At stake at the European elections in June this year will be  everything that defines the modern EU: a vast volume of net zero legislation, a values-based foreign policy and ever more intrusive business regulation. Polls suggest that the centrist majority that has supported these policies is getting thinner and thinner.  

Ursula der der Leyen has been the quintessential representative of that majority. Born in Brussels, German by nationality, proposed by France, she was the perfect candidate for the job of European Commission president in late 2019. Now she is seeking a second term. Whether or not she will succeed, will depend to a large extent on whether the centrist four-party coalition that supported her in 2019 will hold. 

What we are seeing all over Europe is a backlash against the kind of policies the von der Leyen Commission represented. The far-right is part of that backlash, but the main political shift that has taken place has been inside Ursula von der Leyen's own political group - the European People's Party, of which the German CDU/CSU is the largest member. 

This backlash follows one of the most hectic political phases in recent EU history. When Covid struck in early 2020, von der Leyen was instrumental in setting up the EU's recovery fund to help countries deal with the economic consequences of the pandemic. Then came the Green Deal, a large volume of legislation on renewable energy, land use and forestry, energy efficiency, emission standards for cars and trucks, and directive on energy taxes. There was also legislation to tighten standards on pesticides, air quality, water pollution and waste water. 

Farmers are revolting against those policies because it affects their livelihoods. Industrialists, too, are not happy. An important part of the Green Deal was the Green industrial policy. The flagship legislation was the net zero industrial act. Industry used to be the EU's strongest supporter. But with the new laws came new bureaucracy. All EU-funded investment must have a Green component of at least 30 percent. A carbon border adjustment mechanism, to take effect in 2026, will penalise imports that do not meet the EU's own carbon emissions standards. Together, the EU legislations of the last few years amounts to a near total corporate regime change. 

Compliance with some regulations is virtually impossible for companies without dedicated legal teams. It is going to get worse. Under discussion right now is a supply chain law that would make European companies responsible for human rights abuses in their supply chain - including the suppliers of their suppliers. 

My expectation is that the hyperactive phase of the Green agenda will end with the June elections. Some of it might even go into reverse. I am even starting to doubt whether the EU will end up enforcing the 2035 target for the phasing out of the fuel-driven car. There is an industrial policy disaster in the making because Europe's car makers are all having trouble selling their electric cars.

It is instructive to look at what happened to Green politics in Germany. The SPD-Green-FDP coalition in Berlin started with great enthusiasm in 2021, but is now hopelessly divided. After a string of unpopular laws, the anti-Green backlash has been in full force there for some time. 

The far-right AfD and a new party led by Sahra Wagenknecht, a maverick politician of the left, have identified the Greens as their main opponent. They depict them as representative of Metropolitan elites who force their urban values onto rural communities. The language would suggest parallels to Brexit.  As the EU gets associated with partisan policies of the centre-left, opposition to those policies and opposition to the EU are starting to merge.

It was the sudden abolition of a diesel subsidy for agricultural vehicles that drove farmers to the streets in Germany. But their discontent goes deeper. What is happening all over Europe is the first organised pushback against the Green agenda. The centre-right has discovered that there are votes to be had by opposing green policies. Farmers and rural communities are starting to fight back. 

One of the consequences is that the centrist coalition is no longer viable. I personally believe this is a healthy development. When centrist parties always form coalitions with one another, we should not be surprised to see parties emerge on the political fringes.  

The centrists' natural reaction to the rise of the far right has been to erect firewalls. This works until it doesn't. When the far-right exceeds certain thresholds in support, as it has done in Germany, firewalls become a fight against the laws of  electoral arithmetic. 

In Brussels, the firewall has started to crack. The EPP has already opened up to the European Conservatives and Reformists. Its most influential member is Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister and leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy. Meloni said she will support von der Leyen. Her big issue is immigration policy. I would not rule that von der Leyen could once again assemble a majority. What I struggle to see is a coalition that encompasses both the Left and Meloni. 

What is also not clear is whether Renew Europe, the liberal grouping in the European Parliament, will still support her. Support for liberal parties is weakening everywhere, including in France. Mark Rutte's Party for Freedom and Democracy lost last year's Dutch election. The German FDP is fighting for its political survival inside the coalition in Berlin. Von der Leyen's hyperactive green industrial agenda represents the antithesis of what conservative-liberal parties like the FDP  are standing for. 

And herein lies the ultimate irony. If von der Leyen were to end up winning a second term, she would spend most of undoing what she did in her first term.