If the pro-European parties will retain their majority in the European Parliament, the elections saw the far right achieves an unprecedented surge.
In France, the National Rally (RN) came first with 31% of the votes, more than double Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance partywho came in second with 15% of the vote.
Far-right parties also came out on top in Austria and Italy and made progress in Germany and Spain.
For European women’s rights activists participating in the campaign My voice my choice, these results reinforced the need to finance abortion at the European Union levelan effort they say is aimed in part at fighting far-right parties that have supported restricting access to abortion.
The campaign aims to ensure that the European Commission has funding to enable EU Member States to provide this service to “anyone in Europe who does not yet have access to safe and legal abortion”.
This effort was particularly supported by Polish activists who worked for overturn the almost total ban on the procedure in their country.
Polish women’s rights activists told Euronews Health that if they fail to change the law in Poland, where the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party has for years supported strict restrictions on abortion , they would take the issue to EU level.
Momentum for funding abortion at European level has grown after the French Parliament voted to amend the Constitution to make the termination of pregnancy a “freedom”in response to the adoption by many American states of laws aimed at restricting access to abortion.
If the leaders of the RN voted in favor of this measure, certain right-wing and far-right deputies abstained or voted against.
Activists from several European countries have now collected half of the signatures necessary for the citizens’ initiative and hope to soon begin discussions with the Commission and the European Parliament on this subject.
Could the election result influence the campaign?
Alice Coffin, who coordinates the “My voice, my choice” campaign in France, visited the strongholds of the far right as part of the signature collection.
“If France managed to find a majority in the French Senate to vote for abortion in the Constitution, I am sure that we can find a majority in the European Parliament to approve this measure”she tells Euronews Health.
But she adds: “It will be complicated and above all, what the election results show is that it is even more urgent that such an initiative be voted on”.
Alice Coffin also believes that it is fundamental “of forge practices, reflections, communities of resistance and struggle outside traditional political parties“.
The Spanish coordinator Kika Fumero, a specialist in sexual and gender-based violence, also believes that there is an urgent need to defend the right to abortion.
“As the right and far-right gain power in European institutions, it will become more difficult to legislate or design public policiessuch as funding programs for so-called supportive skills, which include sexual and reproductive rights, and more specifically abortion.”she says.
“The results of the elections have a direct impact on obtaining European funds to develop public policies in this area”concludes Kika Fumero.
