BlogSpot - May 26th, 2014
The double-headed Europe
Europeans citizens elected 751 new MEPs to a European Parliament with expanded powers given by the Lisbon Treaty (we provided an “election primer” in our last WS BlogSpot). As explained by the BBC, MEPs now negotiate legislation with national governments.
The vote reflected public sentiment in Europe:
The rise of protest parties (mostly rightwing) is worrisome, especially in countries long committed to Europe. Open Europe writes on the recent increase in anti-EU and anti-establishment vote. In France, the National Front obtained 25 percent of the votes, or 1/3 of all French MEPs. Germany’s euroskeptic AfD got more than 6 percent of the votes and the Neo-Nazi National Democratic Party won its first seat on the Parliament. Their British anti-EU counterpart, the UKIP, received 27 percent of the votes. As reported in Euro Intelligence, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard explains this outcome by the failure of leftist parties to depart from the policies of the right, therefore disappointing their electorate. Peter Sutherland (in Project Syndicate) blames politicians who do not know how to lead the migration debate in a constructive way. For André Sapir and Guntram B. Wolff (Bruegel), this protest vote is a sign sent to EU leaders so that they would focus on key topics, such as (i) growth, (ii) job creation, and (iii) efficiency of the EU governance.
Yet, in the periphery, the left of the political spectrum emerges relatively stronger from the elections, on the back of improved market sentiment toward Southern Europe (e.g., Edward Hugh in EconoMonitor). Matteo Renzi (as reported by the BBC), scored a strong 40% while Spain’s movement Podemos and Greek’s party Syrisa respectively gathered 8% and 26% of the votes.
Most analysts agree that the anti-EU block will remain weak and may not even be able to form a group, as explained by Open Europe. While political parties such as UKIP, led by Nigel Farage, or Jobbik in Hungary recalled their desire to distance themselves from other parties such as the Front National, the latter reminded that it would never sit together with the Greek neo-Nazi group Golden Dawn. Such divisions will likely leave the two main groups dominating the stage.
A new President
One of the next tasks of Heads of State or Government will be to unanimously elect a new president of the European Commission—in the context of a hung parliament with no single party holding a clear majority. The Wall Street Journal suggests that a way out of this daunting task could be to elect a candidate different from the ones suggested by MEPs—possibly undermining the weak democratic accountability in the EU.
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