Brexit Is Happening. The EU Has Bigger Things to Worry About
Parliamentary elections next year are poised to set more nationalists loose in the bloc’s main governing body.
The European political fabric changes for good at 11 p.m. London time on March 29, 2019, when the U.K. is scheduled to leave the European Union after 46 years of membership. The date is a neat fit: It comes just two months before every adult citizen of the bloc’s remaining 27 countries gets to vote for members of the European Parliament, and by Brexit day campaigns will be in full swing.
EU elections have often revealed more about the direction of domestic politics than the sentiments of European voters at large. In many countries, the twice-a-decade votes have evolved into a protest, a reaction to who’s in charge at home rather than a referendum on how the bloc is managed. But 2019 will be different—because in many countries the role of the EU now dominates domestic politics, too, whether because of the bloc’s role in managing the refugee crisis, controlling government spending, or demanding more respect for democracy.