Europe has voted. More accurately, the people of Europe have
voted. The results suggest that Czech President Vaclav Klaus was
right when he argued earlier this year that “There is no European
demos — and no European nation.”
Four days of voting for the European Parliament (EP) ended on
Sunday. Largely disinterested publics across the continent used
their votes to punish faltering governments and failing
oppositions for their domestic sins. The result is a more
right-leaning but fractured continental legislature.
Non-voters now make up a majority of Europe’s electorate. Overall
turnout ran 43.1 percent, more than two points lower than in 2004
and the lowest since voting began for the EP three decades ago
(when turnout ran nearly two-thirds).
The overall average disguises extraordinary voter lethargy in
some countries. Cyprus, Denmark, Greece, Italy, and Malta all hit
60 percent or better (so did Belgium and Luxembourg, where voting
is mandatory). But only 19.6 percent of Slovaks voted. Lithuania
barely broke 20 percent. Turnout in the Czech Republic ran 25
percent and in Slovenia 27.4 percent.
Leading members of the EP expressed understandable concern over
the continuing decline. Graham Watson, who heads the
parliamentary Alliance of Liberal and Democrats for Europe, said:
“I don’t know why and we need to study why people don’t go out
and vote.” He surmised that people saw little connection between
their votes and the European Union’s decisions.
He’s almost certainly right, but the problem is going to get
worse if the Lisbon Treaty passes. Twenty-six of 27 EU members
have ratified the accord; only Ireland, whose voters said no a
year ago, stands in the way. The complex and convoluted text
would consolidate further power in Brussels. European Commission
President Jose Manuel Barroso is advocating that national
politicians bring Europe more into their national policies, but
Lisbon would strip more “competencies” — that is
responsibilities, in Eurospeak — away from national governments.
Already President Klaus worries about the problem of “the
democratic deficit, the loss of democratic accountability, the
decision-making of the unelected.” As more power shifts to a
stronger but unelected executive in Brussels, voters will be even
less likely to vote. Resulting in ever less democratic politics
in practice.
The growing popular frustration with diminished popular control
has turned EP elections into little more than a vehicle for
expressing anger with national politicians. The EP’s socialist
bloc leader, Martin Schulz, observed that “the vote doesn’t have
much to do with European policy.” His opinion has an air of
special pleading, given the public spanking received by the left.
Nevertheless, he is right in observing “a trend towards the
re-nationalization of Europe.”
National rather than continental politics determined most of the
election results. Perhaps the clearest case was Great Britain, in
which the Labour Party was pushed into third place, behind the
Conservatives and the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP)
and barely ahead of the Liberal-Democrats. Europe was
occasionally discussed: David Cameron, the Conservative leader in
Britain’s House of Commons, promised a referendum on the Lisbon
Treaty. However, the Tories gained more votes from hostility
towards the ruling Labour Party. Moreover, anger over expense
abuse by members of the three major parties in the House of
Commons increased support for UKIP and the xenophobic British
National Party (BNP), which won two seats.
The ruling socialists in Spain and Austria also took a beating
for domestic political reasons. (The Greens, in contrast, enjoyed
small gains.) The right did much better, picking up EP seats in
several countries where conservatives are in power. In France,
Germany (with a “grand coalition” led by more conservative
parties), Poland, and Italy, voters all moved rightward. Even
when the conservatives did not do particularly well, falling
behind their share of the vote five years ago, the parties of the
left did even worse.
Again, national issues triumphed. In France and Germany the
so-called right moved left in response to the economic crisis.
Complained Jan-Marinus Weirsma, a Dutch member of the EP’s
socialist bloc: “The conservatives won by stealing our free
market-skeptic agenda.” Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi
effectively focused on crime and immigration (as well as
nominating several attractive women as EP candidates!). Polish
Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government is seen as a welcome
tonic after his more contentious predecessor. Greece was the
major center-right government to lose ground.
In Latvia pro-Russian parties won surprising support. The Harmony
Party took 20 percent and another pro-Moscow grouping won almost
ten percent. Harmony is headed by Alfred Rubiks, the last head of
the Latvian Communist Party who spent six years in prison after
attempting to overthrow the newly independent Latvian government.
Less than one-fifth of Latvians are ethnic Russians; the vote
likely reflected anger with the government and its tough economic
austerity program.
Other important areas of protest were immigration and Islam.
Britain’s UKIP has criticized both, as has the BNP, which would
send home most immigrants. Austria’s Freedom Party, which gained
notoriety under the late Jörg Haider, campaigned on an anti-Islam
platform, as did the Dutch party headed by Geert Wilders, whose
criticism of Islam got him banned from even visiting Great
Britain. Both parties made notable gains. So did the Danish
People’s Party, which also advocates limiting immigration. In
Hungary the hard-right Jobbik party, which emphasizes immigration
and crime, especially by gypsies, won nearly as many seats as the
governing Socialists. Jobbik’s slogan of “Hungary belongs to
Hungarians” was banned by the national election commission. A
nationalist also picked up a seat in Slovakia.
In this case voters were decisively rejecting the values of the
Eurocrats while protesting home policy. EU expansion has been
based on open migration throughout the continent. Islam has been
accepted as Christianity has been abandoned. The governing
Eurocratic ethos emphasizes tolerance while disdaining values. If
European voters sent one message in the election, it is that a
substantial number dislike this vision of Europe.
The fact that the EP elections have become a routine target of
protestors of all stripes has helped further fracture the
continental body. Germany’s small Free Democrats, a frequent
coalition partner in Berlin, nearly doubled its vote to 11
percent. Welsh and Scottish nationalist candidates won seats in
the EP. Some protest votes went to extreme groups, such as
Britain’s BNP, a whites-only party. In Sweden the Pirate Party —
which supports stealing intellectual property, not merchant ships
— won a seat.
Still, outgoing EP president Hans-Gert Pottering observed: “I am
very pleased to see that the pro-European parties…have achieved a
good, solid majority.” That’s true in a sense — Euroskeptics
received only modest backing. The number of Euroskeptics in the
736-member body likely will not exceed 20.
The UKIP, which advocates a withdrawal from the EU, won 13 seats.
The BNP takes the same position. But Declan Ganley of Libertas,
which led the campaign against the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland,
narrowly failed to win a seat in Ireland. Continent-wide Libertas
picked up only one seat, and that by a current member who merged
his small party with Libertas — losing his party’s other two
seats in the process.
However, Britain’s Conservative Party is leaving the EP
conservative coalition and forming a group dedicated to
federalism. Fear of losing votes to UKIP in the next general
election may push the Conservatives in a more Euroskeptic
direction.
Moreover, the electorate demonstrated little enthusiasm for the
EP as an institution. Critics of the continuing consolidation of
power in Brussels seem more inclined not to vote than to bother
looking for like-minded candidates to support.
Even more important, the Irish message on Lisbon also was
conflicted. Polls continue to show a majority in favor of the
treaty, which is expected to go back to the voters this fall. But
that largely reflects hope in Europe as an economic safety net.
If the EU does not live up to that promise in coming months,
popular attitudes might change. And Taoiseach, or Prime Minister,
Brian Cowen’s government was battered by voters. His support for
Lisbon might not prove particularly helpful next time.
All told, Europeans have voted, but not for Europe. Rather than
treating the European Parliament as a serious institution
concerned with serious issues, angry and frustrated people have
used it is as a target for protest. Eurocratic elites will
continue to push their project to consolidate power in Brussels,
but they will do so with little support from the people in whose
name they are acting. Bruno Waterfield of the Daily
Telegraph says simply: “This is an EU election result that
Europe’s elites richly deserve.”
