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Eurosceptics Winning Elections to Have 'Devastating' Impact on EU Institutions

© Flickr / Derek BridgesEuropean Union crumbles
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The outcome of the upcoming elections in France and the Netherlands will largely determine the fate of the EU, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote.

According to the newspaper, the monetary union within the EU may disintegrate already in 2017. In particular, the leader of the Dutch Freedom Party, Geert Wilders, has repeatedly said that he was going to return the Dutch guilder as a national currency.

"Wilders views Brexit as an example to follow," the newspaper wrote, adding that a similar course is being pursued by French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen.

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Le Pen, who proposed to completely abandon the euro and introduce the French franc as a national currency, also called for the withdrawal of her country from the European Union.

"Six months after my election, I am going to organize a referendum on France's withdrawal from the EU," she told the Le Monde newspaper earlier.

According to the FAZ newspaper, both candidates have a good chance to win the upcoming parliamentary (in the Netherlands) and presidential (France) elections — the scenario, which many European experts are anxious about.

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If the eurosceptics will gain the upper hand in these two countries, this will have a "devastating" impact on the EU institutions, political scientists argue.

For instance, chairman of the Munich Institute for Economic Research Clemens Fuest is convinced that France's potential rejection of the euro will mean "the end of the eurozone."

For his turn, Chief Economist at the German Commerzbank, Jorg Kramer, sees Marine Le Pen's proposals as a threat to the German economy.

"The dissolution of the monetary union will lead to an uncertainty shock, which would also cause economic chaos in Germany," Kramer said, cited by the newspaper.

Chairman of the Kiel Institute for World Economy Dennis Snower also expressed his anxiety about possible changes. According to him, Marine Le Pen's victory would destroy the "German-French axis," which is the core of the EU, while her hostility toward liberal trade policies will seriously shake the foundations of the Union.

The European Union saw a rise in euroscepticism in the past months, after the United Kingdom voted in a nationwide referendum to leave the bloc. Over this period, eurosceptic parties such France's National Front, as Germany's AfD and others have been making political gains.

Experts argued that the European Parliament that would be formed after the 2019 election could possibly become the most anti-EU in the history of the bloc.

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