Despite Romania's election result, the EU remains divided on issues ranging from domestic politics to Israel
After Romania's presidential election this weekend – in which the liberal mayor of Bucharest and pro-EU candidate, Nicusor Dan, won – the verdict appears to be that a close shave with a new form of internal chaos was avoided.
Presidential elections in Romania, as well as in its fellow Eastern European powerhouse, Poland, are hard to beat as case studies in the increasing dysfunction of the bloc.
In both countries, the political establishment that for more than 30 years has been loyal to the path of European integration has had to rely on independent candidates to hold back challenges from hard-right candidates.
Those candidates would have had significant implications beyond each country's borders, rejecting, for example, any attempt to censure Israel or reduce its institutional ties.
The EU has been unable to reflect the clear desire of a majority of its member states to demonstrate a rejection of the killing and destruction in Gaza, with governments such as those of Hungary being exceptions.
For example, the Dutch government is currently pushing for a review of the EU's trade association agreement with Israel. In a letter, it said the Israelis are in violation of its Article Two of the agreement because of its breach of international humanitarian law.
The governments of Belgium, Finland, France, Portugal and Sweden have also signed up to join the early movers on this issue – Spain and Ireland. But the politics of Eastern Europe make actual movement on this issue almost impossible, especially if hard-right candidates are thriving, much less winning.
For now, however, a dramatic crisis in the EU has been averted.
Mr Dan, the Bucharest mayor, defeated hard-right populist George Simion, who carried the banner for a US-style uprising against the establishment, after the country's top court annulled a previous round of voting last year over evidence of a Russian-backed interference campaign.
Mr Simion rejected the result, setting the stage for the domestic political crisis to continue to fester, perhaps even grow. In a Facebook post, Mr Simion said his own election victory was 'clear" to all. "I won!!! I am the new President of Romania and I am giving back the power to the Romanians!"
Much has been made of how centrist leaders in Canada and Australia staged a comeback based on the return of US President Donald Trump. The pendulum is still swinging in other parts of the globe. This is specifically the case in central and Eastern Europe, where presidential elections have been caught up in a wider power struggle.
A victory for Mr Simion would no doubt have been cheered by the White House. He had pledged to appoint the court-deposed candidate Calin Georgescu as prime minister to shake things up.
In Poland, the presidency holds certain key cards, such as formalising laws and judicial appointments, which makes the ongoing presidential election a high-stakes battle. The coalition government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk – an impeccable EU figure who served as president of the European Council during Mr Trump's first term – has turned to the liberal Warsaw mayor, Rafal Trzaskowski, as its champion.
Mr Trzaskowski won a little more than 30 per cent of the first-round vote, with the more Conservative opposition candidate Karol Nawrocki coming in narrowly behind.
With Mr Tusk trailing in delivery on his coalition promises from last year, in part because the opposition controls the presidency, a win by his ally is key to his government's prospects over the coming years.
During Mr Nawrocki's visit to the White House at the start of this month, the US President reportedly took a different point of view. "President Trump said 'you will win'," Mr Nawrocki claimed to a private Polish broadcaster.
If true, it may be that the old enmity between either half of the 'two Donalds' has endured over the years.
From everything that is known, the new administration in Washington prefers the new politics of Europe. Mr Trump has often said the EU treats the US very badly in trade and has hinted that he will continue the tariff war against the bloc.
There is a wider dimension of political values at play that is even harder for the European leadership to accommodate.
In a visit to Europe in February, US Vice President JD Vance sounded like an old-fashioned neoconservative when he beat up the Europeans over the cancelled Romanian elections.
The intellectual leader of Maga's global politics, Mr Vance called out the Europeans for seizing on 'flimsy evidence from an intelligence agency' to cancel an election it didn't like. It gave him a critique of Europe failing to meet an American litmus test. 'What I worry about is the threat from within. The retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values,' he said.
Yet for the Europeans, it is the contest between politics as it has been practised since the end of the Cold War and the new American-style sovereigntist pursuit of national interests that remains in the balance after the weekend elections.
This means that when it comes to making decisions on, say, what to do about Israel, the opposing sides are ever more entrenched. The bloc that pushed so hard for two-state diplomacy from the era of the Oslo Accords is now unrecognisable. The reason for that lies in the fitful progress of the hard right in the unfolding electoral cycle.
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