EU’s Breton downplays Euroscepticism but warns against left, right extremes

The EU’s Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton warned on Monday (15 January) against far-left and far-right parties ahead of upcoming EU elections, saying they might be lacking consensus-based “governance culture” to the detriment of “European general interest”.

Breton, the EU digital mogul and lead on all things defence, is nearing the end of his term, as EU elections on 6-9 June should see a reshuffle in the European Parliament and the European Commission.

In a conversation with journalists in Paris on Monday, he called for all EU member states to “sit around the table and address significant EU challenges without taboos, and with courage”.

Consensus-based decision-making, he said, is at the very heart of the work he has undertaken since become commissioner in 2019, from securing COVID-19 vaccines to boosting ammunition production, and now overseeing the build-up of a new European defence industrial strategy (EDIS).

Extremes, on the other hand, may be lacking the “governance culture” necessary to function in the EU. “Political visions [of the extremes] do not align with the necessity to find consensus to go towards European general interest,” Breton explained.

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Far-right Identity and Democracy Group (ID) and conservative European Conservatives and Reformists party (ECR) come third and fourth, respectively, in voting intention, and the right-wing bloc holds on to a blocking majority, while Fratelli d’Italia loses three seats and the Italian Greens-Left Alliance gains five, according to Euractiv’s mid-January projections ahead of the EU elections in June.

70% of non-extreme

Asked by Euractiv if he was concerned by the rise of Eurosceptic narratives as EU elections near – and polls tend to show a rise for the right-wing bloc – he downplayed the alleged danger of a growing anti-EU wave.

“I’m not sure there is such a thing as a Eurosceptic discourse,” Breton said. Even in recent far-right victories, such as that in Slovakia or the Netherlands, “far-right parties secured 23% of the vote share [22.94% for Slovakia’s Fico, 23.49% for Netherlands’ Wilders], which means there’s over 70% of voters that do not belong to the extremes”.

EU governance and decision-making processes, the commissioner said, are such that leaders must reckon with the reality of far-right and far-left parties, all the while building “consensus, shared projects and a shared vision” with the largest possible majority.

“It’s obviously much harder than to sit there and say ‘the rotten lot, it was better in the past, let’s go back to that,” Breton said, referring to what he deems to be the far-right’s backward-looking politics.

As seen in recent years, even extreme parties currently in power turn to the EU in times of emergency, he pointed out.

As migrants arrived by the hundreds on the Italian island of Lampedusa in September 2023, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni “called on the EU for help,” Breton said – a turn of events so significant it was deemed a “political overhaul” by EU officials at the time, as Euractiv France reported (in French).

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Questioning old alliances

Breton’s comments came as EU states are gearing up for EU elections – an EU-wide ballot that usually suffers from a low voter turnout – in the midst of acute geopolitical crises.

It is high time we pushed for a “powerful Europe” (Europe puissance), he told journalists – echoing a line by France’s recently-appointed foreign minister, ex Renew Europe political group boss Stéphane Séjourné, who said last week “Europe puissance” would be his priority in the new job.

This, Breton argued, flagging once again France’s recurring theme of ‘strategic autonomy’, means taking a step back from US reliance and dependence on all things defence and nuclear deterrence, to “impose our own powerfulness, for our own sake”.

The US push for a more autonomous European defence pre-dates the Trump presidency, even if became more prounced during his term, Breton said.

It “isn’t just a Trump invention. Already the Obama administration was vocal that the EU increases defence capacities,” the commissioner argued, and the same was true under Joe Biden’s leadership.

Consequentially, the EU ought not shy away from “questioning past alliance”, he said.

“We’ve failed to invest enough in defence over the course of the past 20 years […]. It’s a fact”.

Committing to putting together a €100-billion defence fund to boost the EU defence industry production capacity, or ensuring that the continent has the industrial capabilities it needs to produce one million rounds of ammunition by March for Ukraine, are just snippets of what ought to make the EU enter “a new paradigm shift”, Breton said.

Breton pitches €100 billion fund for defence industry cooperation

Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton pitched on Tuesday (9 January) a €100 billion fund to boost EU defence industry production and collaboration between countries, companies and other stakeholders.

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]