Its the day after the European Parliament and I thought I'd make a post about what the consequences of this elections is and what they are indicative of in my opinion.
First of all, I find it very concerning that 4 European countries have elected with a substantial majority euro-sceptic and radical parties. The French Front National topped the vote with around 25% of the French vote, UKIP gained 27% of seats in the United Kingdom, Syriza, the radical left movement in Greece was elected with 26.4% of the votes, and Denmark selected the Danish People's Party with around 27% of the vote. The euro-sceptics party are expected to make up one quarter of the European Parliament according to the Financial Times.
To start with a more positive note, the election results are not all bad! Even though UKIP has gotten most of the votes, the turnout for the United Kingdom was only around 34%, meaning that UKIP represents the views of only 9% of the population. This leaves me with a glimmer of hope that the turn of the UK electorate will not be reflected in the upcoming general elections. However, as Raphael Levy rightly pointed out, I failed to mention that the electoral turnout in the UK was disastrously low, well below the European figure of 40.1% (0.1% higher than the last elections). Furthermore, the far more concerning and outright xenophobic BNP has lost all of its European Seats signalling perhaps a return to more moderation.
But then again, the results in Greece bring out the opposite light with 4 members of the neo-nazi Golden Dawn sent to Brussels from Athens along with several more extremist MEP's from Germany, Austria, and France amongst others.
I also believe, that despite UKIP's pledge to work with the FN from France, we need to rely on the fact that the more centrist European ALDE, EPP, and S&D still have a majority of the parliament, and, on top of that, that the extremist parties tend to sit independently of any European wide parties and hence fail to make a major impact in the decision making process!
However, despite the disastrous results I still strongly believe that the problem is not one of the radicalisation of the European Electorate. The results, for me, hide two deeper problems, one within national entities, and one at the European Parliament level.
To start with the first, I think national governments are in large part responsible for the results of the European Elections. Indeed, in the UK, France, Greece, Spain and other countries national governments have hidden behind the EU using its policies to explain domestic failures. If you refer to the previous blog post you'll see a more in detail explanation of this occurring in the UK. This use of the EU as a scape-goat has, for me, developed a sense of scepticism and even wariness towards the Parliament from national electorates. The real problem is mis-information rather than the radicalisation of Europe. Admittedly a caveat needs to be introduced for Greece, who, under the (erroneous) hope that austerity would resolve the country's fiscal issues, have continuously suffered under pressure from France and Germany. National governments should also be held accountable for increasing the voter turnout at the European Elections. They are not to be taken, as they so often are, as a political barometer for upcoming national elections! And, apologies for pointing out the UK, but that's where I live, parliaments need to make sure EVERYONE is allowed to vote! Many European voters in the UK were turned away from polling stations because they had not been informed that they needed to fill in a special paper in order to vote. The point of European Elections is to represent the views of Europeans at the European level, not the votes of the British alone!
Secondly, I think the European Parliament is spectacularly failing in its mission to communicate with its Europe-wide electorate. To many the working of the parliament are unclear and happen in a far-away land with no effect for them. This is not true, and the Parliament needs to increase its transparency and accountability. They need to inform the people of Europe of what is going on, for them, in Strasbourg and Brussels. I firmly believe the EU has the capacity to push back some of the accusations laid on it by national governments and remind Europeans that the EU was first created for their benefit. The EU was first created to address issues that were pan-European, such as pollution, labour laws. and trade and its involvement has increased the standard of living of all Europeans, and they just need to be reminded of this. I also think that the Parliament should take a step back and accept the fact that their strategy of increasing their power has not increased its legitimacy and needs to find new ways to appeal to electorates without compounding the view that they're 'stealing' power from national governments.
I realise the blog-post fails to go into depth, but I'd be happy to answer any more specific questions posted as comments. The jist of it is just that we need a coordinated effort between national governments and the European Parliament to inform people and rekindle their faith in the European Institutions.
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