In the midnight of 9 June Europe will be counting the votes of 2024 European Parliament election. With European political families entering a final stage of the race, many predict the EU will lean to the right. Is it good or bad for Europe? What this will mean for EU policies, both domestic and foreign?

Many also expect the EU mainstream polical families, the EPP, socialists and liberals will get a majority. While the European people’sparty will be in the lead, more questions remain in the socialist camp, which was recently giving up its positions. The liberals too may be less successful, as may be the greens.

On the other hand, the ECR is set to improve its positions, as well as is the ID, thought not without internal battles. However, as recent developments show, these groups too get more concerned with their outlier track record and would be open to redefine their policies by inching closer to the traditional parties in the right. This yet may pose another challenge to the EPP of seeking some space at the center.

There too will be new unassigned political forces to enter the European political landscape. Many eye at Prime Minister Melloni and her Brothers of Italy, which might be a good partner on the right for the EPP, in particular taking into account their converging positions about supporting Ukraine. There will be others too, among them Tisza, an anti-corruption platform from Hungary, to join the forces in the right.

As for a domestic front of EU policies, the focus might slightly change from climate change to competitiveness, both of which have a common ground of investing more in new greenier, healthier, intelligent technologies. Migration might remain at the focus, but after important decisions on a migration pact, the EU may not rush and take its time to weight in the options. Adding ‘smart’ next to migration can be one of the ways forward.

However, in a domain of foreign policy there is much more to consider, because this will have long lasting geopolitical implications for the European project as a whole. It seems, that from now on it will be the foreign policy at the center of EU agenda, at least until the end of the current decade.

Europe is caught already by geopolitics. For example, European defence industry or defence union demands a new integration project with shared competences, common institutions, additional resources and investments, both at the EU and national level. Building of new defence technologies will be key to EU’s competitive edge; streamlining of European production and procurement will be critical to Ukraine’s defence and its victory over the Kremlin’s war of aggression.

Europe leaning to the right might also suggest there is an urgency for the EU enlargement project to increase EU’s geopolitical role, promote fundamental freedoms and sustain Ukrainian victory through the governance reforms, reconstruction and investments. More importantly, the EU enlargement project may give a geopolitical chance to fulfill a democracy mission on the European continent, in the Western Balkans and the Eastern neighbourhood. Simply speaking, a right-leaning Europe has a chance to have its own, Reagan moment.

EU will soon have a historic chance to make things right in the Eastern neighbourhood. It should without delay reinvent its democracy support agenda for it can be ready tomorrow to manage political transition of Russia after the Kremlin regime will be exhaustedly facing a defeat against Ukraine and the whole democratic world. The EU should publish, as soon as possible, a new strategy of its relations with Navalny’s Russia aiming at democracy. This is what ordinary people of Russia anticipate.

Political changes in Russia will spillover to a democratic transformation of Belarus. The EU has already adopted a strategy for relations with democratic Belarus, now it has to make its stand-by policies ready allowing the democratic forces of Belarus led by Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya to step in when the time comes to organise free elections and launch the governance reforms.

This concerns Georgia too, as its Government exactly at this moment is fullfiling a crawling strategy of subordination to the Kremlin. The similar one Lukashenko executed in Belarus in 1994. Then he had a crazy idea to become a president of a new union with the Russian Federation, which wisely was used against him and to the Kremlin’s advantage.

The South Caucasus as a whole is a huge geopolitical case for the EU. Armenian, Georgian, Azeri people can live in peace and without the Kremlin’s care. And Europe has many instruments and powers to meet those expectations by inspiring positive chages in the region with investments, peace facility support and by grating a European perspective to democratic countries in this region.

History was calling for too long, now it is time for Europe to pick up the phone.