The Euros : Mr Hix, in February, the President of the Czech Republic, Václav Klaus, gave a controversial speech at the European Parliament which incited some Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to leave the hemicycle. He claimed that there was a lack of political alternatives at the European level. Furthermore, he argued that the strengthening of the European Parliament could not resolve the democratic deficit but would rather further alienate citizens from the decisions taken in Brussels. If you had been an MEP, I guess you would not have left the hemicycle, would you ?

Simon Hix : You are right, I wouldn’t have left. Despite the fact I disagree with Klaus I think it’s healthy that there is a more open public debate about Europe. Although I would like to see more debates about the choices of the future of Europe with a more centre-left Europe or a more centre-right Europe, part of the debate inevitably is what kind of Europe in terms of its design we want. So I think it is healthy for European democracy that we have people like Klaus saying what he says and people having the right to reply to that. And people like Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party, who has actually been a very good and a very effective MEP in terms of articulating the views of a wide section of the European public. So I would not have left the hemicycle, although I disagree with what Klaus said.

But you are known to be a defender of a more politicized Europe. Klaus said that there was a lack of political choice at the European level.

Simon Hix : I don’t think that there is a lack of political alternatives. It is increasingly pluralist, since there is a choice between pro-European and anti-European parties on the one hand, and parties who want a more left-wing or a more right-wing sort of Europe, and everything in between. So in that sense, it is incredibly pluralist.

What about Klaus’ view about the image of the European Parliament as an illegitimate institution ?

Simon Hix : I have got some sympathy with that view. I think the Parliament does face serious legitimacy problems if so few people vote in European elections. Particularly when the expectation of European citizens is much higher than the level of participation in the elections. On an abstract level, one could say that if as many people vote in European elections as vote in midterm US Congressional elections or Swiss elections, then it is not too bad. But at the European level, it must be more than that. To build a European democratic institution above already democratic nation states you need to be special and really convincing to people. So in that sense, the European Parliament does have a legitimacy deficit.

Nevertheless, it is not the same for every member state. This has largely to do with the connections between citizens and their MEPs which I think are much better in some member states than in others. And this has to do with the way MEPs are chosen. For example, in Ireland, Sweden, Finland and Denmark voters have the opportunity to vote for individual MEPs rather than just party lists. As a consequence, there is much higher awareness of who the MEPs are. For example, we put up the website votewatch.eu and immediately, the Irish, the Swedish, the Fins and the Danes were talking about it in the media, saying who the MEPs are, how often they show up and how they vote. And the MEPs have to go on TV and answer questions about that. In the other member states, no one cares. Because if national parties run the campaign, they don’t really care what their MEPs are doing in the European Parliament. In Ireland, the MEPs themselves care because they compete not just between parties but with each other. They have to go to the voters and explain why they should vote for them and not for the other candidate. So that forces MEPs to really engage directly with the public over the heads of national parties. If you just leave it to national parties, they will treat these elections as midterm national contest about their national government and national actions which has nothing to do with the European Parliament. So in that sense, we do have a legitimacy deficit. But it does vary.

You put forward this idea of open party lists for the European elections in all member states. Do you think MEPs have an interest to reform their electoral law in their member state ?

Simon Hix : I think a lot of MEPs would prefer this because they are frustrated with the fact that they feel that they are elected to do their job in Brussels and their national parties treat them totally like second class citizens. It is not true for all member states though. The Germans are very opposed to open lists because they don’t have it for national elections and they think it would lead to a lack of cohesion within parties. But almost everywhere else, the MEPs would like to have a system that gives them a bit more freedom from their national parties. It would enable them to get on with business at the European level and to develop a more independent connection to citizens, independently from their national parties.

Andrew Duff MEP proposed this in his report on the reform of the procedures for European elections – which is still in committee stage. He proposed that it should be compulsory for all member states to introduce some kind of preferential voting. They are discussing it now and there are good chances for it to be passed. So maybe in 2014 we’ll have it. The next stage for the individual member states would be to fix what type of preferential voting they want. But at least there would be a kind of minimum condition for a preferential voting system in all member states.

What do you think is the main reason for the low turnout in the European elections ? Is it the missing link between MEPs and citizens ?

Simon Hix : I think there are two reasons. The first is that European elections are treated as second-order national contests, which has the consequence that the elections are not really about Europe. This is not going to be fixed by changing the electoral system. But the second one is the individual incentive for MEPs which can, in contrast, be fixed by the electoral system. And over time this might gradually also fix the first problem, but not suddenly. But the first problem is more fundamental and it is much about the fact there is not a lot at stake in these elections. The European Parliament is very powerful, but it is not clear how the European elections really change people’s life in the way national elections do. Because there are so many checks and balances at the European level, the European Parliament itself is very proportionate which is a good thing. So what is going to happen in this European election ? The average Member of the European Parliament will move slightly to the left or to the right. And there will be checks and balances and this won’t influence the distribution of committee chairs very much. So the probability that these elections will have any impact on any European policy is close to zero. Whereas the probability they will have an impact on national politics is very high ! That’s why it’s rational for voters and parties to treat them as national elections. This is not going to change unless there is more at stake in the elections. There would be much more at stake if it was a battle about the European Commission presidency or if the majority in the European Parliament had much more power.

The European Parliament approves or rejects the candidate Commission President appointed by the Council.

And if the political groups of the European Parliament expressed themselves on their favourite candidate for the Commission Presidency before the European elections so that voters could make a difference ?

Do you see this coming in this election ?

Simon Hix : We might see it this time, but after the elections. People do not realize it, but it is not clear that Barroso, the current President of the European Commission, will get re-elected. I still think it’s 50-50. Particularly if there is a breakaway group from the EPP on the right, led by the British Conservatives with about 60 or 70 MEPs. They probably won’t back Barroso. The Liberals won’t back Barroso. It looks like they would want Guy Verhofstadt. Verhofstadt has just written a book and it is basically his manifesto for the Commission Presidency. The Spanish Socialists, the Portuguese Socialists, the British Labour and the EPP all back Barroso. But together, they do not have a majority in the European Parliament. So he may loose in July. And if that happens, they will have to come up with another name : it could be Rasmussen versus Verhofstadt. And then people would realize : Why don’t they discuss that before the elections ?

But if parties fixed their preference for a Commission President before the elections, maybe in 2014, wouldn’t that jeopardize the independence of the European Parliament vis-à-vis the Commission ? Currently, it is independent because there is no governmental majority in the Parliament.

Simon Hix : Yes and no. It is not like in a national system where the Commission resigns if it looses the majority in the Parliament. So once the Commission is invested, it’s independent and it can do whatever it wants. But the Commission is already hugely politicized ! Barroso, for the last two years, is being seeking re-election. That’s why he didn’t do anything during the credit crisis because he did not want to annoy the French, the Germans and the Brits. So the choice of the European Commission President is hugely politicized. This is not going on behind the scenes, but it is made very explicit and transparent. The European Commission is not a bureaucracy, it is not an independent agency, it is a political institution.

The fact that European citizens could have more influence on the choice of the European Commission President might increase turnout in the European elections. But is that enough to increase their interest in European politics in general ?

Simon Hix : I don’t care so much about participation. I care more about the style of engagement of the public and the media. People then would ask their leaders which way their MEPs are going to vote in the election of the European Commission President and why. They’d ask Gordon Brown why the Labour MEPs are going to vote Barroso, they’d ask the Conservatives why they are not going to vote for Barroso and they’d ask the Liberals why they would vote for Verhofstadt. But currently, there is no debate. So we don’t ever see a debate in the European elections about anything that happens in the European Parliament. If there was a debate about the personal politics, this would definitively increase the general interest in the European Union : Politics is all about personalities. Look at Obama, Hillary, Brown versus Cameron, Merkel, Sarko.

To elect the Commission President, it might require more unified European parties and European party lists.

Simon Hix : Not necessarily. They would have to build a coalition in the European Parliament, but they do that anyway. Barroso’s strategy in 2004 was to be backed by the EPP, the UEN, some of the Liberals and a chunk of the Socialists – and he got that coalition to back him. If there was a genuine contest over the Commission Presidency, the parties would probably break up and reform around some new alliances - maybe a progressive block, a liberal free market block and so on. You would have a realignment.

In many senses, the European Parliament is like a pre-democratic parliament. It’s like parliaments were in Europe in the 19th century before we had mass elections. These were elite-based parties with people who were motivated by policies inside the chamber. And once you got the contestation for the executive, the parties were completely realigned and new forces and cleavages emerged. That is probably what would happen in the European Parliament.

Do you think that European party lists would help to form a European identity of voters ? If French voters could elect British MEPs ?

Simon Hix : It might do, but I can’t see it happening. That’s the other part of the Andrew Duff report. There is only a small minority of MEPs who want that. It would be so complicated to organize. How do you count it ? And legally it’s not clear that you can do it under the treaties, because it says that the European Parliament is the representative of the people of the European member states. So it is not clear legally, and the French say they would oppose it. I think it’s not bad, but I don’t see it happening.

A parliament in the making

“The European Parliament is like the pre-democratic parliaments that we had in Europe in the 19th century”, says Hix.

What would you oppose to the type of argument that people do not care about the elections because Europe is just “boring” ? A scholar from Princeton, Andrew Moravcsik, claims that since the EU mostly decides about regulatory policies instead of genuine policies in the interest of citizens such as welfare policy, it is just not salient enough to mobilize people.

Simon Hix : Look, two weeks ago the telecommunication package was passed in the European Parliament and one of the items was the regulation of piracy on the Internet. That is a massive issue for internet commerce. If such a decision went through the US Congress, there would be enormous lobbying. It is not enough to say that regulation is not salient. If this was in the US Congress, it would be very salient, it would be in the news in the morning. And here, they do it in the European Parliament and the media do not even report it. It’s astonishing. How many millions of people across Europe download stuff from the Internet. So this has a massive impact on people’s life, and a truly redistributive impact.

So media have a significant responsibility for the democratic deficit.

Simon Hix : I will give you a great story about this. Two weeks ago a British journalist phoned me : “Simon, I’m writing a story about the MEPs”. So I said, “really, great, what do you want to know ? How they vote, what kind of coalitions they form ?” And her answer was : “No, I was hoping to write a story about that scandal in the British parliament in Westminster with the MPs’ expenses and that it’s largely irrelevant because it’s much worse in Brussels” (laughs). That’s what she said.

I do not know why, but most European media spend a lot of effort on their Washington coverage so that people understand how the American government works, which is incredibly complicated. So we all know who the various people in the American government are, what the different branches do. It might be because America has got hard power. But they do not bother to invest the same resources or time to developing their coverage on Brussels.

Should the European Parliament have a right of initiative ? Would this add legitimacy to the European Parliament ?

Simon Hix : I think it would be great if the European Parliament had a right of initiative. This idea has been raised in the past. But, they do have already an indirect right of initiative through own initiative reports that then the Commission initiates. If the relationship between the Commission and the European Parliament gets stronger, you can see these initiative reports become an indirect right of initiative.

This is how, in practice, it works in most of the national parliaments. They have a formal right of initiative but in practice they don’t because the governments control their backbenchers. As a consequence, only opposition parties try to initiate things but do not succeed. Germany is a bit different because the parliament breaks up the agenda, so that the opposition has a right of initiative.

But in most European countries the opposition does not have a right of initiative and the government has the right of initiative in practice. The European system was modelled on the idea that it is the executive branch that has the monopoly on the right of initiative, whereas in the US it is the legislative that has the monopoly on initiative. A kind of competitive initiative would be a good idea.

But would the formal right of initiative change anything for the European Parliament ?

Simon Hix : The European Parliament would certainly have done much better than the European Commission with the credit crisis. The European Parliament has gained a lot of credibility, if not among the public, it did amongst policy-makers in Brussels and amongst governments in the way it handles dossiers. And in some dossiers it does better than the governments and better than the Commission, as for example with the services directive. You also saw this on the REACH directive, and a whole range of other recent policies.

Our last question that we always ask our interviewees ; what is your European dream ?

Simon Hix : There are three scenarios that I think have a good chance to happen.

The first scenario is the status quo. We do not change the institutions very much, the public carries on not liking Europe very much, the European economy gradually goes into decline relative to the rest of the world. Europe becomes a “supersized Switzerland”. Europe is nice and cosy but largely meaningless. We stop being a global player. This is the retirement of Europe in the world. I would say that this is a 50 percent probability.

Then there is the disaster scenario. Greece gets kicked out of the Euro. The UK votes to leave the EU. There are crises in several other member states, for example Italy or Germany. The EU gradually breaks up. We go back to a kind of pre-EU version of competition between states. That’s a real possibility, I think, at around 20 percent.

And there is a third possibility, which is my European dream, and my optimistic scenario. This is that on the eve of a crisis, the governments decide they really have to do something. They can’t survive on their own. They do need Europe ; they do need a democratic Europe. They decide that they really have to have democratic politics in Brussels and they start to think creatively of how to do that. And they start to genuinely allow the formation of European parties and competition for the Commission Presidency, a new style for the elections of the European Parliament, and so on.

Thank you very much.

Photos : European Parliament Photo Service ; Helene Banner (Logo)