A total of 736 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) out of roughly 9000 candidates were elected to represent the European citizens for a five-year mandate. However, only 43 percent of 375 million voters visited the polls. The alliance between the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats the largest group in the European Parliament; while the socialists and in general terms the European left wing was undoubtedly considered as the biggest loser of the elections.
As acknowledged, the European Parliament is the only institution whose members are democratically elected by direct universal suffrage. It is also the third important institution which comes after the European Council (as the organ of decision) and the European Commission (as the executive organ). With a widely used terminology, it acts as a “democratic watchdog” over other institutions.
If the ratification process of Lisbon Treaty is to succeed, prominent changes includes increased involvement of the European Parliament in legislative process; which will provide the European Parliament with greatest powers. In other terms, the members of the European Parliament will have more say in restructuring Europe. In fact, we are facing a paradox: While the European Parliament has gradually gained extensive new powers and is considered as the most democratic institution of the EU, the voters turnout has consistently fallen, showing that the European citizens don’t care about being a part of this game.
Actually, the answer for this paradox is quite clear: The main parameter which was monitoring behind-the-scene of the elections was the global financial crisis and the level of effectiveness of the EU towards this crisis. And the result is obvious: The citizens affected by the immediate results of the financial crisis lost their jobs or are leaving under the threat or are at the verge of being dismissed. So, these people take their revenge from the mainstream parties and the smaller political parties, being anti-EU have gained votes. The best and the most recent example which proves this process via statistical means came from European statistical office, Eurostat, just a few days ago from the elections: With regards to latest data, unemployment across the 27 EU member states reached 20 million; while the unemployment rate across 16 countries in the Eurozone is at its highest level since the last 10 years and the measures to increase the employment are ineffective.
To summarize the main outcome of the election results, the big picture is as follows:
The extreme-right wing and the extreme nationalist parties (considered as the Achilles heel of the European democracy) succeeded in increasing their votes via an anti-Turkey and anti-Islam rhetoric. This situation has made clearer the worry about the consolidation of a party which is feed by extreme-right ideologies and skepticism about the EU. In other words, the xenophobia and the social democracy policy being isolated from the Community spirit and social transformation projects, have become concretized through the votes of the demos.
In a nutshell, there is an apparent anxiety and fear against the main tendencies in Europe. We cannot deny this. We are facing a Europe that is becoming gradually a closed system. The main rhetoric which encourages the populations to vote provides the European Parliament with marginal discourses. The lack of leadership in centre-left is also obvious. Currently, being anti-EU came into fashion; while the xenophobe discourses by the politicians are gaining ground. We have three concrete examples for this: Netherlands, Austria and Denmark. The fact that the anti-EU parties are gaining seats in the EP is considered as a strategy to lock the political decision-making process regarding the EU integration. In Austria, Germany and France, where there is a good population of Turkish immigrants, the electoral campaigns witnessed an anti-Turkish membership attitude. This main picture is not consistent with the enlargement projects and the ideal of being an international actor in 21st century. As cited by Hannah Arendt, German political-scientist, “Democracy is a matter of our visibility towards others”. The visibility which serves the extreme-right is another source of concern.
With the lowest figures in European Parliament elections since 1979, the turnout was a record-low 43%. If the Voting at European Parliament elections were not obligatory in Italy, Malta, Belgium and Greece, and if these votes did not coincide with the local elections, this turnout would probably be lower! And, if we remember that in 2005, 70% of the citizens participated in the referendum for European Constitution, the picture would have been more obscure… This level of abstentionism can be mainly linked with the “heavily nationalized” nature of the campaigns that led up to the elections, as well as to the diversity of campaign rhetoric in each Member State. We must also add that, the lack of “European identity” and the alienation from European citizens is also another determinant. Consequently, the citizens prefer to be indifferent towards a structure built in spite of themselves, and to punish the governments who want to legitimate their neo-liberal policies by means of the EU. As mentioned by Vytautas Landsbergis, one of the most important figures for the independence of Lithuania, is “the societies of consumption prefer to be indifferent about politics, however are interested in more concrete and immediate issues like financial crisis.”
Besides, the success of French Green Party and the Pirate Party of Sweden can be identified with the preference of EU citizens to vote for the parties which are more active in daily-business and which can propose them an effective social vision (e.g. fight against the climate change, the diversification of renewable energy resources, the regulations concerning genetically modified organisms, web-freedom, etc.).
It has become very apparent that there is a need for questioning the European identity, since European citizens seem reluctant to a parliamentary election which will directly influence their day-to-day business in the EU arena. They continue to conceive these elections as a distant and intangible fact. So, the European citizens began to put forward alternative identity conceptualisations (and especially the “national” identity), while the European identity has taken a back seat. Is the European Parliament still maintaining its quality of “democratic watchdog” or is it subject to a “democratic disenchantment”? There is a need for finding a sincere answer for these two questions.
The International Space Station (ISS) also urged the Europeans to vote in EP elections being held 4-7 June 2009, by saying that "Europe looks united and great from up here". Unfortunately, the current European identity goes against this affirmation, because it makes no difference when we see the Europe from the space or through a loupe: The identities based on nation-states or temporary alliances between states whose interests converge occasionally outbalance the general “European identity” conceptualisation. With reference to the famous metaphor used frequently, the picture of the Community looks like a mosaic rather than a marbling structure. There is unfortunately, not a common and monolith vision of European future between the EU Member States. Referring to a recent survey made via Voice Institute before the EP elections and also France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden, the majority of Europeans are in favour of a “federal Europe” and claim for a return to nation-state, especially in Germany.
Turkey was used as a material and conceived as a scapegoat, during the EP electoral campaigns, succeeded in revealing all fears and threats in Europe. Firstly, the risks about the EU enlargement process were expressed by the vetoes for the Constitutional Treaty, however were consolidated by Turkey’s membership process which encapsulate the dilemmas as “Europe’s borders” and “the prospective enlargement”. At this point, it is necessary to note that French people were known as the community that endorses least the enlargement processes. So, this is not a specific reaction for Turkey’s case. On the other side, the fear of immigration and the rejection of accommodating capacity with the differences were expressed primarily by the metaphor of “Polish plumber” and now it is emphasized by the cheap labour from Turkey. Finally, the fear of terrorism and the Islamophobia linked to the latter gained a new dimension with the prejudices related to Turkey’s prospective EU membership. In other words, Turkey became a prism to which all “accumulated” fears and ambiguities inherent to the EU were reflected during the electoral campaign. The European Union is facing a danger of becoming a Community defined exclusively on the basis of an “otherification” process.
It would be absolutely another issue to tackle when the politicians known by their hostility against Turkey’s membership change their discourse in due course. Although Bruno Lemaire says that their negative stance against Turkey is not a position taken occasionally, it would be interesting to take into consideration their approach towards Turkey (“sustainable and hard?”) when it comes to a technical project such as Nabucco or to an issue which requires Turkey’s decision within the NATO.
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* Menekşe Tokyay is Project Assistant at Global Political Trends Center. The opinions and conclusion expressed herein are those of the individual author and do not necessarily reflect the views of GPoT or Istanbul Kultur University.
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