The State of the European Union. The European Parliament faces its most important elections yet

THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 46 of the political party system. Italy is experiencing an ongoing phase of economic stagnation, un- employment reached above-average levels of 11-12% following the financial crisis, and the unresolved banking crisis is still a burden on the country to this day (Telljohann, 2016). The tradi- tional system of parties in Italy ( Pentapartito ) broke down in the early 1990s under the pres- sure of corruption scandals ( Tangentopoli ), leav- ing the way clear for three right-wing populist parties (Forza Italia, the Northern League, and the National Alliance), which led the country under Berlusconi in a total of four governments, on and off from 1994 to 2011. It is part of the country’s tragedy that these right-wing govern- ments not only proved unable to solve the so- cio-economic problems of the country, but also collapsed – like the previous party system – due to scandals (tax evasion, corruption, Berlusconi’s sex scandals). The Five Star Movement benefit- ed from the situation in the ashes of the Berlusconi system, and received 25% of the votes in the 2013 parliamentary election at a stroke. The Five Star Movement may stress that it is nei- ther on the left nor the right of the political spectrum, but in the European Parliament and on questions relating to the refugee crisis the party is aligned with the right-wing populist Northern League and the Brothers of Italy (Caccia, 2017). Italy is more strongly marked by political instability than virtually any other EU state. Along with the socio-economic crisis, this is one of the main factors explaining the strong influence of right-wing populism in the country. In addition to this, there has been a refugee crisis since 2015, which has been exploited by the populist parties to stoke xenophobia and to brand migrants as scapegoats for the many cri- ses in the country. France When Marine Le Pen became leader of the National Front (FN) in 2011 the party’s election results began to stabilise strongly, above the 10% mark (Chwala, 2015). In the Presidential elections in 2012 Marine Le Pen got nearly 18%. In 2017 she got around 21% of the vote and reached the second round against Emmanuel Macron, in which she got nearly 34%. The FN got around 13% in the National Assembly elections in 2012 and 2017. The FN was particularly successful in the 2014 European elections, coming first with nearly 25% of the vote, and quadrupling its results from 2009 (see Ivaldi, 2017). In France three factors are particularly rele- vant for explaining the development of right- wing populism: the socio-economic crisis, the failure of a conservative president and a socialist president to solve problems, and difficulty in overcoming the immigration question. GDP growth in France has been very slow since the financial crisis. Levels of employment have increased very slowly, and the unemploy- ment rate was still around 10% until 2016. Sarkozy and Hollande failed in their attempts to overcome economic stagnation. President Hollande’s labour measures to “reverse the un- employment curve” had hardly any effect. Many people in France see globalisation and the intro- duction of the euro as the key causes of the country’s socio-economic difficulties. They also hold the “political class” responsible for not protecting France enough against globalisation/ Europeanisation. A further problem is that immigration has not been dealt with adequately in the political arena and in society. France has often fallen short when it comes to social integration of