Elections dominate European foreign policy Europe and European foreign policy will be overwhelmed by elections. It is not that there will be more elections in 2017 than usual. With 28 member states and 4-5 year parliamentary terms, every year will have 7-9 national elections on average. But 2017 will see key elections in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, all of which could usher in yet another unexpected populist victory. There may also be an election in Italy, where a victory by the Five Star Movement could presage a referendum on the euro and possibly a financial crisis.
But the biggest story will be the French election and the possibility that Marine Le Pen might become President of France. It seems unlikely at the moment, but everyone is too chastened by recent predictive failures in the United States and the United Kingdom to feel confident. If Le Pen were elected, it would be a bigger crisis for the EU than Brexit, and indeed probably doom the EU to geopolitical irrelevance.
To a surprising degree, the elections themselves will focus on foreign policy issues, particularly immigration, terrorism, and trade and will thus have a large impact on European foreign policy. And regardless of their outcome, we can be fairly confident any call for foreign policy activism on the part of Europe in 2017 will be met with pleas to wait until the next election passes.