It is much better in my opinion. Everyone sticks to their beliefs. And in the end if it's the beliefs of the EPP + the far right who are the majority, and the people "suffer" because of it...maybe they shouldn't be handing them majority?

Long term, it's better to get the much worse and showcase to the people what voting EPP gets you. Run in every national election until 2029 with "vote EPP, get Orban and AfD" until EPP starts seeing the electoral damage.

The 2nd.

What's the point of a "centrist coalition" if all the legislation advancing is right wing because EPP keeps blackmailing "do as I say or I vote with the far right" ?

Montenegro is realistically the only one who can.
Moldova only if there is a Cyprus-type solution (aka freeze) for Transistria.
The rest no, too much bad blood with some EU members and prejudices against them (which they don't do much to change).

Wilders lost...but to JA21 and FvD.
The far right percentage (including SGP too) remained stable vs 2023 in the Netherlands.
The voters just switched parties, not views - and this is a long-term problem.

It's all but sure now Dave, D66 is back ahead after Amsterdam updated with their final count, and the remainder of the vote is 90% abroad (horrible for PVV)!

We are in a Catch-22:

Pro-Federalism change won't come from within, because the national leaders do not want to cede power to the #EU. And it is not coming from the voters, who don't understand that their grievances with the EU is because the union is not federated enough.

Yes they can.
And this poll is the first one showing a majority for D66-GL/PVDA-CDA-Volt + CU/50Plus or PvdD

This is actually 100% fair, this should be a joint EU power move signalling Russia is considered out of the international law governing capital. Not just optics while Belgium bears the risks.

Because Belgium wants guarantees that they will not be liable to compensation to Russia in the future (most assets are through a Belgium-based company), other EU members are not giving them, and (infuriatingly) we refuse to consider the international laws regarding finance non-applicable on Russia.

Because they got bought by a Hungarian oligarch last year.

There is a solution to this, but EU leaders don't have the balls: announce that Putin's plane will not be allowed to pass through Ukrainian or Polish airspace to land in Budapest.

France has a particularity though - the people always hate the leader, and what they want seems to be to ignore the financial and demographic reality, and keep an 80s welfare state no matter what. This will eat any president who doesn't go along with this lunacy.

I wouldn't say the far left is strong though, they are just very loud because of Gaza. They don't have particularly strong numbers.

The far right on the other side feels emboldened to get an ever larger share of the pie thanks to the cowardice of parties like VVD, PP, M etc. who welcome them...

More of the same but Macron appoints a government which uses the constitutional clauses to pass the budget without a parliamentary majority. More or less direct rule of the president with a paralyzed parliament until 2027.

India aside, the root cause of the far-right surge in the West is social media left to operate without rules. This is what societies revert to if you throw the average person in a jungle of "the truth is whatever I feel it is" and without rules on information, science and red lines.

I mean, in America this is all covered by the Republican Party.

They won't, but maybe they should take a calculated risk (for her to barely survive) to make her and EPP reconsider their priorities regarding their continuous pivoting to courting the far-right...

The failure to regulate social media has caused politics going crazy. We would have seen the same in the late 20th century if we had social media. The masses are easily manipulated and will run haywire if left in an information jungle instead of something more controlled like TV, websites etc.