EU Holds Election as Institutions Reach Key Juncture

The European Union (EU) is engaging in a major public exercise towards the end of this week. Around 375 million EU citizens are being called to the polls to elect the next set of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), which will collectively help to shape EU policy-making from 2009 to 2014. The election is being held over four days due to national peculiarities and traditions; in most countries, it will be held on Sunday (7 June). Only a few countries will hold it before, with one even spreading it over two days. Candidates across the bloc are competing for 736 seats, and five years of commuting between the parliament's main seat in Brussels (Belgium), the seat for plenary sessions once a month in Strasbourg (France), and their constituencies anywhere between Lapland and southern Cyprus. The MEPs' task is to represent their electorate at an EU level, where they will be divided into eight supranational parliamentary factions. Their other goal is to help advance their parties' stance at EU level, something that will shape the EU's outlook on the current socio-economic crises considerably.

Moment of Truth

In truth, European Parliament elections are hardly about supranational politics. Certain issues affect all member states due to their EU-specific approach to tackling a number of challenges, notably with regards to the environment, employment, immigration, and competition at all levels. The specific mechanism—or "corset" as EU sceptics may call it—by which officials in member states operate, is even more apprehensible in Eurozone countries, as they must comply with the stipulations of the Stability and Growth Pact. Out of this similar framework for all member states grow different solutions to challenges at local, regional, national, international, and supranational level. The EU as a whole tries to tackle any arising problems within a certain framework to keep the member states somewhat together. Representatives, whether in the Council of the European Union—the forum where EU government ministers and state officials meet—or in the European Parliament all try to balance the need for applying EU regulations to that of their colleagues or constituents on the ground. Indeed, they all try to devise the right combination with which to win over the largest degree of support from other representatives and carry the day for their parties, constituents, or governments. MEPs will most likely campaign on local issues and try to show how they would help to resolve them at a supranational level by joining hands with MEPs from other, similarly affected areas.

It should not come as a surprise that some countries hold other elections on the same day as the European Parliament elections. Election commissions and competing parties can make great financial savings by putting two elections on the same day. Further, they can thereby show the great correlation between all levels of policy-making and the relevance of different levels of policy-making for the well-being of constituents. Hence, MEPs can be promoted as the representative of the regional candidate they are promoting at EU level. And so Belgium and Latvia, two countries with very fraught party politics at both a regional and national level, are holding local and European Parliament elections on the same day.

European Parliament elections are also a good test run in countries with parliamentary and presidential elections shortly thereafter. The pamphlets and manifestos may differ to a considerable extent from what they would publish for parliamentary and presidential polls, but they can try out a few controversial policies and field a few old hands or comparatively inexperienced candidates in order to test the waters. Indeed, German parties are using the European Parliament polls to gain a sense of the current appeal of their policies. The Irish ruling parties will assess the appeal of their outlook on EU, local, and national policies as such, and re-adjust their campaign accordingly for a yes-vote on the EU Reform Treaty, which is set to take place later in the year. In the Czech Republic, the main opposition party, the centre-left Social Democratic Party, will use the previous ruling parties' performance during their EU presidency (January to May 2009) as leverage with which to gain the upper hand in the snap parliamentary poll due in October 2009. Bulgarian candidates for the European Parliament election will have some explaining to do when addressing the mostly disenchanted core centrist voters. All parties have an eye on the parliamentary election in July 2009, where Europe—notably the application of EU funds—will play a major role.

For all those arguably lucky governments that do not have any parliamentary or presidential elections or referenda coming up in the next 12 months, the European Parliament elections are a good check-up to assess the current appeal of the party. All EU governments are trying to resolve the worst effects of the economic and financial crises within the coming two-to-three years, both at a national level and via the EU Economic Recovery Plan. The polls offer another reflection of consumer and business confidence in the countries' economies. Ruling parties are set to fare worse than opposition parties in real terms, as they have the most tools available to resolve the issues and yet may not have done enough by their citizens' standards. The French Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party may fall into this category, come 7 June.

Outlook and Implications

According to the latest predictions by predict09, a website based on the assessment of three academics at a leading U.K. university, the centre-right Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats (EPP-ED) is set to win the elections. Yet like the main rival, the Socialist Group (PES), the EPP-ED will lose a considerable number of seats to fringe parties, notably the liberals and the far-right. Large parties do not necessarily lose elections due to a greater number of votes for fringe parties, but rather due to voter abstention. Ever since its launch in 1979, European Parliament elections have attracted ever-reducing numbers of voters to the polls. This trend could be continued later this week. Indeed, European Parliament elections are mostly elections of the hearts rather than the minds; voters tend to regard the European Parliament as a remote, additional parliament to the national ones, and tend to vote to let off steam. Although core voters of fringe parties do so constantly in all elections, more moderate core voters tend to vote for fringe parties mostly at European Parliament elections.

The polls may not change the overall composition of the European Parliament; the EPP-ED and PES should continue to dominate. Yet the elections will help to define the relations between the European Parliament and the two other main institutions, the European Commission and the Council of the European Union. The parliament approves the college of European Commissioners; the next college is set to be presented by early 2010. Given the unpopularity of the current President of the Commission, José Manuel Barroso, among the PES leadership, a PES-dominated European Parliament may very well spoil the plans for Barroso's second tenure. A President of the European Council—the body consisting of all 27 heads of government or state in the bloc—will be introduced as soon as the EU Reform Treaty begins operating, which could be in the coming two years. The president will oversee the European Council's work and ensure continuity between the six-month presidency stints of the member states. The parliament and council have an equal say on most aspects of the EU budget; the presidents of the European Council and the parliament would sit for two-and-a-half years each, which would increase the room for co-operation between the parliament and the Council of the European Union, a subordinate body to the European Council where ministers, rather than heads of state, congregate and work out the European Council's plans in detail. EU parliament and council relations would certainly improve if the two presidents got on well, changing the speed and dynamics behind the setting of budgets and other affairs.