The EU after yesterday’s elections

By J.C. von Krempach, J.D. | May 26, 2014

Friends –  especially those who remember the heated debates of the last  months around the Estrela Report, the Lunacek Report = or the European Citizens’ Initiative ONE OF US –  are asking me what I think of the outcome of yesterday’s elections to the European Parliament (EP), and what that outcome means for the future of Europe. Does the success of right wing political parties (and, correspondingly, the clear defeat of the political left) help in defending the right to life, or the institutions of marriage and the family?

The short answer is: not really.

The electoral triumph of right-wing extremists (such as the Front National, which won 25% of the vote in France) or populist EU-sceptics (such as UKIP, the “UK Independence Party”, which, advocating the UK’s exit from the EU, came first in Britain) is nothing we can rejoice about. The success of those parties indicates that something has gone seriously wrong in the EU – but it does not contribute to the solution. At the same time, the French right-wingers and the British EU-haters are by far not the only extremists who have made it into the EP. The extreme left (for example SYRIZA in Greece) have also been highly successful – not to mention the extremist anti-life and anti-family movement D 66, which won the first place in the Netherland, or the ultra-nationalist and openly secessionist N-VA (Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliance) in Belgium. The new European Parliament looks rather chaotic, and extremism seems on the rise.

But what will that change in everyday life? Probably not much. The sad reality is that the EP is not very relevant as a political institution. European voters, even if they are not all that familiar with the EU’s complicates institutional set-up, have understood that much – and this may be one of the reasons why they seem rather careless about whom they have elected as their representatives…

The extremist political movements will remain powerless in the EP. Even if they join forces, which probably they will not do, they will not be able to prevent any EU directives from being adopted, or to change the EU from within. To change the EU, it takes an intergovernmental conference.

To understand the EP, it is necessary to understand that this Parliament views itself not as a place where there is a debate between the supporters of the government and the supporters of the opposition – but the entire Parliament wants to be the opposition against the other EU institutions, i.e. the European Commission, and the Council of the EU (in which Member States’ governments are represented). The result is that there seldom are any genuine political debates in the European Parliament. In actual fact, there is, and always has been, a super-sized de facto coalition between Conservatives (European People’s Party, EPP), Socialists, Liberals, and Greens. When matters of substantial importance are to be decided (such as the adoption of a new Directive or Regulation, or the ratification of a new free trade agreement, these parties usually all vote together – and there is no rift between left and right. Indeed, there is a common interest that unites them: the institutional interest of the European Parliament. Whenever there is a problem, “more Europe” (i.e., additional powers for the EU, and in particular the European Parliament) is the proposed solution. This is what turns the EP into a uniquely consensus-oriented Parliament – and at the same time into one that is very far away from the real concerns of many citizens.

A rift between left and right  only become visible when the EP debates social issues on which anyway it has no competence (such as abortion, homosexual rights, etc.), such as was the case with the Estrela and Lunacek Reports. In those cases, the political left will usually charge an attack against fundamental cultural and moral values, whereas the right will try to defend  them. The only difference is that the EPP is often unsure of itself, and ashamed of voting together with more right-wing groups, whereas the socialists and liberals have no hesitation to join in with even the worst leftist extremist groups (some of whom represent un-repenting pre-1989 Communists) in what they describe as a “fight for human rights”. These are thus the situations in which radical political groups can be decisive – but it is always in the context of non-binding texts such as the Estrela Report.

In those contexts, it is hard to tell whether the defence of core values such as the right to life, the freedom of conscience and religion, or the institution of marriage has, as a result of yesterday’s elections, become easier or more difficult than it was before. It is certainly good that the EPP remains the strongest group in the EP, even if the once considerable advance over the Socialist group has dramatically decreased. On the other hand, it is noticeable that the Socialists, Liberals, and Greens have also suffered bad losses. Of the four political groups that, according to the gay lobby, have been playing a leading role in promoting the homosexualist agenda in the EP, three are among the clear losers of the elections: the Socialists, the Liberals, and the Greens. Only the Communists are among the winners, benefiting from the general  surge of extremisms of all colours.

Bruno Selun, the secretary and organiser of the European Parliament’s highly influential homosexualist caucus (called “Intergroup”) recently was heard saying that he feared that the success of right-wing parties such as UKIP or the Front national might mean that mainstream conservative parties, i.e. those within the EPP group, might return to defending more genuinely Christian democratic positions on abortion and homosexuality than they have done  during the last few years. That may well be true. Being just as leftist and liberal as the Socialists and Liberals has not been a winning strategy for the EPP: it has not won them any new votes – but it has estranged many voters and opened wide spaces at the right end of the political spectrum. To win those voters back, the EPP will have to show that it still is socially conservative.

This finally brings us to the last question we intended to discuss here: who will be the new President of the European Commission? Is Jean-Claude Juncker, the lead candidate of the EPP, now set to get the top job?

One thing is clear: Martin Schulz, the outgoing EP president and self-proclaimed socialist lead candidate has not been successful as a candidate, even if he himself apparently finds it hard to accept his defeat. But there is nothing in the election result that would warrant his claim that he must be placed on top of the next Commission: the Socialists did not come first, but only second – and they have actually lost some seats. This is not what winners look like.

On the other hand, Jean-Claude Juncker also is not the winner of these elections. Even if the EPP still is the largest political group in the EP, it should also not be forgotten that the nomination of Mr. Juncker has not prevented it from losing a huge number of seats. It would thus hardly be correct to say that Juncker has “won” the elections.

Mr. Schulz and Mr. Juncker have both said that democracy would be undermined if the EU heads of governments failed to nominate for the post of Commission President any other person than the “lead candidate” of the political group that, following the election, has the biggest number of seats in the EP. But that claim is spurious. First and foremost, because the selection of the Commission President is and remains a prerogative of the heads of governments, and there is no provision in the EU Treaties that would impose on them an obligation to nominate any “lead candidate”. And secondly, because both Schulz and Juncker owe their positions as “lead candidates” only to some obscure back-office deals within their respective political groups. There is nothing to suggest that any of the voters in yesterday’s election cast his or her vote with any particular motivation to make Mr. Schulz, or Mr. Juncker, the next president of the Commission. Both candidates were imposed on the electorate, and one fails to see how democracy would be undermined  if someone else were to be nominated for Commission president, given that the wider public had no influence at all on who would be nominated as “lead candidates”.

But the main argument that speaks both against Mr. Schulz’ and Mr. Juncker’s candidature is that both are men of the past. Both belong to the political establishment that has been running the EU for at least the last 20 years, and who have made and defended all the misguided decisions that are responsible for the dramatic crisis the EU currently finds itself trapped in. Why on earth should anyone believe that either Schulz or Juncker has a strategy to lead the EU out of this disaster that they have themselves contributed to create? Mr. Juncker as a new Commission President would not symbolize a fresh start, but rather the opposite.

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