The EU may struggle to find its way out of this election crisis

It is said that the EU thrives on crises. These are what spurs it on to the ultimate goal of wider and deeper integration. But yesterday’s European election results may be a crisis too far. Unlike its predecessors, this election has returned nine or so large Eurosceptic national parties intent on arresting the march towards ever-closer union. The nationalist and identitarian right, while by no means a majority in the new European parliament, is in a commanding position to seriously influence the EU’s future direction. According to the Bertelsmann Foundation’s European expert, quoted in Le Monde, the EU is entering ‘its most decisive phase in its 70 year history’.

This is no mere preoccupation of academic political scientists. This morning, financial markets shadowed general anxiety about the health of the European project: the euro slumped against the dollar and pound sterling, European bond interest rates tightened and stock markets plunged.