polish citizens will vote tomorrow to elect their representatives to the Parliament (Sejm) and the Senate (Senat). The elections are taking place in a climate of great internal polarisation, which has characterised the Polish political landscape for over two legislatures.

Representing the watershed in this electoral round in Poland is the return to the national political scene of Donald Tusk, the former Prime Minister between 2007 and 2014, former President of the European Council (from 2014 to 2019), and number one of the European People’s Party (EPP) until 2022.

Tusk leads the largest opposition party, Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska, PO), against Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc, PiS). PiS has firmly held the reins of power in Warsaw for eight years. Polls give Morawiecki a lead of 33-35 per cent, a result that would not allow him to govern autonomously and would force PiS to form a coalition.

PO has built a positive narrative of national unity around last Sunday’s march and all along the campaign, which aims to counteract the polarisation of the country and the anti-EU establishment rhetoric of the PiS. Even in the event of a good electoral outcome, the PO will also have to look for allies to govern. This is where the two opposition parties come into play, the conservative centre party Third Way (Trzecia Droga) of Szymon Hołownia and the only left-wing party, New Left (Nowa Lewica), both polling around 10 per cent. The same percentage of votes is also estimated for the far-right Confederation party (Konfederacja).

In addition to the polarised narrative, the deterioration of relations with Kyiv due to the grain dispute casts a shadow on what has been a pillar of Warsaw’s foreign and security policy since 24 February 2022: the military, economic and humanitarian support for Ukraine.

In the systematic effort to support Kyiv, Poland has proven to be a fundamental logistical hub to guarantee the flow of armaments and the training of Ukrainian forces by NATO countries. Warsaw has actively promoted Ukraine’s membership application to the EU and NATO and has openly pressured other countries that are more reticent about securing advanced weapons systems. This has happened in some cases in a very media-driven manner, such as the naming and shaming of Germany for its initial reluctance to supply the Leopard tanks.

As expected, tensions with Ukraine have already partially subsided. Both countries’ vital security interests do not allow Kyiv or Warsaw to tear or worsen relations beyond a certain threshold.

However, the grain dispute has largely dominated the election campaign by shaping the communication of the two main parties, the governing PiS in particular.

Morawiecki quickly found himself in the uncomfortable need to raise the tone with Kyiv. An interesting element of the narrative around the grain affair is that Prime Minister Morawiecki, in explaining the “difficult” relationship with Kyiv, referred to the fact that Ukrainian oligarchs control this agricultural sector.

In a final analysis, the feeling is that Morawiecki’s party had all in all held the reins of the campaign until the visas-for-bribes scandal exploded, i.e., the alleged illicit scheme for issuing entry permits to Poland and the Schengen area to migrants from several Asian and African countries.

According to Eurostat data, in 2020 Poland granted six hundred thousand visas to non-EU citizens, which became seven hundred and ninety thousand the following year. The arrival of Ukrainian refugees has made these numbers grow even more, but it is quite clear that the government’s policies on immigration, which continues to refuse to adopt the European mechanism for relocating migrants, are contradictory.

Furthermore, one of the four referendum questions that the Poles will vote on, together with the renewal of parliament, will focus on immigration.

This does nothing but fuel the climate of polarisation in which, tomorrow, one of the most crucial elections in the European Union will be held on the eve of the 2024 European elections.

Last Sunday’s march gave a further jolt to the polls, and the Civic Platform appears to be recovering. For the ending, a little more patience is needed.