A fine European farce
by Serge Halimi
“Imagine an election where the results are largely preordained and a number of candidates are widely recognised as unqualified. Any supposedly democratic ballot conducted in this way would be considered a farce” (1). Former Czech president Vaclav Havel had the UN Human Rights Council, not the European parliament, in mind when he made these scathing comments.
And yet, abstentions have risen from 37% to 54% since 1979, the first time members of the European parliament (MEP) were elected by universal suffrage. But the parliament’s powers have increased and its decisions now affect 495 million people (compared with 184 million 30 years ago). Europe holds the stage but it isn’t getting across to the audience.
Why is this? Probably because there is no continent-wide political community. Anyone who hopes that 27 simultaneous national elections, almost all fought on domestic issues, will produce a European identity is living in cloud cuckoo land.
How many Slovenes have the faintest idea of electoral issues in Sweden or how many Germans are interested in Bulgarian politics? Well, after the European elections they will both discover that the results in Stockholm or Sofia may contradict the outcome of the only election in which they really were interested, and that they themselves have elected only 1% of the MEPs (in the case of Slovenia) or 13.5% (in the case of Germany) (2). This sort of discovery is likely to make voters feel they are more or less redundant. And the powers that be in Europe have done nothing to dispel that impression by ignoring three successive national votes on the constitutional treaty, following a campaign that aroused considerable interest and strong feelings.
In France, seven of the eight constituencies were defined purely in the interests of the main parties: they have no historical, political or territorial basis. The leading candidate in the southeast constituency is a socialist, formerly elected in the northwest, who let it be known he was “heartbroken” over the forced move. But he is sure to be elected, and so is the French minister of justice, even though she has very little interest in the election (she thought the Court of Justice of the European Communities was located in The Hague, rather than Luxembourg). Meanwhile in Italy, Silvio Berlusconi simply decided to put up eight models and soap stars as candidates.
And that isn’t all. The combined political forces that have turned Europe into a great market over the past 30 years, constantly enlarged to bring in more countries, are suddenly proposing a Europe “that protects”, a “humanist”, “social” Europe. Although socialists, liberals and conservatives may disagree during national campaigns, they present a united front in most of the votes in the European parliament. And they share the posts in the Commission (six are allocated to the social democrats who are responsible for taxation, industry, economic and monetary affairs, employment and trade). Fear of confrontation and depoliticisation of the issues encourage endless endorsement of the ruling bloc, which extends “from a mushy centre-right to a squishy centre-left, with a woolly liberal coalition in the middle” (3).
In this unchanging scenario, will José Manuel Barroso continue to lead this motley band with its exceptionally poor record? Britain’s Labour prime minister Gordon Brown considers that “he has done an excellent job… I want to make it absolutely clear that we will support him”. Spain’s socialist José Luis Zapatero agrees: “I support President Barroso.” It is true that Brown and Zapatero both have the same agenda, that of the European Socialist Party (ESP). However, French socialist leader Martine Aubry, also a member of the ESP, says: “The Europe I want is not a Europe run by Mr Barroso with the help of his friends, Sarkozy and Berlusconi.” Perhaps the electors can make sense of this.
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