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The gathering momentum in the swing of European politics to the right, may provide a breathing space for the resolution of farm budget and World Trade Organization (WTO) commitments to be addressed before eastern European accession and the environment again dominate the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) debate. (840 words)

The unexpected result of the first round of the French presidential election last Sunday will have a significant impact on European politics for some time to come.

The second place finish of National Front candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen is being condemned by all but his immediate supporters as his policies are seen almost universally as not politically correct. The reality is, however, that there are a significant number of voters who believe in them.

And the tendency for these issues to be swept under the rug by the public at large in the interest of political correctness can only go on for so long before somebody trips.

The chance of Le Pan being successful in the defeating Jacques Chirac, the incumbent Centre Right president, in the concluding presidential vote in two weeks time is surely long. He is opposed by the left whose candidates were eliminated last Sunday and will surely switch to Chirac and Chirac supporters as well. This would seem to leave Le Pen with a very narrow spectrum of support to the right of Chirac. His support has also been limited in the main to southern France and he undoubtedly benefited on Sunday from a very poor turnout.

He may, however, do better than many suppose. It is possible that a significant number of Chirac supporters have in the past refrained from supporting Le Pen because to do so might have given the left the opportunity to beat Chirac. Further the element of political correctness may have dissuaded them.

With Chirac now facing no opposition from the left, the first of these factors has been eliminated. Further, the publicity that Le Pen is receiving will help his cause in two very different ways. In the first place the opportunity for Le Pen to explain in a law and order context what are regarded as racist and xenophobic policies may attract support. And, if the demonstrations, which followed within a matter of hours of Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin conceding defeat, get out of hand with the use of tear gas suggests just this, his case may be made in the minds of many.

In reality the influence of the far right, even if recent events indicate resurgence of its political fortune, is likely to be at best regional and perhaps passing as has been the case with the Greens of the left through their current junior partnership in Germany's government. But there may be an increased readiness for mainstream political parties to debate what is now deemed not to be political correct issues in order to avoid this current French experience.

Possibly as significant as the French poll was the unexpected defeat, also on Sunday, of Social Democrats in the German province of Saxony-Anhalt, one of the most economically depressed areas of this country. This is the last electoral measure of the support of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats before they face an election in September.

Recent election results in Italy, Denmark and Portugal have favoured right of centre parties. The future of the left of centre Dutch government, which recently resigned en masse on a foreign policy issue and which also faces an election this year, must also be in question.

The existing programmes and institutions of the European Union, mainly those of the European Commission seem retrospectively quite resilient to swings in the politics of member states. Such is the immunity of commission institutions to such influences, their establishment is often referred to them being "set in concrete."

This is, however, far from the case for programmes under consideration. The European Council is composed directly of representatives of member states and little goes forward with out the collective nod of the council.

Almost any item on the current agenda of the council could, therefore, be threatened. The most likely casualty seems to be the time table for the accession of Eastern European countries to the European Union. This has in the past been cloaked in political correctness and is likely to be increasingly challenged by the right.

It would, of course, have particular significance for agriculture as the need to accommodate eastern Europe, sooner rather than later, has been a driving force in revision to the CAP. It is further evident that the major concern of the left over a variety environment style will suffer as priorities in the next few years.

This will, for the moment, simplify CAP related debate to the long running one of budget costs and the more recent one of meeting WTO commitments. It is to be hoped that these issues will be resolved by the time the political centre of gravity swings back to the left and the emphasis on the accession of eastern Europe and environmental dictates return.

April 24, 2002