Cristian Pirvulescu: Next year's elections will change the format of the European Parliament

Next year's elections will change the format of the European Parliament, political analyst Cristian Pirvulescu, Dean of the Faculty of Political Science at SNSPA, said on Friday, estimating that the far right will then be "one of the important political parties". He took part in a debate about the priorities and challenges of the EU until the European elections of 2024. The event was organized by the European Parliament Liaison Office in the context of the debate on the State of the Union (SOTEU) of 13th September where, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen will present the achievements of the past year and the priorities of the year to come."Next year's elections will change the format of the European Parliament. Of course, alliances will still be in place. We won't have a clear far-right majority, most likely it won't be the first political party either, but it will be one of the important political parties. There is a risk that the role that the social democrats have today will be taken over by the far right. This is a risk we are considering. There is a risk, we will see," said Pirvulescu.   The Head of the European Commission Representation in Bucharest, Ramona Chiriac, spoke about today's challenges. ‘Ukraine continues to resist to the Russian aggression and the multidimensional support – military, economic, political and humanitarian – on the part of the European Union has a decisive role.The hardest part of the energy crisis has been overcome. Prices have lowered considerably, the population and the economy were strongly supported by the measures taken both at European level and at national level. We reduced over the last year at a historical minimum the quantity of fossil fuel imported from Russia’ she said.In her turn, Maria Grapini, S&D MEP estimated that, in this context, ‘the most important thing is the cohesion policy’. ‘The cohesion policy was the red thread during the mandates I worked in the European Parliament and obviously they will still be present’ Grapini said.   The S&D MEP Victor Negrescu said that there is the risk that ‘ the political anti-European parties, extremist and pro-Russian may get a high score’. ‘That is why I expect that in the speech of the president of the European Commission we have a firm message with regard to this risk. Let us forget the fear and speak about hope’ he completed.In this sense, Negrescu said, it is necessary that the leaders, especially the leaders of the pro-European parties ‘express clearly their refusal to any alliance or cooperation with the anti-European, Euro-skeptical and pro-Russian parties’.‘ I am telling you this, as today in the European Parliament the right parties get alliance, when it comes to votes, with those anti-European and pro-Russian parties and this has already happened in many member states, without an adequate reaction on our part, of those who believe in this European common project’ the MEP said.In his turn, the Renew Europe MEP Dragos Pislaru spoke about his expectations as regards the speech of the head of the community executive.  ‘My expectation is that in the speech delivered by Ursula von der Leyen we discuss about the way in which we could face these challenges – how we can be less populist, so that we should not get bankruptcy in Europe, about how to be less extremist, as, until  now, this is the attack on democracy’ Pislaru said. He appreciated that ‘this is a debate of topical importance, which we should have in Romania as well’.The Renew Europe MEP Ramona Strugariu appreciated that ‘the state of the European Union is fragile from an economic perspective as well (…) and from the perspective of the war and of the fact that we have a mission and a duty to support Ukraine’.  (Photo:https://snspa.ro/)