What the EU's new parliament means for the Middle East

The results of the European Parliament elections on 9 June allowed for two different but complementary readings.

When set against the expectations that dominated the weeks before the vote, the performance of the far-right was underwhelming. But compared to the last elections in 2019, the far-right made great advances.

The radical right, organised into two different groups in the European Parliament, held around 17% of the seats in the outgoing parliament. Following in-fighting between them, three different parliamentary groups will now occupy 27% of the new parliament’s seats.

Underscoring the general shift to the right, the centre-right European People's Party (EPP) comfortably remains the largest parliamentary group after experiencing moderate gains. Their candidate for President of the European Commission, the incumbent Ursula von der Leyen, was re-elected by the European Parliament on Thursday.

The vote was not as tight as expected, with 401 parliamentarians voting in favor and 284 against. The secret ballot system makes it difficult to know who supported von der Leyen. Before the 9 June elections, the Commission President had announced she was ready to accept the votes of Brothers of Italy, the far-right party of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. In the end, von der Leyen did not need this support as the Green Party voted for her as Commission President.

But what should we expect from the new European Commission and European Parliament regarding foreign policy, especially vis-a-vis the Middle East and North Africa? The answer, in short, is neither a major revolution nor a simple continuation of business as usual.

'Fortress Europe' continues

The EU's securitised approach towards migrants and asylum seekers, which sees them as a threat, and not as a group of people in need of compassionate measures and protection, is likely to gain new impetus.

This has much to do with the reading of the European election results by the so-called ‘European centre’ - the EPP, the Liberals of Renew Europe, and the centre-left Socialists and Democrats. These three groups retained their majority in the European Parliament. During recent weeks, they also showed their ability to re-distribute among themselves the key top positions in the EU institutions.

Still, the ‘European centre’ has moved from controlling around 60% of the seats in the last parliament to a smaller majority of 55%. Judging by the reaction of those steering the wheel of the EU, one of their key takeaways from the elections is that the EU will have to harshen even further its migration and asylum policy or risk losing its centrist majority next time.

Only three months have passed since the approval by the European Parliament of a legislative package collectively known as the New Pact on Migration and Asylum. The recently approved package already compromised basic human rights to reduce the number of arrivals to Europe.

Now, von der Leyen is arguing in a letter to the EU member states that the New Pact on Migration and Asylum "is not the end of the deliberation over the tools at our disposal". One of these tools, according to von der Leyen, would be the processing of asylum requests in non-EU countries. This possibility was not explicitly included in the new EU migration pact, but it was not ruled out either.

Although von der Leyen's recent letter did not mention any specific country, the idea she is hinting at is in line with the so-called Rwanda Plan of former British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, which has been discarded by the new Labour government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer. If the EU were to propose a European framework for the processing of asylum requests outside of the Union, this would only represent a step further in the externalisation of the EU's border control.

During the last year, von der Leyen, often accompanied by Giorgia Meloni, has reached migration agreements with Tunisia, Mauritania, Egypt, and Lebanon. The essence of the different deals is always the same: the EU provides money to these countries in exchange for preventing the arrival of migrants to Europe.

The latest of these bilateral agreements, the one signed by the EU and Lebanon in May 2024, risks facilitating the ongoing expulsion of Syrian refugees living in Lebanon to Syria, where they are often killed or abused by Syrian authorities.

The centre-right EPP incorporated the processing of asylum requests outside the EU in its manifesto before the European elections. This is also the policy of Germany's centre-right Christian Democratic Union, which is likely to return to the government of the EU's largest country in 2025. The Danish government, despite being led by the Social Democrats, is also in favour of processing asylum requests in third countries.

Although maybe not in the short term, there could eventually be enough support for such a policy in the European Parliament if the far-right is included, and in the European Council, made up of the leaders of the member states. The main obstacles could eventually be neither political will nor moral constraints, but legal challenges and the impossibility of finding third countries willing to process asylum requests on behalf of the EU.

In her candidacy speech to the European Parliament on Thursday, von der Leyen promised to strengthen the EU’s borders and Frontex, the troubled EU border agency. Drawing directly from the EPP’s election manifesto, she promised to “triple the number of European border and coastguards to 30,000”.

The head of Frontex between 2015 and 2022, Fabrice Leggeri, was forced to resign after an investigation showed Frontex had illegally forced migrants back across the EU’s border. He now sits in the European Parliament for Le Pen’s National Rally.

The Middle East and Ukraine's war

The other key issue in European politics is the ongoing war in Ukraine, which has had profound consequences for the EU's approach to the Middle East and North Africa. The countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have become more important for the EU as it has moved away from Russian oil and gas after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The rehabilitation of Saudi Crown Prince and de facto ruler Mohammed Bin Salman had slowly begun before the Ukraine war. Still, the importance of Saudi oil reserves to replace Russian supplies is important to understanding why Bin Salman's role in the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi has become an afterthought.

The EU's sanctions against Russia have failed to produce any tangible results. However, we are likely to see a continuation of this sanctions policy and, in this context, the GCC countries are seen as reliable energy providers. Whereas the standing of countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE has largely improved in the eyes of EU leaders as a consequence of the Ukraine war, the opposite dynamic is the case with Iran.

Tehran has become an important supplier of military equipment (especially drones) to Russia for its war in Ukraine. The recent election of the reformist Masoud Pezeshkian as Iranian president after the death of hardliner Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash might open new opportunities for diplomacy.

But this diplomatic opening would probably be circumscribed to Iran's nuclear program and not include Iranian military activities abroad, which are the domain of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and beyond Pezeshkian's reach.

To an important extent, the EU has come to see the world through the lens of the Ukraine war. Thus, it is hard to imagine the EU adopting a compartmentalised approach that engages with Iran regarding its nuclear program but leaves Iran's support for Russia undiscussed.

Overall, we can expect the EU's diplomatic engagement with the Middle East and North Africa to decrease further in the coming years. Although the reasons behind this dynamic are long-running and EU-wide, it will probably be accelerated by the appointment of Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas as the new EU foreign policy chief and vice-president of the European Commission.

Estonia, a neighbour of Russia, is the second largest defence spender per capita within NATO and Kallas has repeatedly stated that Russia needs to be defeated or it will invade EU countries. It is logical to expect Kallas to focus much of her efforts as EU foreign policy chief on rallying international support for Ukraine.

Little is known about Kallas' position on the Gaza war. Estonia voted in favour of Palestine's full membership at the UN, contrary to its Baltic neighbours, and it also supported a ceasefire in Gaza in the last vote at the UN General Assembly, alongside its southern neighbour Latvia. But under Kallas, the Gaza war will probably recede even further in the EU's agenda.

By EU standards, foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has been very critical of Israel's war on Gaza. Borrell also put forward a peace plan for Gaza in January 2024 and his position has created considerable friction with Ursula von der Leyen. The Commission President will likely be more comfortable with Kallas by her side.

The EU is also expected to continue with its Operation ASPIDES, designed to protect commercial ships in the Red Sea from the Houthis, who have been launching attacks as a reaction to Israel's offensive in Gaza. Operation ASPIDES has a one-year mandate that can be renewed.

After the European elections, the EU will most likely deepen its reactive approach to the Middle East and North Africa. It will engage the region to guarantee a continuous flow of energy resources and minimise the effects of Houthi attacks on merchant ships.

And last, but certainly not least, it will continue seeking to reduce the number of migrants and asylum seekers reaching Europe, even if this implies reaching agreements with autocratic regimes that abuse the rights of both their citizens and migrants on the way to Europe.

Marc Martorell Junyent is a graduate of International Relations and holds an MA in Comparative and Middle East Politics and Society from the University of Tübingen (Germany). 

He has been published in the London School of Economics Middle East Blog, Middle East Monitor, Inside Arabia, Responsible Statecraft and Global Policy. 

Follow him on Twitter: @MarcMartorell3