Is the European centre collapsing?

There’s a growing tension in the European bloc between those unhappy with Brussels’s increasing interventionism and by those who feel the EU does not intervene enough. The biggest casualty in this escalating conflict could well be the centre-right which, until now, has largely held the fractured bloc together.

It’s been a tough few weeks for the European People’s Party, the biggest political group in the European parliament. The group is now preparing for the departure of its long-time talisman Angela Merkel from frontline politics. Merkel’s CDU was the bedrock of the EPP, but now it appears that Germany will be run by the Social Democrats, who are members of the overtly integrationist Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European parliament.

Meanwhile in neighbouring Austria, the bright young thing of the European centre-right, Sebastian Kurz, has resigned following allegations of corruption. Kurz is accused of using taxpayers’ money to pay for a pollster to produce favourable results.