EsadeGeo Daily Digest, 07/06/2024

Euractiv - Max Griera and René Moerland / Socialists-Greens head to head with Wilders’ far-right in the Netherlands: EU election exit poll
 

• In the Netherlands, the green-social democratic joint list PvDA-GroenLinks is head to head with far-right PVV, with eight and seven seats respectively, according to the exit polls following the EU election held on Thursday (6 June). 

• The PvDA-GroenLinks joint list will split after the elections, as the PvdA is a member of the S&D group in the European Parliament and GroenLinks is part of the Greens/EFA. 

• As it stands, PVV and GroenLinks-PvdA will together get 15 out of 31 Dutch seats in the 720-member European Parliament. The remaining 16 MEPs reflect a scattered political landscape, representing 11 different parties. For example, the European federalist party Volt, the party for animals and the calvinist SGP all earned one seat each. 

• “The narrative of the rise of the far right has been beaten in the Netherlands. Of course, it’s still tight, but we have won, a progressive coalition has won in the Netherlands. So really this is a good example and this is the message to the rest of Europe: Go out to vote,” the European and Dutch Greens’ lead candidate Bas Eickhout told Euractiv.

   

The Washington Post - Dan Lamothe and John Hudson / Gaza aid pier suffered at least $22 million in damage, Pentagon assesses
 

• The U.S. pier off Gaza’s coast will undergo at least $22 million in repairs before returning to service soon, two Pentagon officials said, an indication of the scope of damage it suffered when rough seas ripped the structure to pieces and abruptly halted the humanitarian mission only days after initial aid shipments went ashore. 

• The estimate, which has not been previously reported, came together as U.S. military personnel scramble to rebuild the structure in the Israeli port of Ashdod, north of Gaza, where the work is more protected from the elements. The cost for repairs could rise to as much as $28 million, said one of the officials, who like the other spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss military plans. 

• The Pentagon said this week that the project’s overall cost has been downgraded, from an initial estimate of $320 million to about $230 million now. 

• Sabrina Singh, a spokeswoman, told reporters Wednesday that the savings were realized through lower-than-expected expenses for contracted vehicles and drivers, and Britain’s contribution of a military vessel to house the U.S. troops involved in the operation.

   

Financial Times - Rob Rose / South Africa’s ANC seeks ‘government of national unity’
 

• South Africa’s African National Congress said on Thursday it would invite the country’s other political parties to the negotiating table to try to form a government of national unity. 

• The move comes after a watershed election last week in which the liberation party of Nelson Mandela, which had governed South Africa since the end of apartheid 30 years ago, lost its parliamentary majority. 

• After an 11-hour special meeting of the ANC’s top decision-making body, the national executive committee, the party and country president Cyril Ramaphosa said the decision reached was to “invite political parties to form a government of national unity to move our country forward”. 

• Ramaphosa referred to Mandela’s first democratic government, formed in 1994, which included the defeated National party as well as the Inkatha Freedom party.

   

Bloomberg - Alice Gledhill, Alexander Weber, and Aline Oyamada / Lagarde’s Reluctant Cut Leaves Markets Guessing on Next ECB Move
 

• The European Central Bank delivered on its promise to cut interest rates but left investors querying where policy is headed next by also saying it will take longer for inflation to reach 2%. 

• While Thursday’s quarter-point reduction in the deposit rate from its nine-month peak at 4% was widely expected, the upward revision to next year’s forecast for consumer-price growth — to 2.2% from 2% — came as more of a surprise. 

• President Christine Lagarde noted that the inflation outlook has improved “markedly” and said there’s a “strong likelihood” that the ECB is shifting into a “dialing-back phase.” But she declined to confirm that such a change of gear has now happened. 

• While investors are still betting the ECB will lower rates again this year, the timing of that reduction is once again being questioned — with some already saying that cutting rates when inflation is still running hot puts the ECB’s credibility in doubt.

   

Our opinion reads for the weekend:

• Foreign Policy - Steven A. Cook / America’s Israel Policy Is Stuck in the 1990s 

• Project Syndicate - Michael Spence / The Next Phase of Our Inflation Journey 

• Politico - Esther Webber / The death of the UK Conservative Party 

• Foreign Affairs - Jonas Goldman, Noah J. Gordon, Bentley Allan, and Daniel Baer / How America Can Win the Coming Battery War