What is the state of play as election season kicks off?

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte described last week’s election as the “quarter finals to beat the wrong sort of populism”. The forthcoming French presidential election will be the semi-final, and the German election the final, he said. While those matches seem likely to be victories for the europhiles, the competition will be much more challenging in Italy. Mr Rutte ignored the wildcard – Italy – where an election is due by May 2018. And an election might come even sooner. Granted, we do not know what the electoral system will be, so it is difficult to know how party support will translate to seats in Parliament. But based on current polls, our best guess is that eurosceptic parties might win about half of the seats.