A lacklustre campaign

Despite the good intentions of national politicians and the efforts made by European parliamentary authorities, this electoral campaign has, once again, lacked any real depth. This is due to a combination of a number of familiar, recurring factors : poor contributions from political parties, lack of interest from the media, and the campaign’s focus on national issues or on issues that have little to do with the election.

First of all, there is no denying that parties have not been playing the game. Those in power have made only feeble contributions to this campaign, for four main reasons : to save money from grants received for this election due to the prospect of other impending elections ; for fear of laying too much importance on an election that threatens the centrality of national politics ; out of concern that high participation risks producing the sort of election which brings success for anti-establishment parties ; due to reservations about tackling issues head-on which threaten to provoke deep divisions within many parties. Anti-establishment parties have done little more to help breathe life into the campaign, other than to be provocative (raising such issues as islamaphobia, anti-Semitism or extreme nationalism). Eurosceptic discourse has largely lost its novelty value and seems somewhat at odds with a political and economic context in which a large majority of voters agree that effective solutions to fundamental problems (the economic crisis, the regulation of capitalism, global warming, energy politics, managing the flow of immigration, international security issues) can no longer be found at a purely national level. Several anti-system parties have not even campaigned. In France, for example, almost half of the 160 candidates in the running made no effort to engage voters by putting up posters or publicly stating their aims and most marginal candidates did not even have ballot papers drawn up.

The media have also proved their lack of interest in a complicated election whose stakes are unclear, rarely asking for contributions from key figures in politics and focusing on less attractive aspects. Coverage of debates between the leaders of the principle political groups has invariably evolved into disputes between individuals, structured around national issues – notably the evaluation of government policies – or European issues which are not really relevant to the election, such as Turkey’s proposed entry into the European Union, which is not on the EU institutions’ agenda and is not a matter in which the European Parliament has any power to make decisions.

Results as expected

A growing abstention rate

In 2004, 45.47% of the European electorate voted.

Source : TNS Opinion in cooperation with the EP

The 2009 elections have underlined the slow but steady decline in participation in European elections. The abstention rate has reached at 57%, a new historical record. There are various reasons behind this low voter participation – the complexity of the polls, the absence of clearly visible stakes, the inconsistency of the political offer – but there are three relatively new aspects that are worth underlining.

Firstly, the growing importance of ideological factors cannot be ignored. Letters from the public, listeners’ comments on open radio broadcasts or people’s participations in public meetings reveal that some people have openly opted to abstain from voting in order to emphasise their opposition to European integration. Even though every member state had plenty of eurosceptic candidates on offer, these citizens believed that refusing to participate in the election would place them in a better position to denounce European constraints and the lack of democracy in the European Union. As Aristotle once noted in his writings on political philosophy, it is easier to oppose decisions when we have played no part in making them. This rejection of Europe is mixed with a certain fatalism : these abstainers are aware that the European Union cannot be ignored, that it may even be necessary, but they lose interest in it, refuse to take part in it or believe that these elections are just a front. As we can see, therefore, strong pro-European feelings do not necessarily rule out a high rate of abstention.

Secondly, we have to assume that voters, at least a proportion of them, are acting rationally. The rise in number of member states reduces the proportion of representatives that the citizens of each state may elect, which may put some of them off taking part in the voting. Obviously, there are numerous reasons for chosing to vote or abstain and not all voters act rationally when deciding how to make the most of their vote, but the fact remains that some of them are probably discouraged by the idea that their vote counts for so little on a European scale. With the knowledge that one European member of parliament represents almost 700 000 citizens, and that there are 736 members in the European Parliament, a voter needs to be very public-spirited our have a very political view of their right to have a say to make the effort to vote. This is not just a European phenomenon ; the same situation can also be found in the United States, where national elections only attract one in two voters.

This situation is exacerbated by the fact that the stakes of the European elections are difficult to define. Unlike most other elections, whether they are local, regional or national, European elections are not likely to provoke a changeover of political powers or a change of executive.

They certainly have an impact on the political balance within the European Parliament, but they do not determine the political colour of the parliamentary majority. To inject a little excitement into these polls, the editors of the European Constitution and the Lisbon Treaty have predicted that the President of the European Commission will be chosen according to the results of these elections and symbolically ‘elected’ by the European Parliament. We can assume that the parties are also anticipating this arrangement, the same idea having already influenced the choice of a right-wing candidate for the position in 2004. The predicted renewal of J. M. Barroso’s term as Commission President (with the support of some left-wing parties) nevertheless managed to deprive the European campaign of a perceptible purpose.

The widespread progress of the Right

The main outcome of the European elections is the success of the centre-right parties. In France, Italy, Austria, Romania and Germany, the ruling parties have escaped any form of punishment. Christian-democrat or Conservative parties have equally achieved very good results wherever they are in opposition (Spain, Bulgaria, Hungary, Portugal, Slovenia, Ireland, the United Kingdom). These results can be largely explained by the ability of these right-wing parties to restore people’s confidence by avoiding any radical review of the market economy and reviving the subject of the welfare state, traditionally advocated by centre-right parties, and with their timid, but apparently sufficient, mention of environmental issues. These parties have also managed to develop a clever ‘European’ discourse by exploiting security issues (immigration, organised crime) and the question of Turkey joining the EU. However, this success has not been universal : the European People’s Party (EPP) has kept a very low profile during the campaign and its national leaders are very careful not to commit themselves openly in favour of J.M. Barroso’s reappointment at the head of the Commission. The success of centre-right parties therefore comes at a price as it is bound to cause divisions : The EPP group will have to deal with the departure of the elected candidates from the British, Czech and Polish Conservatives, who intend to create a new, less pro-European group, and with tensions between Christians and secular and social and liberal divisions.

The Left in trouble

Socialist and social-democrat parties, whether in power (United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Bulgaria), in coalition governments (Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium) or in opposition (France, Italy), have seen poor results. The only, relative, successes come from Sweden, Denmark and Greece. Caught between the failure of the Third Way, the rise of the extreme anti-capitalist left and the resurgence of voters’ interest in the Greens, the socialist group has not managed to develop a convincing discourse on ways to deal with this crisis.

In a wider sense, it is struggling with current issues, whether that involves the protection of the environment, managing the flow of immigration or the emergence of new powers at an international level. The inability of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament (PSE) to agree on a candidate for the presidency of the Commission combined with some leaders’ explicit support for the reappointment of J.M. Barroso have made the Left’s discourse on Europe all the more confusion. The aura created by the likes of Barack Obama has also made it sound relatively corny.

The Greens and Liberals showing good form

Voters are more used to these elections than we are usually led to believe. They are aware by now of the how the European Parliament works and, more generally, a single-round voting system works. They have become particularly attuned to calls for tactical voting from government parties. As result of this, alternative parties, such as the Greens and the Liberals, have achieved remarkable results in several countries where they traditionally fall victim to trends in the polls or the tactical strategies of voters. This goes for the Greens (in France, Belgium, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Scandinavia, but also the United Kingdom and Greece) as much as for the Liberals (Belgium, Finland, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Greece, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Romania). The Green group in the European Parliament will therefore see its representation noticeably increase, even if it does not include a single elected representative from central, eastern or southern Europe – with the exception one survivor from Italy.

A result marked by extreme contrasts

The European elections have always been seen anti-system parties do well and this has been consolidated by a rise in euroscepticism in the last ten years. However, while the 2009 elections have seen successes for the extreme right, the same is not the case for the extreme left.

To the right of the Right, groups have emerged that combine the themes of sovereignty, eurosceptism, conservatism and populism with the classic extreme right discourse, especially on the themes of islamophobia and/or anti-Semitism. These parties are experiencing a decline in France and Italy because their favourite themes have been taken up by the parties in government, but they are still going strong in Belgium and are clearly making headway in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy and in central and eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania). In the new European Parliament itself, the eurosceptics of the Right (vague category though that is, extending from British Conservatives to openly xenophobic political groups) are on the increase.

On the extreme Left, the situation is different. Although the financial crisis has created a convenient opportunity to criticise the liberal economic model, the communist and anti-capitalist parties are in decline. The communists are losing ground in all their traditional bastions : Spain, Greece, Germany, Italy. Only France remains an exception, after the French Parti Communiste (Communist Party) formed a partnership with other political groups. France’s Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (New Anticapitalist Party), meanwhile, has not won any seats. The Nordic Green Left, which is part of the GUE/NGL group with the communists, is also losing seats and the communists and neo-socialists in central and eastern European countries are not having much more success.

A glimmer of hope ?

Despite the unstoppable rise in the abstention rate, there is one piece of good news to come out of these European elections. In fact, it seems that the citizens of Europe are increasingly exerting their opinions on European themes and refuse to turn the ballot into a popularity contest for national governments as it has been in the past. Opinion surveys show that people throughout Europe have been declaring their desire to make their own decisions above all in relation to European issues. While we must take this declaration with a pinch of salt, as it comes from a formalised and not necessarily very sincere type of discourse, it is worth noting that voters have been favouring political parties that actually talk about Europe, whether to put forward proposals or to criticise it. On the other hand, the political groups that restricted themselves to criticising national governments only have not had much success. It remains to be seen whether politicians will remember this lesson in 2014.