For Europe’s centre-left, it was the night from hell. Liberals and Greens took a beating in many countries and lost dozens of seats as nationalist and Eurosceptic parties grabbed nearly a quarter of the seats in the European parliament. The centre-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) slipped just below their existing total thanks to unexpectedly strong scores in Italy and Spain.

Worse still, France, the EU’s pivotal power, saw the biggest far-right gains. That prompted President Emmanuel Macron to call a high-risk snap election that could clear the way for Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration National Rally to sweep into government within a month.

Le Pen’s vow to close France’s borders to migrants and oppose any eastward enlargement of the EU could paralyse decisions in Brussels. Barring a democratic miracle, Macron may be a lame-duck president “cohabiting” with a hostile hard-right government by this time next month.

Yet at European level, this grim result for EU progressives could still yield a positive result for their main priorities of resisting Russian aggression in Ukraine, keeping the EU on course towards climate neutrality, and making the green transition socially fairer and more affordable for working people – if they play their cards right.

While all eyes are on the rightist victories in Paris, Rome, Vienna and Budapest, the far right’s multiple internal divisions, and the refusal of mainstream parties thus far to make common cause at EU level with Eurosceptic populists, offer the centrist and centre-left parties a pathway to limit the damage.

If they band together and don’t let themselves be........

© The Guardian