Alessandra Cardaci

Scott Magalich Paula Rettl

Marlene Schüsseler

The European Elections: Towards Pan-European Politics?

Sciences Po Paris Team Project’s Research Paper in cooperation with Atelier Europe Master European Affairs, 2013/14

Presented at Sciences Po Paris on Friday, 16th May 2014

 

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Table of Contents

Introduction p. 4 Part I. The European Parliament and its Election: Origins, Functioning and a Comparison with the National Dimension p. 5-9

A Historical Perspective: the Rise of the European Parliament’s Powers and the Birth of the European Elections p. 5-6 The European Party System and the Functioning of the European Elections p. 6-7 A Comparison between National and European Elections p. 7-9

Part II. Five EU Member States Compared: a Qualitative Research Analysis p. 10 France p. 10-14 Germany p. 14-20 Italy p. 21-25 Portugal p. 25-30 United Kingdom p. 30-33 Conclusion p. 33-36 Appendix p. 37-40 Bibliography p. 41-46

 

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Acronyms

ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) ALDE (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe) ARD (Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland) B.E. (Bloco de Esquerda) CDU/CSU (Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands/Christlich Soziale Union Deutschlands) CSU (Christlich-Soziale Union in Bayern) EC (European Commission ) ECB (European Central Bank) ECR (European Conservatives and Reformists) ECSC (European Coal and Steel Community) EEC (European Economic Community) EFD (Europe of Freedom and Democracy group) EFD (Europe of Freedom and Democracy) EP (European Parliament) EPP (European People’s Party) EU (European Union) Euratom (European Atomic Energy Community) FFP (Freie Demokratische Partei) FN (Front National) GUE/NGL ( Gauche unitaire européenne/Nordic Green Left) IMF (International Monetary Fund) MEPs (Members of the European Parliament) MS (Member States) NPD (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands) P5S (Movimento Cinque Stelle) PCP-PEV (Partido Comunista Portugês/Partido Ecologista “Os Verdes”) PD (Partito Democratico) PdL (Popolo delle Libertà) PND (Partido Nova Democracia) PS (Parti Socialiste) PS (Partido Socialista) PSD (Partido Social Democrata) RTP (Rádio Televisão de Portugal) S&D (Alliance of Socialists and Democrats) SPD (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands) TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) UK (United Kingdom) UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party) ULB (Université Libre de Bruxelles) UMP (Union pour un Mouvement Populaire)

 

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Introduction

The democratic dimension of the European integration is largely seen as being quite ambiguous. Indeed, even if there have been only a limited number of doubts about the economic efficiency of the European Union (EU) so far, since the beginning of the crisis many increasingly question the validity of the European project, not only for its economic dimension, but even more for its democratic legitimacy (Follesdal & Hix, 2006). The official and unique body of direct representation of European citizens at the EU level is the European Parliament (EP); and the only means the European voters can express their political will is through European elections (Norris, 1997: 110). Therefore, studying the role of the EP, the development and the impact of the European elections in different Member States (MS) with a comparative approach is fundamentally important not only to see if we can identify “pan-European politics” but also to reflect upon the so-called “democratic deficit” of the EU.1

The aim of this paper is to discuss the following research questions: Considering the next 2014 European elections, is it possible to identify a genuinely pan-European (and thus transnational) democratic debate? It is possible to envisage pan-European politics in the next future?

With “pan-European politics” we imply a widespread, transnational European democratic debate, and thus the reproduction at the EU level of political feelings, behaviours and attitudes we normally see at the national level.

We define “elections” by using two aspects covered by Nohlen (2010: 1):

“Elections can be defined in two ways: first, in technical terms as instruments for forming institutions or choosing individuals for office; second, in axiological terms as instruments for democracy, which enable political participation and involve citizens in political decision-making processes by allowing them to choose representatives and governmental authorities to ensure their systematic responsiveness to matters of public interest and opinions.”

The first part of this paper will present the origins and functioning of the EP as opposed to the

national dimension. In particular, we will see the “birth” of the European elections, the evolution of the EP’s powers, the working of the EP, and finally, the so-called “second order elections” as opposed to the national ones. The second part of this paper will entail a case study analysis of five MS, namely France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and the United Kingdom (UK), by presenting interviews of academics and politicians, monitoring national media and presenting several polls. Lastly, we will conclude our study by commenting the results collected for the countries examined and thus answering to our initial research questions.                                                                                                                          1 We are aware that “political scientists generally emphasize that elections are not sufficient evidence of democracy [… and that] they are a method, possibly applied without a democratic value and functions” (Nohlen, 2010: 1). However, in this context, we believe that studying European elections can be a reliable way to grasp the democratic strength of the EU.

 

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Part I. The European Parliament and its Election: Origins, Functioning and a Comparison with the National Dimension A Historical Perspective: the Rise of the European Parliament’s Powers and the Birth of the European Elections

When the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was established by the Treaty of Paris in 1951 the ECSC MS faced an institutional problem that was until then unknown. Traditionally, international organisations were based on the principle of national sovereignty, which allowed their MS to pronounce a veto in case of a disagreement. However, the Schuman Plan aimed at overcoming such veto blockades by creating the powerful supranational High Authority. Hence, the need for institutions to hold the High Authority accountable emerged. After numerous negotiations, the ECSC MS decided to establish the Common Assembly and the Council. As the creation of the latter increased the chances of national governments to impose their national economic interests at the European level, the Council was considered to be an institution of utmost importance. The Common Assembly, by contrast, was only supposed to solve the High Authority’s legitimacy problem. It was composed of delegates appointed by the MS’ national parliaments and did not have any legislative or policy-influencing powers (Rittberger, 2012: 24-27)

In 1957, the Common Assembly of the ECSC was expanded to cover the two Communities established by the Treaty of Rome: the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). One year later, it met for the first time as the “European Parliamentary Assembly” (EP, 2014: 1). The Treaty of Rome already contained provisions on the direct elections of the European Parliamentary Assembly, but it did not specify when such elections should take place. Considering that the European integration project focused mainly on economic integration, holding direct elections was not seen as a priority at the time. Thus, national delegates’ decision taken in 1962 to rename the European Parliamentary Assembly “European Parliament” in order to accelerate the transition to direct elections did not trigger the desired consequences (European Communities, 2009: 33-37).

It was only when a crisis emerged in the European integration process that the interest in the EP’s direct elections was renewed. From the mid-1960s onwards, it became clear that the European integration project suffered from a deeply rooted legitimacy problem. The introduction of qualified majority voting in the Council had limited the accountability of national governments towards their parliaments. This situation stood in contrast to the democratic principles upheld by the MS, and so the EP was considered to be a solution to the European democratic deficit. The first European elections by direct universal suffrage took place in 1979, and were perceived as a revolutionary event with a turnout of almost 63%. Since then, European elections have been held every five years (Ibid).

After its first direct election in 1979 and even slightly before, the EP experienced a slow but continuous increase in powers in the style of a national parliament. When the European Communities’ annual budgetary procedure was reformed in 1970 and 1975, the EP was given important budgetary rights (Hix & Høyland, 2011: 222-224). With the introduction of the cooperation procedure by the Single European Act (SEA) in 1987, which allowed the EP to influence a legislative proposal in the second reading, the EP gained real legislative powers. Moreover, the newly introduced assent procedure required the EP’s approval in order for the Council to take any decisions. In 1993, the Maastricht Treaty extended the use of the assent procedure and replaced the cooperation procedure

 

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with the co-decision procedure putting the EP on equal footing with the Council in the legislative process. The Amsterdam Treaty (1999) then reformed and extended the co-decision procedure. The latter was finally established as the ordinary legislative procedure by the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009 thus extending bicameral decision-making to nearly all areas of EU law (Ibid: 52-54).

Despite its significant increase in powers over time, the EP differs from national parliaments in a very important aspect. In most democratic systems, the leader of the party that wins the national elections becomes the head of the executive (Ibid: 130). This has not been the case at the European level so far but it will change in the upcoming European elections in May 2014. These elections are the first ones to be held since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, according to which the EP should elect the President of the European Commission (EC) on the basis of a proposition made by the European Council and in the light of the European election results. The European Party System and the Functioning of the European Elections

The EP is currently made up of 766 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) representing each of the 28 MS. Germany has the most MEPs with 99, followed by France at 74, then Italy and the UK at 73 each while Portugal has 22 MEPs. In the next 2014 elections, 751 MEPs (including the President) will be elected, with 96 for Germany, 74 for France, 73 for each Italy and UK, and 21 for Portugal (Fondation Robert Schuman, 2014). Elections for the parliament are held every five years, with the last one taking place in 2009. European elections in the 28 MS do not take place on the same day and are not centrally organised; rather the MS can choose how to go about managing their election. There are some common guidelines, such as the electoral system must be proportional representation, with the threshold to get into the Parliament not exceeding 5%. Most MS take the form of one constituency in the election; however some may divide the country up into several constituencies. In 2009, Germany had 16, the UK 12, France 8 and Italy had 5. Generally the minimum voting age across the EU is 18, except for Austria where it is 16, and European citizens have the right to vote in the elections in whichever MS they currently reside, even if it is not their native country (EP, 2013). Besides these differences, the elections in the different MS can also differ on the obligation to vote or not to vote (Belgium being an example where it is compulsory to vote), and the kinds of campaigns that can be ran (Cautrès, 2013). Table 1 summarising the different ways the elections are organised in 25 of the MS is found in the appendix.

After the elections, national parties make alliances in the EP to form European Political Groups. These groups must consist of MEPs from at least a quarter of the MS and have at least 25 parliamentarians. The last European election saw the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) maintain its position as the largest political group, with 274 MEPs, followed by the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) with 194 MEPs. The centre-right has been the largest group for around a decade, with the left being in decline since the turn of the century (Lodge, 2010). The Liberals (ALDE) and Greens are also represented by political groups in the EP as well as the eurosceptics, which now include the Conservative Party from the UK (EP, 2013).

Concerning the countries selected for this paper, most of the major national political parties fall within the two main EP political groups, i.e. the EPP and the S&D. Table 2 in the appendix shows under which political group the major national parties from the selected countries fall. Some countries, notably Germany and Italy, even have two separate parties in the EPP in Brussels. Two national political parties are part of the eurosceptic Europe of Freedom and Democracy group (EFD), namely

 

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the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and Lega Nord from Italy. The Front National (FN) of France can also be considered eurosceptic, however its MEPs are independent and have not joined any political group in the EP. A Comparison between National and European Elections

After having presented the historical evolution of the EP’s powers, the European party system

and the functioning of the European elections, we will now analyse the differences between national and European elections. At first glance, European elections may seem quite similar to general national elections, since they are also a legitimate democratic event with the aim of electing the members of a representative assembly on a regular basis. However, a more accurate analysis of the EP shows that there are actually a series of distinct differences between the European and the national systems.

Right after the first EP elections, Reif and Schmitt (1980: 3) labelled European elections as

“additional national second-order elections”, thus giving birth to the most well-known model to compare European elections to national ones. To be more precise, according to the two authors, the second-order election model was not exclusively a European feature. They go on to say:

“Such a relationship between a second-order arena and the chief arena of a political system is not at all unusual. What is new here, is that one second-order political arena is related to [many] different first-order arenas” (Ibid).

Norris (1997: 111) has clearly shown the difference between ‘first’ and ‘second’-order

elections:

“ ‘First-order’ elections offer voters the critical choice of who should govern the country. […] ‘Second-order’ elections, in contrast, are less important because, although still open to influence by national party politics, they determine the outcome for lesser offices, such as regional, municipal and local officials in parliamentary systems, and legislative representatives in presidential systems. Based on this distinction, elections to the European Parliament, no matter how significant for legitimacy of the EU, clearly fall into the second-order category.”

Empirical observations of European elections confirm that these electoral events are of a

‘second-order’ type. Firstly, it is possible to identify low levels of voter participation, because of the perception that there is ’less-at-stake’ in the election of the EP. Secondly, “the outcome is strongly related to the popularity of national parties […] rather than revolving around particular issues, individual candidates, or specific events” (Ibid: 112). Last but not least, European elections are typically a way to sanction incumbent national parties, and thus, they also represent an opportunity for small parties to collect more votes than in national elections. As Norris notices, from what has just been pointed out, European elections are far from “reflecting their unique transnational status” (Ibid).

In order to better grasp why European elections are often perceived as being second-order, we

believe that a study of the EP, and of its legislative, political and institutional settings, might help to explain why European elections differ from national ones.

The current legislative politics in the EP depend on the political dimension of the proposed

legislation and on the institutional architecture of the EU. Regarding the political dimension, it is possible to observe two main cleavages in the EP which can be summarised as left-right and pro-anti

 

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integration. Hix & Høyland (2011: 54-58) argue that when the proposal in question is about EU integration there is a tendency of the two major European party groups (EPP and S&D) to vote together in order to form a grand coalition. However, whenever a proposal is of the left-right cleavage type, the EP tends to be divided into two coalitions, with the EPP leading the right and the S&D leading the left.

According to Kreppel & Hix (2003), this ideological left-right conflict was reinforced from

1999 onwards. Until then the voting patterns in the EP were more strongly based on a grand coalition. This change was triggered by two main factors: firstly, the EC’s resignation following the EP accusations of nepotism and mismanagement which drew a lot of media attention to the EP; secondly, the unexpected low turnout and result of the 1999 elections that caused a break of the EPP-S&D agreement on alternation of the EP’s presidency (Ibid: 77). The latter event marked a change in the EP’s legislative politics towards less consensual dynamics. This shift was very welcomed by the Greens and the ALDE groups that argued that the excessive consensus building in the EP made this institution discredited in the peoples’ eyes (Ibid: 78).

Kreppel & Hix (2003) also point out that despite the 1999 change towards a more conflictual

political life within the EP, a grand coalition is even more likely to form as far as the inter-institutional voting is concerned2. This reinforces the argument that the institutional architecture of the EU, in particular the EP’s need of defending its position vis-à-vis the other institutions, boosts consensus seeking in the EP.

Despite the EU intra-institutional constraint which seems to favour consensus building in the

EP, Lo (2013) argues that MEPs can be responsive to voters’ preferences, reinforcing the idea that the European party groups do represent, to a certain extent, the ideological clashes that exist among the EU citizens, mostly still based on the left-right dimension. To prove this, the author takes into account the influence of the Nice Treaty rejection in the 2001 Irish referendum relating this event to the Irish MEPs’ voting behaviour. He concludes that after the referendum, the Irish MEPs started to vote in a more conservative manner, accordingly to the Irish electorate preferences expressed in this referendum. Therefore, this case study questions the perception that the EP is not responsive to the electorate.

The analysis of the EP legislative setting is quite different when one considers voting rounds concerning legislative proposals that involve the pro-anti European integration dimension because in this case, the grand coalition is more likely to be formed. Opposed to the latter, there are the eurosceptic groups composed of nationalist extreme right and left wing parties as well as populist parties. Given that these parties represent only a small proportion of the EP and that they have huge difficulties in forming coalitions themselves for obvious ideological clashes they do not manage to gather enough votes to actually influence the EP’s final decision. This fact is the reason why the EP is generally defined as a pro-European institution (Hix & Høyland, 2011: 54-58). It is important to point out that the majority of the legislative proposals forwarded to the EP concern the pro-anti European integration dimension and consequently, political fights do not happen as frequently as they do in the main national assemblies. The reason for this resides in the competences of the EU that do not always imply matters which usually generate partisan conflicts like

                                                                                                                         2 Since 1999, whenever the EP voting is inter-institutional, a grand coalition is formed in the 49% of the cases, while before 1999 it happened in the 36% of the times (Kreppel and Hix, 2003: 91).

 

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seen at the national level for welfare state issues, e.g. education, social protection and security, taxes, etc. (Bertoncini, 2013; Craig & De Búrca, 2011: 83-86).

The results of voting rounds in the EP depend on the political dimension concerned and on the EU intra-institutional constraint (Hix & Høyland, 2011: 54-58). In this context, the European party groups will trade off based on their short, medium and long term goals (Kreppel & Hix, 2003: 93-94). These goals are tightly correlated to the political dimensions previously discussed. Thus, on the one hand we have the pro-European integration and pro-empowerment of the EP’s positions being part of both S&D and EPP medium and long term goals. On the other hand, there is the left-right conflict, which mostly concerns the short-term goals of the party groups, as it is the case of economic policies.

To conclude, even if a comparison with national elections seems to be almost “natural”, it is important to bear in mind that:

“A European election remains, regardless of its outcome, an election on Europe. It must then be analysed from a very unique and idiosyncratic standpoint, rather than compared to elections defined by different logics and objectives. Only a ‘European approach’ to ‘European elections’ allows one to avoid the mistake of drawing ‘lazy comparisons’ (the tyranny of national references) or ‘non-cautious comparisons’ (‘second-order elections’)” (Hastings, 2007: 148).

 

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Part II. Five EU Member States Compared: a Qualitative Research Analysis In the first part of this paper we have dwelled on the EP’s origins and evolution of its powers,

we have analysed the EP’s party system and the functioning of the European elections and, last but not least, we have highlighted the complexity of a comparison between national and European elections. In the second part of the paper, we will try to find an answer to our research question about the possibility to identify a genuinely pan-European (and thus transnational) democratic debate across the EU. In order to do so, we have adopted a comparative approach of qualitative analysis of five EU MS, i.e. collecting a series of interviews (by email, by phone, and in-person) from academics and politicians for each country. The five MS here considered are: France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and the UK. The reason why we have chosen to focus on these five MS specifically is due to the fact that demographically, economically, politically and sociologically speaking, they are very different from each other, thus particularly interesting to compare3. In addition, they represent fairly the diversity of the EU: three founding countries, two southern European countries particularly affected by the crisis but with huge differences in terms of wealth, and the UK, which has a long eurosceptic history and might have a referendum on leaving the EU.

France The run-up to the 2014 European elections in France

France is currently led by the Socialists (Parti Socialiste, PS) with Hollande being the President. The last presidential elections took place in 2012, when in the first round Hollande (28.63%) and Sarkozy (Union pour un Mouvement Populaire, UMP) (27.18%) turned out to be the two candidates with the most important share of votes in the first round. What is remarkable is that the extreme right-wing party Front National (FN) with Marine Le Pen became the third strongest political force (17.90%). In the second round, Hollande was then elected President by obtaining 51.63% of the votes (compared to 48.37% for Sarkozy) (Le Monde, 2012a). A few months later, the parliamentary elections took place in which the PS obtained the majority of the seats (278 out of 577 seats compared to 188 seats for the UMP) (Le Monde, 2012b). After the recent municipal elections in March 2014 in which the PS experienced significant losses in votes, Hollande decided to change his cabinet and appointed Valls (PS) as the new Prime Minister (Gauron et al., 2014).

Concerning the attitudes towards the European dimension, French citizens seem to be more

and more unsatisfied with the EU: in the beginning of March 2014, according to a survey led by Iris4, not only did 83% of the respondents judge the EU’s action as not efficient but also, 58% of the interviewees declared that they are not going to vote in the upcoming 2014 EU elections (Le Figaro, 2014). According to a very recent survey called Sondage OpinionWay conducted for Le Figaro and LCI5 (April 2014), 64% of French people are not interested in the European electoral campaign. Always according to this survey, the expected rate of abstention will be around 60%, which is not very different from 2009, when 59.4% of French electors didn’t vote. Other results from Sondage OpinionWay and PollWatch show that the rightist UMP is supposed to gain the 22% of votes followed                                                                                                                          3 At this point, we find important to precise that the teamwork of this paper is composed of four international students, coming from Brazil, Germany, Italy and the US, which might also help explaining the choice of the five case studies presented. 4 Institut de Relations Internationales et Strategiques. 5 LCI stands for La Chaîne Info is a French cable news channel.

 

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by the eurosceptic FN (20%) and the PS (18%). Looking at these polls, one might conclude that, as is happening in other MS, attitudes to vote in the next European electoral appointment are strongly influenced by the internal political situation and the general dissatisfaction due to the international crisis period. General expectations from the next 2014 European elections (turnout, outcomes, etc.)

Ziller (Professor of EU law at the University of Pavia, Italy) argues that there is a general eurosceptic mood in France, which will imply high levels of abstention and gains for populist parties. Bargas (parliamentary assistant of a Green MEP) agrees that there will be a “relatively low turnout” (of about 30%) in France, with a success of “far right, populist and eurosceptic parties.” Generally speaking, he predicts a little gain for the Socialists and even losses for the Liberals and the Greens. In line with this, and concerning his country in particular, Bargas expects “higher scores for the far right (FN), huge declines for the Greens, stabilisation of centre-right (UMP) and small gains (or stabilisation) for the Socialists and gains for the Liberals (L’alternative UDI-Modem).” Lamassoure (EPP MEP, UMP) also thinks that there will be high levels of abstention in France, stressing the specific factors his country is currently experiencing. In particular, he mentions the fact that local elections have overshadowed the European campaign (a point shared by Dantin, EPP MEP, UMP), that the country doesn’t seem able to fulfil its European commitments and, last but not least, that the condition of the national economy is not positive, especially considering that unemployment continues to rise. Gauzès (EPP MEP, UMP) is definitely more optimistic, arguing that, although the general European mood is rather anti-European because the EU is perceived as being far from the citizens’ interests, the share of eurosceptic parties will not be as relevant as expected. Rather, the most part of the votes will show a pro-European attitude. Major issues in the 2014 European elections for France and according to different political ideologies

Many interviewees agree on the evidence that the main issues at stake for the 2014 European electoral campaign in France concern the Union and country’s ability to manage the crisis and the difficult economic situation, especially youth unemployment (Bargas; Juvin; Kelbel; Ziller). In particular, Bargas presents the specific issues for the Greens in France, which are: the validity of austerity measures and the future of the Eurozone, the industrial policy, the international trade and the social issues. For the EPP MEPs of the UMP (Juvin, Lamassoure, Saïfi) the role of the EU in the world and its ability to face globalisation is the main topic of interest, together with immigration and unemployment. According to Dantin (EPP MEP, UMP), the debate will be very national, because the campaign will be very short and voters will tend to vote according to the typical national ideological cleavages. The European electoral campaign: the role of national parties and of the EP’s political groups

Ziller believes that national parties cannot lose their central role in the European campaign but they should play this crucial position on the basis of a transnational campaign and thus discussing and debating European policies. The professor is not the only one arguing that national parties should continue to be fundamental actors during the European campaign. Bargas stresses that not only do “EP groups have no role in the European campaign” but that it is even “morally and legally impossible”.

 

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He continues, highlighting that national parties “are the ones who know their votes (and how to address them), who have the activists’ capacities and the local networks (firms, unions, NGOs, medias, etc…).” Dantin and Saïfi (EPP MEPs, UMP) both underline how relevant the role of national parties is in order to make citizens feel close to MEPs and to mediate between national realities and European interests. Lamassoure (EPP MEP, UMP) believes that both actors (i.e. national and European parties) are important while Gauzès (EPP MEP, UMP) depicts the European lists as a “dream” compared to what is reality. He argues that parties should debate around common European topics, to avoid European elections that have too much of a national character. However, it is still premature to consider bypassing the role of national parties. Juvel (EPP MEP, UMP) is firmly convinced of the validity of transnational lists, common to all of the MS because this could give a proper European dimension to the European elections, also enhancing the EU’s legitimacy. Kelbel (PhD student at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, ULB) states that there has already been a certain change towards a more transnational dimension: the images of EC’s Presidency candidates are rather popular and these candidates are already clearly campaigning in a transnational way across MS. However, as previously stated, the issues at stake in the EU campaign are presented mainly under a national perspective by national parties, creating a gap between the national electoral arena and the European legislative one. The impact of the EP’s consensual politics as opposed to a more conflictual modus operandi

Bargas argues that there is too much consensus in the EP which leads to the fact that parties and MEPs that are used to the conflictual national model have difficulties in explaining their work to their voters. Furthermore, he claims that consensus-building has an impact on the political positioning of MEPs who were used to working in a conflictual or ideological way as those MEPs are either side-lined in the EP or starting to accept compromise. However, Bargas and Kelbel also admit that a more conflictual model in the EP would not change much as coalitions across political groups would still have to be established. Ziller argues that it would be desirable for the European political groups to have clearer ex-ante political positions and to explain why they had to make compromises in the aftermath.

The majority of our interviewees, however, appreciate the consensual politics of the EP.

Gauzès (EPP MEP, UMP) thinks of it as a model that helps to find good solutions. He underlines that the EP has already managed to take many decisions on how to deal with the economic and financial crisis on the basis of consensus-building. Lamassoure (EPP MEP, UMP), who prefers to consider the EP as being based on compromise, not consensus, highlights that such politics have one major advantage: once a text has been discussed intensively, it is accepted by all the different parties from all the MS. Saïfi (EPP MEP, UMP) agrees with this statement, stating that it is extremely important to respect the different political and national points of views since decisions are taken for the long-term and apply to more than 500 million citizens in 28 MS. Juvin (EPP MEP, UMP) states that time is not yet ripe for a left-wing or right-wing party to impose their programme on Europe for five years. He compares the EP to national parliaments of the Northern European countries that are based on consensus-building rather than to the French parliament. This can, of course, give the impression that there are no ideological differences in the EP. However, Juvin thinks that party cleavages will be shown more clearly during the electoral campaign in the run-up to the elections.

 

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Low EU citizens’ political participation and interest: causes and ‘solutions’? Several causes for the decreasing political participation of European citizens were raised by our interviewees. The majority argue that the system of the EU is too complex and technocratic which leads to a distance between the EU and its citizens. Dantin (EPP MEP, UMP) argues that on top of that the European citizens often do not know by which deputies they are represented. Several interviewees, among them Saïfi (EPP MEP, UMP), claim that the French media does not properly cover European issues and elections. She draws a comparison to Germany by stating that there are ten times less French correspondents in Brussels than German ones. Interestingly, most of the German interviewees also complain about bad media coverage of European topics in Germany and the German Green MEP Cramer underlines that the big German newspapers often have more than ten correspondents in Berlin whereas they have only one or two in Brussels. Dantin (EPP MEP, UMP) adds that the media often presents European policies as useless. Moreover, Saïfi (EPP MEP, UMP) claims that the debates in France have recently concentrated on the municipal elections which will render it even more difficult to shift the attention to the European elections now.

In order to attract the interest of the European citizens, the majority of the interviewees argue that the media should report more regularly and more positively on Europe and that the European deputies should be more active in their districts6. In particular, MEPs should highlight the powers of the EP in order to make people aware of the influence their vote has in the European elections. Dantin (EPP MEP, UMP) also mentions that the MS should help to renew the people’s interest in the EU, for instance by presenting logos of the EU in a visible way when they conduct infrastructure projects funded by the EU. Kelbel adds that the MS should stop making the EU the scapegoat of political failures and Bargas wishes for more conflictual politics and for a more personalised campaign. Lamassoure (EPP MEP, UMP) argues that the nomination of top candidates of the European political groups could increase the turnout for the elections. However, he regrets that the political parties and the media have not made many efforts to make it public. Thus, the effect on the turnout could be minimal. The European Parliament: a crucial actor to exit the economic, financial, political and social crisis?

All interviewees believe that the EP is an actor that is unavoidable in the EU decision-making process and that it has already played an important role in getting out of the current crisis. However, Lamassoure (EPP MEP, UMP) argues that the EP cannot solve the crisis alone, but in cooperation with the Commission and the Council. Since the EP is the only EU institution that directly represents the European citizens, Saïfi (EPP MEP, UMP) stresses that it should especially be the EP that should tackle the economic and financial crisis and the resulting social problems. Dantin (EPP MEP, UMP) argues that the role of the EP has been decisive for the development of the Six Pack and the Two Pack7. Moreover, concerning immigration, it was the EP that initiated the reform of Schengen. In general, the EP pushes for further fiscal and social harmonisation in Europe – a topic that is often avoided or even impeded by the MS. Ziller states that it would be desirable for the EP to serve even more as a place for debates on social and economic issues. He wishes that these debates would be                                                                                                                          6 Actually, in the annual organisation of the EP’s work, there are already weeks (called the “turquoise” weeks) which are planned ad hoc to give MEPs the possibility to come back to their districts and meet their voters. 7 Both of the EU law measures have been taken in order to strengthen “economic and fiscal governance in the EU and the euro area” (EC, 2013). To find more information, please go to: http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/articles/governance/2012-03-14_six_pack_en.htm.

 

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conducted in public and that at least the President of the European Council, the President of the Commission and the MS assuring the rotating Presidency of the Council of Ministers would be present during the discussions. Afterwards, such debates could be followed by a press conference held by these three persons and the presidents of the EP’s European political groups. All this should happen before the meetings of the European Council which could then take into account the results of the debates.

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From what has been said so far, we might conclude that the European elections in France are clearly perceived as being of the “second-order” type. Indeed, French citizens’ attitudes towards the next European electoral appointment appear to be strongly related to the national political situation. If the unpopular Hollande government has already been “punished” in the local elections of March 2014, this is also predicted to occur in the next European ones. As already noticed for other countries, e.g. Italy, it is the extreme and populist party, FN in France, which is expected to gain a relevant amount of votes and to even bypass the PS. The majority of our French interviewees confirm the extensiveness of this eurosceptic, anti-European feeling among French people.

Germany The run-up to the 2014 European elections in Germany

Germany is currently led by a grand coalition composed of the Christian Democrats, Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands/Christlich Soziale Union Deutschlands (CDU/CSU) and the Social Democrats, Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD), with Merkel being the Chancellor. The last Bundestag elections took place in September 2013 when the CDU/CSU experienced the most important gain in votes, obtaining 41.5% (compared to 33.8% in the 2009 elections). Thus, although the votes for the SPD slightly increased from 23.0% in 2009 to 25.1% in 2013, the difference between the share of votes between the CDU/CSU and the SPD rose significantly. Meanwhile the Greens (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) and the Left (Die Linke) lost votes; obtaining 8.4% and 8.6% respectively (compared to 10.7% and 11.9% in 2009). The Liberals (FDP), for the first time since 1949, are not represented in the Bundestag as they failed to cross the 5% threshold by obtaining only 4.8% of the votes. The Alternative for Germany (AfD), an anti-European party which ran for election for the first time in 2013, obtained 4.7% of the votes (Wahlrecht.de, 2014a). The CDU/CSU and the SPD agreed to form a grand coalition government and re-elected Merkel as the Chancellor in December 2013 (Zeit Online, 2013).

After the first 100 days in office, the majority of the Germans (55%) were unsatisfied with the

work of the grand coalition according to a special edition of the ARD-DeutschlandTrend8 of 28 March 2014 (Tagesschau.de, 2014). Nonetheless, Merkel remains very popular; the monthly ARD-DeutschlandTrend surveys from January to April 2014 consistently show that around 70% of Germans are satisfied with Merkel (ARD, 2014a: 7; ARD, 2014b: 7; ARD, 2014c: 3; ARD, 2014d: 3). Ovens (CDU candidate for the European elections) links the success of Merkel to her policies that have led to

                                                                                                                         8 The ARD-DeutschlandTrend is a monthly political survey commissioned by the ARD, an organisation that regroups Germany’s regional public-service broadcasters, and several German daily newspapers.

 

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economic growth and a high level of employment. This is why, he argues, the political mood in Germany continues to be pro-European.

The political mood of Germans in the run-up to the 2014 European elections seems to be

indeed pro-European. In April 2014, 65% of the Germans interviewed in the ARD-DeutschlandTrend survey stated that they were in favour of more cooperation between the EU MS in the future (ARD, 2014d: 16). Moreover, 72% are convinced that the EU makes Europe more secure. There were also some critical points from the survey: 71% of the interviewees claimed that the EU is not able to speak with one voice and 70% think that it should be more present in foreign policy issues (ARD, 2014d: 19). General expectations of the next 2014 European elections (turnout, outcomes, etc.)

The survey mentioned above also provides information on how the political mood in Germany

could translate into votes in the European elections. It reveals that the top candidate of the S&D Group, the current EP President Schulz (S&D MEP, SPD), is slightly more popular than the top candidate of the EPP Group, the former Luxembourg Prime Minister Juncker. Whereas 33% of the interviewees prefer Schulz as the Commission President, 29% are in favour of Juncker (ARD, 2014d: 14). At the same time the CDU/CSU, part of the EPP Group, remains – like at the national level – the most important political force. In April 2014, 40% of the interviewees stated that they would vote for the CDU/CSU if the European elections were to be held on the following Sunday. In contrast, only 28% would vote for the SPD. Die Grünen, die Linke, the FDP and the AfD would obtain 9%, 7%, 4.8% and 4.7% respectively. Therefore, according to these results, the German voting pattern in the European elections will not differ very much from the one in Germany’s last national elections.

Most of our interviewees for this paper did not talk about concrete voting outcomes and only

stated that they hoped for a good result for their national party and/or European political group. Some, however, were more concrete. At the European level, Sommer (EPP MEP, CDU) expects a neck-and-neck race between the Christian Democrats and the Socialists as well as an enormous gain in votes for the right-wing populists. Papenfuß (parliamentary assistant of an S&D MEP, SPD) expects a stronger S&D and a weaker EPP faction. According to him, the Greens will experience a slight loss in votes, the ALDE will be strongly reduced and the GUE/NGL has chances to become the third biggest group in the EP.

The expectations of our interviewees for the outcome at the German national level are similar

to or differ only slightly from the results of the ARD-DeutschlandTrend survey. The Green MEP Cramer (The Greens MEP, Die Grünen) expects a clear increase of the votes for Die Grünen compared to the last national elections, reaching the double-digits. For Sommer (EPP MEP, CDU) it is clear that the two main German parties, the CDU/CSU and the SPD, will lose votes due to the expected increase in votes for the AfD and very small parties that are allowed to enter the EP after the removal of the 3% threshold.9 Papenfuß (parliamentary assistant of an S&D MEP, SPD) argues that the results of the German federal elections can certainly be taken as a benchmark for the German voting pattern in the European elections. Contrary to the results of the ARD-DeutschlandTrend, however, he predicts that the CDU/CSU, although remaining the strongest political party, will not get as much votes as in the last national elections. According to him, the usual rule for the SPD’s share of votes is “federal election results minus 3-5%” which is due to its difficulties in mobilising voters in                                                                                                                          9 This topic will be further developed later in this section.

 

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European elections. However, he points to the fact that this year the S&D top candidate Schulz (S&D MEP, SPD) might attract undecided voters to the SPD. Considering that Schulz is the most popular candidate for the Presidency of the European Commission in Germany, it seems possible that the SPD will catch up with the CDU/CSU.

The existence of top candidates for the first time in the European elections and its effect on the

turnout are referred to by several of our interviewees regardless of their political affiliation. Ferber (EPP MEP, CSU) expects a higher turnout than in the last European elections as the EP is more influential today than ever before. Machnig (person responsible for the SPD’s European election campaign) also underlines that European citizens have for the first time the opportunity to decide on the appointment of one of the leading positions in the EU. Therefore, he expects a higher turnout and a stronger European public debate that will moreover be reinforced by the broadcasting throughout Europe of the head-to-head debate between Schulz and Juncker. Ertug (S&D MEP, SPD) argues that the turnout could especially be higher than in the last European elections in countries that present the top candidates for the European political groups such as Germany. Papenfuß (parliamentary assistant of an S&D MEP, SPD) states that although the existence of the top candidates could boost the turnout, one should not be overly optimistic. He expects a voting participation of 40-45% which would thus not differ from the turnout at the 2004 and 2009 elections10.

As Ertug (S&D MEP, SPD) argues, the candidates of the European political groups are also an

important topic dealt with in the German media11. Especially in the run-up to the nomination of Schulz and Juncker, these candidates were often talked about in the news (see for example Kruppa, 2014; Zeit Online, 2014b; Busse, 2014). The focus seems to be especially on Schulz, being a German national and being both the SPD’s and the S&D’s top candidate, whereas Juncker seems to be less visible considering that he is the EPP’s top candidate, while Merkel and CDU/CSU top candidate for the European elections McAllister dominate the European electoral campaign in Germany (Denkler, 2014).

Apart from the candidates of the European political groups, Ovens (CDU candidate for the

European elections) and Reintke (Die Grünen candidate for the European elections) mention another aspect that could lead to a higher turnout for the European elections of this year. They argue that the economic and financial crisis has contributed to an increased debate on Europe. Ovens even argues that a European public space has developed for the first time as the European citizens have started to form an opinion about the events in other MS, having realised that they can be influenced by such developments and that the challenges of the crisis can only be tackled together. Therefore he expects a higher turnout at the European level.

An aspect raised by the majority of our interviewees that could contribute to a higher turnout

not at the European level but in Germany is the fact that in 10 out of 16 German federal states municipal elections will be held on the same day as the European elections12. Although this would have a positive effect on the German turnout, it implies at the same time that our interviewees expect many Germans to consider European elections as being of less importance and that they fear that many

                                                                                                                         10 The turnout at the 2004 elections was at 45.47% and at the 2009 elections at 43% (EP, 2014). 11 We have considered the online version of the most important national newspapers, such as Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Zeit, but also websites specialised in European affairs like Euractiv Deutschland. 12 Municipal elections will be held in Brandenburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Baden-Württemberg, Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, Saarland, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Hamburg on 25 May 2014 (Wahlrecht.de, 2014b).

 

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Germans would not vote in the European elections if they were not going to the polls anyway to vote in the municipal elections.

Cramer (The Greens MEP, Die Grünen) argues that the removal of the 3% threshold for

German parties to enter the EP by the German Federal Constitutional Court13 could also have a mobilising effect in Germany as it allows even very small parties to be represented in the EP. Most of our interviewees mention the abolition of the 3% threshold neutrally and underline two main consequences. Firstly, very small parties are more likely to enter the EP and secondly, already established parties will then have to cede seats to those parties. Alberts (Die Grünen candidate for the European elections), however, points to the possibility of the extreme right-wing party Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD) to enter the EP. Also in the media the removal of the 3% threshold has been strongly criticised. Most critical voices accuse the German Federal Constitutional Court of having double standards and considering the EP to be less important than the Bundestag since it implicitly judged that party fragmentation in the EP is not as bad as at the national level (Cramer, 2014; Thielboerger & Dawson, 2014) Cramer (The Greens MEP, Die Grünen) also states that he cannot understand the differentiation between the threshold at the Bundestag elections which is still at 5% and the one at the European elections which has been removed recently.

Despite the overall positive stance on the turnout for the European elections at the German and

the European level, there are also issues that raise fears and worries among our interviewees. Many of them mention the rise of eurosceptics both at the European and the national level. Reintke (Die Grünen candidate for the European elections) expects a general shift to the right, especially due to the French Front National and the United Kingdom Independence Party. Also Papenfuß (parliamentary assistant of an S&D MEP, SPD) expects the eurosceptics to be the big winners of the elections. He also argues that that the mood in Germany concerning the EU is rather sceptical, which is one reason for the rise of the AfD. Alberts (Die Grünen candidate for the European elections) also states that he is worried about the AfD with its anti-European and right-wing populist slogans and the fact that it is likely to obtain 6-7% of the votes. Interestingly, Ertug (S&D MEP, SPD) remarks that the anti-European parties that focus primarily on their own country and demand less European integration paradoxically contribute to the fact that the EU is at the centre of the debates on the European elections.

Major issues in the 2014 European elections for Germany and according to different political ideologies

Nearly all our interviewees regardless of their political affiliation stated that the economic and financial crisis or topics associated with it such as high youth unemployment, stability of the euro zone and debt management dominated the European agenda. It was underlined by the majority that the question of what kind of Europe we want is related to these topics. Here, the link was again drawn to the rise of the eurosceptics and their demand for re-nationalisation of EU competences. It was stressed by an EPP MEP from the CDU, however, that the German government considers a deepened European integration as the sole way to get out of the crisis. Other topics that were mentioned regularly, regardless of the political stance, included current foreign policy issues, especially the                                                                                                                          13 Until the end of 2011, Germany had fixed a 5% threshold for parties to enter the EP. However, the German Federal Constitutional Court declared this to be contrary to the German constitution as it considered the rights of small parties and the equality of votes to be infringed. Consequently, the Bundestag established the 3% threshold in October 2013. In February 2014, the German Federal Constitutional Court declared it again to be unconstitutional (Zeit Online, 2014a).

 

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Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the EU-Russia relations with regard to the Crimean crisis. Cramer (The Greens MEP, Die Grünen) underlines that these two issues reflect the relevance of the EU as a whole and not of the individual MS. Moreover, migration policy and reduction of European red tape were considered as crucial for the European elections by the majority of the interviewees. Apart from the topics mentioned above, the Social Democrats additionally raised the need for a fairer financial order, the regulation of banks and a financial transaction tax.

The Greens underlined especially the importance of climate protection, the energy transition

towards more sustainable energy sources and the avoidance of genetically modified food. Interestingly, the topic of a reliable and payable energy supply was raised by several interviewees regardless of their party adherence. This might be a topic that is specific to Germany as the Germans are strongly sensitive to environmental issues, especially since the catastrophe in Fukushima. Ertug (S&D MEP, SPD) also underlines that energy policy will be an important topic in Germany since it is feared that the planned prohibition of financial advantages for energy intensive companies by the EC could hurt the German industry. Ertug also states that all these various topics will probably be dealt with differently in the 28 MS. Reintke (Die Grünen candidate for the European elections) stresses that national discourses play indeed an important role in the perception of the European election, but that it is also already common to lead European debates. The European electoral campaign: the role of national parties and of the EP’s political groups

In order to promote the creation of a European public space and a European democratic debate like in national elections, Ovens (CDU candidate for the European elections) and Alberts (Die Grünen candidate for the European elections) state that they wish for stronger European electoral campaigns led by the European political groups. This would imply at the same time that national parties would have to step back and that their current major role in the campaigns would be limited. Reintke (Die Grünen candidate for the European elections) adds that transnational campaigns are important to make people know which parties sit together in the different European political groups and who takes the decisions in the EP.

Several interviewees, among them Voss and Pack (EPP MEPs, CDU), argue that the electoral

campaigns in the run-up to the European elections should be led both nationally and transnationally. Papenfuß (parliamentary assistant of an S&D MEP, SPD) calls this phenomenon a multi-layered electoral campaign. Voss (EPP MEP, CDU) claims that topics related to financial and economic policies for instance could be covered by the European political groups whereas national parties have more insights into national and local issues that should subsequently be taken on by them. Also Pack (EPP MEP, CDU) underlines that the important role of national parties can be justified by the fact that the MS are in different situations and have different experiences. Nevertheless, internal politics that are not related to the EU should not be placed in the foreground. A stronger presence of the European political groups is especially desirable according to her as many European citizens do not even know about their existence. Thus, the nomination of European candidates could be a first step towards a more transnational campaign.

This argument is shared by the majority of the interviewees regardless of their political

affiliation. Although they agree with the view that there is a tendency towards a more transnational campaign, the majority of the interviewees consider a complete transnational campaign as unrealistic in today’s circumstances. Ertug (S&D MEP, SPD) argues that, despite all commonalities, there are

 

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still important differences in the political cultures and in the views on parties and candidates. Thus, national parties constitute a bridge between the European political parties and the people, and will continue to remain important. Sommer (EPP MEP, CDU) adds that it would be too early for a transnational campaign as there is nearly no politician who is known throughout Europe and as the interest in political topics varies among MS. The impact of the EP’s consensual politics as opposed to a more conflictual modus operandi

Despite different political cultures that face each other in the EP, it is generally said that the EP’s politics are based on consensus. Pack (EPP MEP, CDU) having worked both in a national parliament and in the EP, confirms that EP politics are indeed more pragmatic and “un-ideological” than politics in national parliaments. She argues that the lack of a coalition and an opposition like in national parliaments leads to consensus-building in the EP. Ertug (S&D MEP, SPD) and Cramer (The Greens MEP, Die Grünen) claim that one of the reasons for the EP’s reliance on consensus is that it aims to speak with one voice vis-à-vis the Council. According to the Dopp (CDU candidate for the European elections), this is crucial as the EP would otherwise weaken its position vis-à-vis the Council and the Commission.

Although many interviewees agree with the fact that consensus-building is frequently used in

the EP, the majority, regardless of the political affiliation, argues that there are nevertheless political conflicts. Ertug (S&D MEP, SPD) states that some topics divide the EP along national lines such as climate protection or along factions like the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Sommer (EPP MEP, CDU) even considers the assumption of consensus-building in the EP to be wrong as the debates in the EP are nearly as conflictual as in national parliaments. An EPP MEP from the CDU and Papenfuß (parliamentary assistant of an S&D MEP, SPD) go a step further and argue that the lack of a coalition and an opposition and the subsequent changing majorities allow MEPs to engage more in debates than in national parliaments. Papenfuß and Voss (EPP MEP, CDU) underline that conflicts in the EP are often not perceived by the public because they are not covered by the media to the same extent as national political conflicts. Machnig (person responsible for the SPD’s European election campaign), argues that the nomination of European top candidates could reinforce the political conflicts in the EP.

Low EU citizens’ political participation and interest: causes and ‘solutions’?

The majority of our interviewees argue that the lack of adequate media coverage of European

topics is one of the main reasons for the low turnout for European elections. Whereas national elections are reported on months in advance, European elections are not strongly present in the national media. An EPP MEP from the CDU claims that if European topics are covered by the news, the EU is often presented as a regulatory and technocratic monster, the most prominent example being the EU cucumber directive for which the EU has been strongly criticized although it was the industry and not the EU that had called for it. Ertug (S&D MEP, SPD) further argues that the media often report on domains that are not yet well integrated and in which the EU has not scored many successes such as foreign and security policy which gives the impression that the EU is unable to find solutions for urgent problems. Furthermore, Sommer (EPP MEP, CDU) points to the fact that the EU is hardly treated as a topic in schools.

 

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Nearly all interviewees state that people have to be made aware of the influence their votes have in the EU and of the EU’s influence on their everyday life in order to raise the turnout. Here, the link was again drawn to the importance of the European top candidates as the election of the Commission President by the EP could contribute to a renewed interest in the EU. Ovens (CDU candidate for the European elections) quotes Bono, the singer of U2, who stated at the EPP congress in Dublin in March 2014 that “Europe is a thought that needs to become a feeling.” To reach this it was claimed by many that national media would have to report on European issues in a more responsible, investigative and informative way, decisions made in Brussels would have to become more transparent and successes of the EU would have to be communicated more intensively. Ertug (S&D MEP, SPD) also argues that MEPs could further rely on social media such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter in order to get connected with their voters. The European Parliament: a crucial actor to exit the economic, financial, political and social crisis?

None of our interviewees doubted that the EP, being the only EU institution that is directly elected by the European citizens, is a driving force in getting out of the current economic and political crisis. Ertug (S&D MEP, SPD) and an EPP MEP from the CDU stress, however, that solutions to the crisis cannot be solved by the EP alone, but in cooperation with the other European institutions. Nearly all of the interviewees underlined that the EP is part of the ordinary legislative procedure and that decisions thus cannot be taken without the EP. Pack (EPP MEP, CDU) underlines that all legislative projects of the preceding years such as the Six Pack, the Two Pack, the bonus caps for bankers and the banking union bear the EP’s mark.

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In summary, the political mood in the run-up to the European elections in Germany is pro-European although the rise of the eurosceptics at the European and German level and the removal of the 3% threshold give reasons for concern. The interviewees considered the interview questions both from a European and German perspective and thus raised both pan-European and national issues. Nearly all of them pointed at least once in their interview to the topic of the European candidates, which seems to be an issue that is considered to play a crucial role in attracting the interest of European citizens. Also the issue at stake in the European elections that is seen to be the most important one – the economic and financial crisis – is transnational. In this context, the EP is considered to be an important driving force to get out of the current situation. As all interviewees are pro-European and agree more or less on the mentioned aspects, one could not observe important differences between the political parties. However, as the interviewees argue, this does not necessarily mean that there are no political conflicts in the EP. Next to the transnational dimension, national aspects were of course also often referred to. Many argue that a complete transnational electoral campaign would be too premature and that national parties remain important. Moreover, the survey on how Germans will vote in the European elections that was mentioned in the beginning of this section clearly shows that the outcome for Germany will probably be similar to the results of the last national elections. This might indicate that Germans see European elections in national terms.

 

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Italy The run-up to the 2014 European elections in Italy

The Italian public opinion has historically been among the most pro-European within the EU and has always shown high rates of political participation in the European elections (in 2009 the turnout was of 65.1% in Italy). This has been typically explained by the Italian citizens’ lack of trust in their national politics and the consequent perception of the EU “as an alternative to the long-lasting problems of the domestic political élites” (Castelli Gattinara & Froio, 2014: 3). However, the beginning of the crisis and the implementation of austerity measures in the country seem to have negatively affected Italian people’s support for the EU. Many authors (Ibid) and data coming from recent Eurobarometer surveys confirm this negative trend, showing that even if “the public debate is characterized by an unprecedented degree of Europeanization, [the Italian] public support for the EU reaches an historical low” (Ibid). In comparison to 2009, the national (and international) context of the next European elections is far from being the same. Five years ago, Berlusconi was in power, his party (Popolo delle Libertà, PdL) was cohesive and his government was still rather popular, thus it is not a surprise that the Pdl gained 35.3% (i.e. 29 sights) of votes, while the main leftist party, the Partito Democratico (PD), scored for the 26.1% of the votes (i.e. 21 sights) in 2009 European elections. Since then, apart from the international crisis and its increasing and negative effects on the Italian population and its political opinions, the Italian political scene has become more and more complex. A large number of political and judicial scandals has affected the former Prime Minister Berlusconi, leading to the end of his government and the break-up of the PdL. Grillo’s Movimento Cinque Stelle (M5S) has achieved increasing success at a national level and, lastly, the results of the 2013 national elections have testified to the serious and unstable national political situation (Maggini & Emanuele, 2014).

According to many Italian media14, the 2014 European elections represent an important moment for the Italian political system. They are considered as the ‘appropriate’ arena to test the Italian public’s support for new parties (such as Alfano’s Nuovo Centro Destra), for reborn parties (such as Berlusconi’s Forza Italia), for the main party currently in power (Renzi’s PD) as well as for populist and eurosceptic parties (Grillo’s M5S and the Lega Nord). Making predictions about the Italian citizens’ attitudes to vote in the next European elections is not at all an easy task because the current unsteady internal political situation and the disaffection of citizens to the Italian party system render Italian voters to be particularly floating (Chiaramonte & Emanuele, 2013). Data coming from recent polls confirm what has just been pointed out, with voting expectations changing almost on a weekly basis: between the 15th and 17th April 2014, on average, the PD reached 32% of support, followed by the M5S (24.4%) while Forza Italia got below 20% and the Nuovo Centro Destra and the Lega Nord got just around the 5% (PollWatch 2014). Almost ten days later, however, the PD is 13 points ahead the M5S, (Pagnoncelli, 2014) registering with 34% of support, while the M5S scores 21.6% and Forza Italia gets 19%.

Hence, the topic of European elections in Italian media and public debates seems to be

analysed and discussed almost exclusively in terms of national political issues. This is not particularly surprising for the Italian case considering that the country has been suffering a deep national political crisis since 2011, with the beginning of technocratic governments (Monti’s from November 2011 to

                                                                                                                         14 We have considered the online version of the most important national newspaper, such as Ansa, Il Corriere della Sera, Il Fatto Quotidiano, La Repubblica, Libero, but also blogs specialised in political issues, like EUNews, Il Post, Polisblog, The Huffington Post.

 

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April 2013 and Renzi’s since February 2014) or rather unstable elected governments (Letta from April 2013 to February 2014). General expectations from the next 2014 European elections (turnout, outcomes, etc.)

According to all of the interviewees, the EU is more and more depicted “the cause of domestic problems” (Italian EC official) in Italy. Citizens are tired of austerity measures, and thus they ‘risk’ to be attracted by what Alfano (ALDE MEP, Italia dei Valori) labels as the most dangerous and disruptive sides of politics, i.e. extremist and eurosceptic parties. Almost all of the respondents are convinced that the turnout will be rather low in Italy because of the lack of information and interest regarding European topics in Italian public debates and media. Moreover, Illari (professor of Public Law at the University of Pavia) stresses that the majority of the European citizens that vote still take into account the internal political situation of their country. This is even more evident in Italy where they “talk very little about the EU”15 (Ibid) because they’re too busy to cope with the current complex internal political life: “parties don’t talk about the EU unless those which use the anti-Europeanization as one of their electoral slogans. This is a matter of fact one should reflect upon”16 (Ibid). Major issues in the 2014 European elections for Italy and according to different political ideologies

Generally speaking, the economic issues, and more precisely the macroeconomic policies, are predicted to take centre stage in the 2014 European elections. The question of the EU’s democratic legitimacy is also crucial (Confalonieri, professor of European Political Organization at the University of Pavia; Illari), and is strictly linked to the previous economic dimension. In particular, Confalonieri highlights that the austerity measures have been imposed as being “the only game in town” with excessive social costs; moreover, there has been a progressive disempowerment of the EP and of national parliaments in favour of supranational actors and mechanisms of governance (such as the European Central Bank and the Fiscal Compact).

Interestingly, when looking at politicians’ replies, we find that economic issues are the

subjects of discussion while it is possible to see a distinction between the different political propositions. On the one hand, the Italians of the leftist European political groups (ALDE, S&D) focus on a recovery of the real economy, an ambitious European industrial policy and on the overcoming of the disastrous austerity policies. Meanwhile, if the centre-right (EPP) agrees on the need to revise austerity measures to fight unemployment, especially among young people, rightist politicians coming from less pro-European sides (European Conservatives and Reformists, ECR and Europe of Freedom and Democracy, EFD) express very different opinions, from the need to come back to a real national sovereignty to the criticisms about the validity of the single European currency. The European electoral campaign: the role of national parties and of the EP’s political groups

When it comes to examining the possibility of evaluating the idea of real transnational campaigns mainly managed by European political groups instead of national parties, there are very

                                                                                                                         15 Original quote: “[…] per l’Italia, dove si parla poco di UE […]”. 16 Original quote: “I partiti non parlano dell’UE, se non quelli che fanno dell’antieuropeismo uno dei loro slogan elettorali. E’ questo un dato di fatto su cui riflettere”.

 

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different opinions. Professor Illari states that, if one looks at the sources of EU law (art.10, par.4 TEU17; art.4 TFEU18; art.12 Charter of Fundamental Rights19) concerning the European party system, it is possible to conclude that their legal nature is more like “statements of principles”, i.e. “statements of opinions”, rather than prescriptions of commands, in its narrowest sense. Illari argues that the ideological nature of these statements, rather than referring to the description of a politico-institutional reality, almost seems to stress the lack of a European party system. According to Illari, national parties should still be the central political actors in the European electoral campaigns but they should campaign transnationally. The role of national parties should be to present a legislative programme for the EP, to support a candidate for the EC’s Presidency and to make European citizens aware of the importance of their vote.

Professor Confalonieri firstly highlights the need to revise the model of a “policy without

politics” at the European level and of a “politics without policy” at a national level, politicizing the European sphere. Then, she argues that in order to make the European parties more visible, the designation of a common candidate for the EC’s Presidency is already an important step towards a more “politicised” European politics. Furthermore, the emergence of clear and distinctive programmatic choices among the various European political groups is also necessary, exactly as it is fundamental to bypass the differences existing among national parties, which belong to the same political family but not to the same MS.

Leftist politicians coming from S&D and ALDE support a more transnational and

"communitarian" political fight, to be detached from the national dimension and to help the creation of a united and federal Europe. Rightist politicians are more cautious. Bonsignore (EPP MEP, Nuovo Centro Destra) argues that, although the EU’s intergovernmental way of functioning contributes to weaken the EU institutions’ image and identity at the EU citizens’ eyes, it is still too early to propose a transnational campaign for the European elections. Both Bonsignore and De Martini (ECR MEP, Forza Italia) stress the importance of the common candidate for the EC’s Presidency, introduced with the Treaty of Lisbon. This, they argue, contributes to make people more aware of the transnational dimension of their vote. Lastly, Speroni (EFD MEP, Lega Nord), coming from a eurosceptic party, states that the campaign should remain “national” because the elections are made on national bases. The impact of the EP’s consensual politics as opposed to a more conflictual modus operandi

The question of the validity of a more conflictual EP working-model, as usually happens in the national parliamentary life, is strictly related to two aspects. First, Grilli di Cortona (President of the Italian Society of Political Science and professor of Political Sciences at University of Roma Tre) points out that the EP is very different from national parliaments because it still can’t decide on a series of matters, which are of national competence, a fact which also affects its “different” way of operating. Secondly, professor Illari underlines that as long as there won’t be a well-structured European party system, the consensual model will remain the only one within the EP. She also stresses a point which has already been discussed in the first part of this work, which is that the EP’s tendency of forming a grand coalition is linked to the need to influence the two other institutions involved in the European legislative process, i.e. the European Council and the EC. An Italian EC official doesn’t                                                                                                                          17 “Political parties at European level contribute to forming European political awareness and to expressing the will of citizens of the Union”. 18 This article states that the European legislator can adopt norms concerning the statute of political parties at the European level and norms about their funding. 19 “Political parties at Union level contribute to expressing the political will of the citizens of the Union”.

 

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agree with the idea that the EP lacks of conflict because the fact that the “EP is "consociational by Lijphart standards […] does not mean however that there are no conflicts. Final votes are often consensual, but votes on the amendments can be extremely contentious” (Ibid).

An Italian political representative of the S&D (PD) believes that the reason why the EP’s

functioning is based on consensus is due to the EP's fragmented political situation and to the fact that there is not a political government, differently from the national context. He continues to state that if the consensus is reached for widely important topics, then it will be considered as a good practice, because it favours a deep political exchange and better legislative functioning. However, if it implies a politics of compromise, an obstacle to the ambitious and fundamental European political projects, then it will be essentially harmful. Last but not least, De Martini (ECR MEP, Forza Italia) supports the idea of a more conflictual model in order to give space to the “smaller” European political groups, and to stop the decision monopoly held by the two largest European political groups, the EEP and S&D. Low EU citizens’ political participation and interest: causes and ‘solutions’?

Not too surprisingly, all of the respondents agree on the fact that the main cause of the low EU citizens’ political participation and interest for European issues is due to a deep lack of information. Professor Grilli di Cortona stresses that in Italy there has always lacked an education concerning the EU and the construction of a European identity. Moreover, whenever one talks about Europe in Italy there is a tendency to refer more to war, colonisation, persecutions and genocides rather than sciences, art, music, architecture, democracy, and all of “beautiful things that link Europeans together”20 (Ibid). Hence, according to the professor, in Italy, there is a general attitude of pointing out the negative, often technocratic, and thus “boring” aspects of the EU, forgetting about how important the cultural and “emotional” side is in order to attract the public opinion. An Italian EC official touches on another aspect, i.e. the fact that “the EU is perceived as distant and the vote is not considered as having influence by citizens”. According to him, the ‘solutions’ are: “campaigning on issues of EU relevance, making an effort to explain what the EU is about, putting forward quality candidates and supporting common candidates for the President of the Commission” (Ibid). However, he’s convinced that “the turnout will not be as high as in national elections” (Ibid), despite the efforts that are made to rise EU citizens’ political participation. Professor Confalonieri thinks that, if the lack of information remains a relevant explanation for what has been discussed in this paragraph, it is important not to forget the impact of the crisis, which has made citizens feel unhappy and powerless towards the general political situation. An Italian political representative of the S&D (PD) agrees on this point, stating that citizens’ lack of political confidence is strictly linked to the austerity measures enacted by national governments after the beginning of the crisis. Bonsignore (EPP MEP, Nuovo Centro Destra) states that the key is to explain to citizens what “transfer of sovereignty” and “construction of the European unity” really mean and imply for citizens’ lives. In conclusion, Rinaldi (ALDE MEP, Italia dei Valori) is more optimist than the other Italian interviewees because he believes that the designation of a common candidate for the EC’s Presidency “will help people to better understand the European inter-institutional relationships”21 (Ibid).

                                                                                                                         20 Original quote: “Non si parla delle tante bellissime cose che uniscono gli europei […].” 21 Original quote: “[…] aiuterà a far capire meglio alla gente i rapporti delle Istituzioni europee.”

 

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The European Parliament: a crucial actor to exit the economic, financial, political and social crisis?

The respondents differently depict the extent to which the EP can play a crucial role to exit the crisis. Professor Grilli di Cortona firmly believes that the central actors will still remain the MS, especially Germany. Professor Illari argues that the EP has to play a fundamental role to solve the EU’s democratic deficit, which is a relevant part of the current EU’s weaknesses. Professor Confalonieri interestingly highlights that if the next EP has a huge proportion of eurosceptic parties, it will then be difficult to see how the EP will be able to produce strong and effective contributions to exit the crisis. An Italian EC official emphasizes that, in any case, “no institution alone will provide a sufficient response to the crisis but success will be a function of concerted action at EU and at national level”.

***

The specificity of the Italian case study is undeniable. From all of the different aspects

discussed in our questionnaire, it emerges that the current difficult internal political situation overshadows the topic of the 2014 European elections. Whenever the national debates cover the topic of the EU, it is mainly, and almost exclusively, in terms of crisis management and austerity measures. Italian citizens are tired of making socio-economic efforts, which are often presented as being asked by the EU, or even, by Merkel’s Germany. That said, the turnout is not expected to be high because Italian citizens lack interest and information regarding the EU. The results are unpredictable but it is likely that Grillo’s populist party (M5S) will gain lots of support. The possibility to influence the President of the EC introduced with the Treaty of Lisbon is not seen as having an impact in the Italian voters’ choices because again, only a small part of the population is aware of it.

Portugal The run-up to the 2014 European elections in Portugal

The current economic situation in these first months of 2014 in Portugal is very negative and widely discussed by the Portuguese and international media as well as by political parties and academics (Arriaga e Cunha, 2014b; Nóbrega, 2014; Padrão, 2014). Contrary to the Troika’s expectations, there has been no growth in 2013, instead there has been, for the third year in a row, recession, this time of 1.4% (TVI, 2014).

One of the main problems Portugal is facing since the beginning of the crisis is

unemployment. Despite Portugal having the greatest reduction of the unemployment rate among all EU MS (2.2 points from March 2013 to March 2014), the country still suffers from high levels of unemployment (15.2% in March, 2014). Even more concerning is youth unemployment (35.4% in March, 2014), which has decreased even more, by almost 5 points as regards March, 2013 (Diário de Notícias, 2014b).

Public budget cuts have brought about lower levels of social protection, intensifying the needs

of poor people. As a matter of fact, the risk of becoming poor for people under 65 years old has been increasing in Portugal and has reached this year the level of 18.7%, the highest since 2005

 

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(Bancaleiro, 2014). Unable to find jobs in their own country, many Portuguese citizens have emigrated, many even own a university diploma. The situation is so severe that the EC foresees a decrease in population of 1.3% in Portugal by 2015 in relation to 2009. This data is even more striking taking into account that the population in this country was growing steadily before the crisis, for example between 2004 and 2008 the population increased by 0.4% (Aníbal, 2014).

The effects of the crisis in Portugal are particularly strong if one considers the overall impacts

in the EU. This is the reason why much attention has been drawn to crisis management and solutions in the 2014 European elections. As a matter of fact, on 17 May 2014 the ‘memorandum of understanding’, a compromise on economic and fiscal policies signed by the IMF, ECB, EC and Sócrates (S&D MEP, PS), former prime minister of Portugal, expires. The general feeling is that the “Troika policies”, as they are usually called, have caused great damages to the country. Notably, the memorandum has foreseen much better results for the Portuguese economy from 2011 to 2014 than it was actually observed. For example, the memorandum expected a growth of 2.5% and an unemployment rate of 11.6% by 2013, when, as we have stated above, these indicators were much worse.

Right after the signature of the memorandum on 17 May 2011, the legislative elections took

place in Portugal on 5 June 2011, empowering Passos Coelho (EPP MEP, PSD), the opposition’s candidate who is still ruling today.22 During almost the whole “Troika period” the PSD (EPP) has been in power which has conferred to this party an image of “the ones who support austerity”, further reinforced by the PS (S&D) campaign and public statements (see on this matter Padrão, 2014; Gomes & Lourenço, 2014).

There are many signs that the next European elections will be a sort of evaluation of the so far adopted measures and will concern proposals to overcome the crisis. Furthermore, the next Portuguese legislative elections are supposed to happen in 2015, which makes the European election an opportunity to campaign also for the following national elections (see on this issue Fonseca, 2014; Rodrigues, Almeida & Botelho, 2014).

It is remarkable that, differently from the situation in other countries, the severe crises that

reaches Portugal did not boost the popularity of far right wing or nationalist parties, even though the attempt exists, as is the case of the Partido Nova Democracia (PND), which has an extremely limited presence, being this party only represented at Madeira Island’s parliament. It supports that Portugal should not be part of the Euro-zone and neither be so influenced by policy-making coming from Brussels (see Nóbrega, 2014).

Finally, Eurosondagem has conducted a poll, recently published by EuroVoice, which indicates that, in the next European elections, the PS (S&D, 37,5%) is two points ahead the PSD (EPP, 32.5%), followed by the PCP-PEV (GUE/NGL, 10.9%) and B.E. (GUE/NGL, 5.5.%). This indicates a turn to the left as compared to the previous Portuguese legislative elections in 2011.

                                                                                                                         22 The 2011 elections results were: PSD (EPP) 38,65%; PS (S&D) 28,06%; CDS-PP (EPP) 11,70%; PCP-PEV (GUE/NGL) 7,91%; B.E. 5,17% (GUE/NGL), the rest of the parties obtained less than 2% of the total number of valid votes, see on RTP (2011).

 

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General expectations of the next 2014 European elections (turnout, outcomes, etc.)

One of the main issues concerning the effects of the crisis in the 2014 European elections is the citizens’ participation: while the three interviewed MEPs foresee a decrease in turnout, the two academics foresee an increase compared to the 2009 European elections. On the one hand, the former explain that the Troika’s measures caused the emergence of distrust and malaise in the Portuguese population in relation to the EU, on the other hand, the latter argue that the crisis made the Portuguese citizens realise that the EU does have a concrete and relevant impact in their daily lives.

Other aspect that has been quoted by Matias (GUE/NGL MEP, B.E.) is the disconnection between the citizens and the MEPs. Gomes (S&D MEP, PS) and Rodrigues (professor at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and at the Lisbon University Institute, known as the mother of the Lisbon Strategy and former Minister of Employment in Portugal) also point out the importance of this European election as the first one to appoint the president of the EC. Both consider that it might contribute to better levels of turnout. Professor Rodrigues also mention that the fact that this election will choose not jut MEPs but also the President of the EC caused a personalization of the campaign, which is likely to captivate voters and therefore help to increase turnout.

This aspect has been treated very frequently by medias too. Sometimes with discredit, as it is the case of Arriaga e Cunha (2014a), who covers the speech of Rompuy in which he states that it will not be the MEPs who choose the successor of Barroso, but rather the MS. Sometimes, it is treated with relevance, as in the case of the article by Fonseca (2014), which quotes Paulo Rangel’s (the first candidate in the PSD’s - EPP - list) statement about the “extreme and severe divergences” between Schulz and Seguro, the PS (S&D) leader. Major issues in the 2014 European elections for Portugal according to different political ideologies

All interviewees agree that the crisis will impact turnout, and also that the crisis will bring about economic problems as one of the main points to be discussed in the 2014 European elections campaign. This statement has been confirmed by media coverage (Valente, 2014), which very often correlates the European election to the crisis.

The MEP Matias (GUE/NGL MEP, B.E.) also mentions the importance of treating issues as human rights and democracy in the campaign. Somehow similarly, Patrão Neves (EPP MEP, PSD) stresses the need not to let the economic matters completely undermine issues related to European citizenship. On the contrary, Pureza (professor of International Relations at the University of Coimbra, activist of the B.E. - GUE/NGL- and former deputy at the Portuguese parliament) argues that the far more relevant matter to be discussed in this election is the crisis and the alternatives to overcome it. According to him, it is likely that some parties will try to divert people’s attention to abstract debates, such as the “European project” or the debate around the opposition ‘inter-governamentalism versus federalism’. This attempt, Pureza argues, is completely mistaken because the topic that can really increase turnout concerns the effects of the crisis because this is what mostly affects people’s lives today. Complementarily to Pureza, Gomes (S&D MEP, PS) points out that, during the European campaign, it is highly important to make it clear that the only way to overcome the crisis is to build a different Europe. In this same line, professor Rodrigues indicates unemployment and emigration,

 

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problems closely related to the crisis, as important elements that will come up during the campaign and debates.

The MEP Patrão Neves (EPP MEP, PSD) also stresses the attempt of left-wing parties to nationalise the campaign in order to criticise the Portuguese government and collect votes for the 2015 Portuguese legislative elections (Fonseca, 2014). In a different kind of approach, Gomes (S&D MEP, PS) also considers the relationship between the results coming from both the 2014 European elections and the 2015 legislative elections: Gomes expects that the European election results will be an anticipation of the national legislative elections results. The European electoral campaign: the role of national parties and of the EP’s political groups

In spite of the arise of attention dedicated to Europe in this election, it is still clear that most of the interviewees and media channels treat the European election as a ‘second order national election’ in the sense that they are inserted in a national context. Regarding the interviewees’ opinions on who should be in charge of campaigning in the European elections, all of them argue that some level of coordination by the European parties’ group is needed, especially in terms of general values. However, national parties are more aware of the specificity of the relationships between each country and the EU, as for example in which way European polices impact a specific country. The impact of the EP’s consensual politics as opposed to a more conflictual modus operandi

As we discussed in the first part of the paper, the different functioning of the EP and of the national parliaments influences the way the people perceive the two institutions and also their behaviours as voters. It is interesting to see that the interviewees have different opinion concerning the consensual nature way of functioning of the EU. While Gomes (S&D MEP, PS) argues that it is not true that the EP works in a consensual manner, pointing out that there is much conflict between the main party on the right and the main party on the left regarding economic matters, Patrão Neves (EPP MEP, PSD) argues that the EP well functions based on consensus and that this is a result of its institutional infrastructure as well as of its competences and of its foundation grounds.

Still, another different opinion was presented by Matias (GUE/NGL MEP, B.E.), who believes

that the word ‘consensus’ is not appropriated to qualify the functioning of the EP. She argues that there is rather a ‘compromise’ than a consensus because in her opinion party groups agree to vote together in order to get support fpr policies they defend. According to her, this doesn’t happen so often in national parliaments due to the fact that here generally there is a formed majority. She also argues that in many cases the two majoritarian groups have the same position, such as the one concerning monetary and fiscal policy. However, whenever it comes to these policy fields, she states that some small party groups still represent a remarkable, but not large enough, resistance. In other matters, she continues, there is a large compromise that also encompasses those last mentioned groups, such as in fundamental freedoms. Low EU citizens’ political participation and interest: causes and ‘solutions’?

Matias (GUE/NGL MEP, B.E.) argues that there is a systematic effort to separate the European citizens from their parliaments by constructing an opaque decision-making process and that

 

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this would be the main cause for the high level of abstentions. Professor Pureza and Gomes (S&D MEP, PS) both believe that Portuguese citizens perceive that the EP has not an important impact in their lives and this would be the main reason for low level of turnout. According to the former, this has changed with the crisis while according to the latter this has changed with the Lisbon treaty, which has stated clearer competences of the EP, and with the measures that the EP has undertaken to overcome the crisis, such as the Bank Union.

Patão Neves (EPP MEP, PSD) argues that the main reason for abstention is related to the negative perceptions that national and regional governments have constructed around the EU by ‘europeanising’ the unpopular policies and nationalising or regionalising the popular ones. Interestingly, Patrão Neves (EPP MEP, PSD) and Matias (GUE/NGL MEP, PSD), who don’t mention any important change about what has just been mentioned, consider that abstention will remain high, whereas Gomes (S&D MEP, PS), professor Pureza and professor Rodrigues, who identify different sorts of changes about national and regional governments sponsoring for European policies, argue that there will be an improvement in turnout.

Regarding possible policies to boost turnout, Rodrigues argues that the election of the EC president itself is already an important step towards higher levels of participation. Patrão Neves (EPP MEP, PSD) argues that more objective information about the EP’s decisions and influence on European policies is needed. She also believes that there is a lack of acknowledgement in the Portuguese population regarding the benefits brought by European funds. The European Parliament: a crucial actor to exit the economic, financial, political and social crisis?

The three interviewed MEPs all think that the EP has the means to contribute to the crisis overcome, however Matias (GUE/NGL MEP, B.E.) points out that the political position of the two majoritarian parties are incompatible with the measures that should be carried out and this has worsened the crisis by generating more unemployment, inequality and poverty. Gomes (S&D MEP, PS), contrarily, argues that the EP already has a role in the crisis overcome, mentioning the Bank Union and the legislation on corruption fighting as two relevant examples of it. In this respect, the Patrão Neves (EPP MEP, PSD) has a similar position but she refers to different examples than the Gomes, such as agriculture investments and financial supports to medium and small companies.

Professor Rodrigues states that the EP has had a very important role in fighting the crisis

especially because this institution, in her opinion, is much more advanced in terms of responsiveness to the European people than the other EU institutions. Finally, professor Pureza points out that in order for the EP to be able to put forward policies that contribute to the crisis overcome, it has its reason to exist need to be recalled, in other words, to promote social and territorial cohesion. Similarly to Matias (GUE/NGL MEP, B.E.), Pureza believes that this change is possible only with a different composition of the EP.

***

To conclude, the main issues of the 2014 European elections in Portugal mainly concern the crisis management and potential solutions to overcome it, while other minor issues have also been pointed out. Given that the crisis is considered today a European crisis, this certainly increases the attention drawn to the EU, even if it is not clear how it will impact turnout levels. Furthermore, this European election is expected to be of great relevance for Portugal, given that it will be the first time

 

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that the Portuguese electorate will vote being able to evaluate the so called “Troika policies”. It seems like these policies have not been very popular or successful in terms of coping with the social problems caused by the crisis. This is likely to cause an increase in support for left-wing parties.

United Kingdom The run-up to the 2014 European elections in the UK

In the United Kingdom, much of the focus on the European elections has targeted the United

Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and its recent and growing success in the polls. Looking back to 2009, UKIP scored second place with over 16 per cent of the vote—behind the Tories with nearly 28 per cent (European Election Database 2014). The latest polls have UKIP at 27 per cent, just three behind Labour and 5 points ahead of the Tories (Ross, 2014). Meanwhile, the most fervent supporters of the EU in the UK, the Liberal Democrats, are potentially facing a steep decrease in support after many controversial policy decisions made within the current coalition government. In 2009 they got 13 per cent of the vote while they are now holding single digit support in the polls.

The British are going to the polls in 2015 for their next general election. As this election

approaches, it has attracted much more media attention than the European elections, even if the latter is taking place much sooner. The European debate, not the elections, has also been getting a lot of media attention thanks in large part to Prime Minster Cameron’s promise to hold an “in-out” referendum in 2017 if the Conservative Party is re-elected in 2015. The debate regarding the referendum, and the rise of UKIP, has brought the subject of Europe to the front pages of the British press, even if the elections are not always explicitly mentioned. The leaders of UKIP and the Liberal Democrats, Farage and Clegg respectively, have taken part in a series of highly covered debates on the subject of Europe (Wintour, Watt & Mason, 2014) that brought the subject to the national audience. The debates themselves were generally seen as being won by Farage and helping UKIP boost its support in the polls (Young, 2014). As far as the European election itself is concerned, it has been reported that a debate between the main candidates from the European political groups will be broadcast in the UK but on news channels that have an extremely low market share (Carling, 2014).

Unsurprisingly the current political scene in the UK is dominated by domestic issues including

the next general elections, the 2014 Scottish referendum for independence, and the rise of UKIP as a political force. Europe is often discussed, usually relating to the potential referendum in 2017, but the elections are an event that is rarely covered by the press. General expectations of the next 2014 European elections (turnout, outcomes, etc.)

In the previous European elections, the turnout of the electorate in the UK amounted to just 34 per cent, below the EU average of 43 per cent. For comparison, in the 2010 general election, the turnout was 65 per cent (International Idea, 2014). Representative Bearder (ALDE MEP, Liberal Democrats) believes that the debate about Europe is bringing further attention to the elections, saying that turnout will “swell.” However, Christopher Howarth of Open Europe says the opposite, expecting the low turnout in European elections to continue.

 

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As far as expectations for the upcoming election are concerned, it seems everyone agrees on the rise of UKIP as a political force. Read (Green candidate for European elections) admits that UKIP is “likely to do quite well,” while Mr Howarth states that “there will be a strong showing by the UKIP party driven by concerns over EU integration, immigration, a low turnout and a feeling that voters are safe to use the European Elections as a vehicle to register a protest against all the main parties.” Bearder (ALDE MEP, Liberal Democrats) notes that UKIP is a “negative, eurosceptic force in the UK” but argues that because they have been given so much media attention, they have gotten people talking about Europe. These reactions, along with much media coverage on the success of UKIP in the polls (New Europe, 2014; Ross, 2014), clearly indicate that everyone is waiting to see how successful UKIP will be in these upcoming elections and further down the line, how it will perform in the next domestic general election in 2015. With a potential in-out referendum in 2017, the ramifications of a UKIP victory in the European elections and an increased share of votes in 2015 would be large on the European debate in the UK.

Major issues in the 2014 European elections for the UK and according to different political ideologies Concerning topics that are likely to be discussed during the campaign, Bearder (ALDE MEP,

Liberal Democrats), Mr Read (Green candidate for European elections), and Mr Howarth all agree that the in-out referendum will be a large part of the discussion. MEP Bearder also puts UKIP and the Liberal Democrats on opposite ends of this debate, saying “For us in the UK the stage has been set – people will choose to vote UKIP which signifies their eagerness to leave the EU or they will vote Liberal Democrat to stay in the EU.” While UKIP is the only major British political party that actively promotes the idea of leaving the EU, there are many Tory backbenchers who would subscribe to this line of thinking as well. At the same time, the leadership of the Conservatives and Labour both advocate staying in the EU, with Cameron pushing for reform rather than leaving. Mr Howarth also makes the point that the Tories will want to focus on the domestic recovery, as the UK sees higher growth than much of the continent23. These responses go along with the idea that in Britain the European elections are in fact similar to domestic ones, in the sense that the issues discussed are mostly internal—even the European debate is focused on the potential British referendum.

The European electoral campaign: the role of national parties and of the EP’s political groups As mentioned earlier, the debate between the main candidates of the European Political

Groups will be broadcast in the UK, even if to a small audience. However, as pointed out in the New Europe article, these candidates themselves have no plans to physically visit the UK. Regarding the question of the role the Political Groups should play in the campaign for Europe, Bearder (EPP MEP, Liberal Democrats) and Mr. Howarth agree that the national parties should continue to be the ones to campaign in the European elections. MEP Bearder states that “Identifying an MEP with a national party increases transparency and accountability to a degree – in a sense my constituents know what they’re going to get.” Mr Howarth goes further, saying “In the UK the inability of transnational parties to campaign would be complicated by the fact that the main political parties either disagree with their major European groupings candidates or stances on many issues or are not a member of a major transnational party.” The idea of the S&D directly campaigning in the UK does not seem practical and would in fact be logistically difficult for the parties but also the electorate.

                                                                                                                         23 As of the last quarter of 2013, according to Eurostat, the UK economy was growing at an annualized rate of 2.7% while the EU average was 1.1% with France being 0.8% and Germany 1.4%.

 

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The impact of the EP’s consensual politics as opposed to a more conflictual modus operandi

Moving on to the workings of the EP itself, Bearder (ALDE MEP, Liberal Democrats) says that in fact the EP is not wholly based on the idea of consensus “True the atmosphere at least is less adversarial and confrontational than many national parliaments but there are still clearly huge divergences between the groups.” She goes on to say that “However, that said it is important that any amendments laid by individual members get support in the committees and in the final plenary votes, it is therefore important that MEPs and groups work together to achieve improvements in the legislation.” Mr Howarth also says that the EP is not actually based on consensus, but rather alienation: “Rather than consensus, parties and voters who did not agree with further integration were side-lined.” Here are two different ways to the same opinion, that in fact the EP is not based on consensus building. These opinions go against one of the biggest criticisms of the EP, that the groups always agree and so it does not function like a regular parliament. MEP Bearder makes the argument that the EP is in fact closer to a national parliament than many might realise, however Mr Howarth says that the EP is like this because eurosceptics have been marginalised, coming from the democratic deficit argument.

Low EU citizens’ political participation and interest: causes and ‘solutions’? Regarding how to perhaps help the issue of lower turnout in the elections themselves, both

Read (Green candidate for European elections) and Bearder (ALDE MEP, Liberal Democrats) agree that the public needs to be educated regarding the EU and its elections, admitting that this is no easy feat. MEP Bearder goes on to say that another source of the turnout problem could be the difference in electoral systems: “In the UK there is one member of the UK parliament per constituency whereas in the European Parliament there are a number of MEPs per constituency so there is more of a physical disconnect – in a sense MEPs are less visible than MPs.” Since the UK elections are the first-past-the-post system, the electoral districts are extremely localised with one MP. With the EU requiring proportional representation in its elections, the UK public is faced with an electoral system that is quite different from the one they are used to, and one that is less localised. Mr Howarth takes a much more critical tone regarding the EP, he states that “The European Parliament has failed as a democratic institution, whereas national parliaments remain the main source of democratic legitimacy. The solution is to increase national parliaments’ participation in the EU.”

The European Parliament: a crucial actor to exit the economic, financial, political and social crisis?

The ongoing economic crisis and recovery in the EU is of course a topic for most nations in these elections, whether debated on a domestic or European level. In the UK economic growth has increased and the recovery is going faster than in many other MS, especially on the periphery; however the economy is of course still a major topic in any election. When asked if the EP can play a role in exiting the crisis, Bearder (ALDE MEP, Liberal Democrats) stated that the EP can in fact be the solution to many of these problems relating to the crisis, even saying that “In some way it was the lack of legislative guidelines that allowed the variety of financial problems to arise in the first place.” On the other side of the debate, Mr Howarth says that, like others have argued, the EP moves too slowly in general and that “the role of national parliaments in the Eurozone crisis, particularly the Bundestag and Greek parliaments demonstrated that national parliament remain the source of legitimacy.”

 

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***

It is clear from these interviews on the various topics regarding the European election in the

UK that the debate continues over the role of the EP and its elections within the UK. Domestic issues are still the main focus of any political debate, with the national elections taking place next year and Scotland voting on independence later in 2014. There is often a large disagreement on the role of the EP and the EU in general, with a stark difference between those that are pro-European and those opposed to EU membership or the current state of the EU. The debate can only intensify if the UK does in fact hold a referendum in 2017 and if UKIP does as well in the election as the polls predict. The party is the only major party explicitly campaigning for an exit from the EU. While there are many parties around the MS that do this, rarely do they have the potential to garner the support of a third of the electorate in the European elections. The fact that everyone across the political spectrum seems to agree on is that the rise of UKIP as a political player in the UK will be the major story of these elections in Britain.

Conclusion Looking back over numerous interviews from five very different MS, it is clear that while there are some things that many can agree on, there are many more things that are still up for debate when it comes to the idea of a pan-European EP election. The role of the EP’s political groups and the EP itself are both still debatable, despite the EP approaching its fourth decade. The argument for the EP having second-order elections compared to national elections still holds ground24, and the idea of a pan-European election may seem ideal for many pro-EU Europeans, however many of the interviewees stated this would be unfeasible and undesirable. Below combines the insights from all of the interviewees from all five MS studied in this paper, and what concluding remarks can be drawn from them. General expectations of the next 2014 European elections (turnout, outcomes, etc.)

When looking to the run-up to the EU elections and the expectations, similar issues can be seen across the continent. The rise of the far-right parties is clearly a concern in many countries. The continuing assent of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) is the main thing that everyone in the UK is talking about in regards to the European elections. It is now common belief that UKIP is a political force in the UK, especially for these elections, and polls even have the party potentially coming out on top. In France, the continued success of the FN, especially after the recent local elections, also makes the headlines. Meanwhile, in Italy the biggest push is supposed to come from the populist party M5S, led by Grillo. Germany also has the rise of the eurosceptic AfD party, which advocates for leaving the euro, however this party is not expected to achieve the same level of success in Germany as the other eurosceptic parties in the UK, France, or Italy. Of the five countries studied in this paper, Portugal has been the one most affected by the crisis—it is the only one of the five that has actually received bailout funds. Interestingly, the Portuguese political scene has not seen a steep rise in the far right that has been seen in many other parts of the EU.

                                                                                                                         24 However, some have said that European elections are in fact increasingly influenced by pan-European issues (Blondel, Sinnot & Svensson, 1998).

 

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Turnout for the European elections is notorious for being lower than national turnout. In general, not many of our interviewees expect this to change. Some in the UK believe that the debate on the potential 2017 in-out referendum could have a positive impact on the turnout rate; however others do not think this will translate into more people coming out to the polls. There are some in Portugal that believe the crisis will motivate some to come out and vote, however others counter that the crisis in Portugal resulted in an increasingly negative perception of the EU, which in turn would lead to a lower turnout for the election. France and Italy both largely expect turnout to not rise, an aspect that can often help eurosceptic parties that have strong feelings towards the EU and are thus more likely to come out and vote. Among the countries in this paper, Germany is unique in the sense that one of the candidates for the Commission, the S&D candidate Schulz, is German and thus gives the country a more direct connection to this election. This combined with the fact that most German states will be holding their municipal elections at the same time, has led many in the country to believe that turnout may actually increase from 2009 levels.

Major issues in the 2014 European elections The rise of the far-right or eurosceptic parties as mentioned above is of course an issue for the European elections especially for the UK, France, and Italy. However, most countries agree that the ongoing economic crisis will be the main issue for the campaign. Germany and the UK, which have seen stronger recoveries than the others, cite other issues that could come to the forefront of the campaign. For example, the EU referendum debate in the UK will continue while in Germany things such as the EU trade negotiations with the US (for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, TTIP) or the energy policy of switching from nuclear to more renewable sources can play a bigger role. In Portugal the crisis has had the biggest effect, and so it is clear the economy will be the huge topic of debate. Meanwhile, the economy is still lagging behind in France and Italy, which along with the eurosceptic parties will shape the debate during the run-up to the election. The European electoral campaign: the role of national parties and of the EP’s political groups In the UK there is consensus among our interviewees that the national parties need to maintain their central role in European elections, instead of being replaced by the EP political groups. In Germany the opinion is divided and in Portugal some say that the EP political groups should give general direction, but national parties should carry out the campaigning. On this issue it seems that the idea of a European election in which the EPP or the S&D campaign directly across all 28 MS is unrealistic. Many argued that the public may either not be ready or that the EP political groups campaigning would not be feasible. In such a scenario, they would have to campaign in all the different languages of the populations across the EU as well as differentiate themselves from the national parties, which form a part of the groups in the EP anyway. While some would like to see this in the future as a real pan-European election, there does not seem to be much support of this at the moment. The impact of the EP’s consensual politics as opposed to a more conflictual modus operandi When it comes to the often criticized aspect of the EP being too consensual as a legislative institution, many of our interviewees across the continent have insisted that the EP is in fact not always based on consensus and acts more like a national parliament than many realise. Some have

 

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argued that legislation is often a compromise just between the two biggest political groups and the others are simply ignored. The argument that the EP is in fact like a national parliament in the sense that it has a centre-right and centre-left debate on issues still holds, with a few interviewees supporting this claim. Meanwhile, there are others who say that the EP can be based on consensus but this depends on the issue, with more sensitive topics like economic issues being the source of more heated and partisan debate. Judging from a large majority of interviewees saying that the EP is indeed not based on consensus, the institution seems to have an image problem in this area. Outside of the EP, many believe that the legislative body is not a “real” legislature because it often passes laws with large majorities, often involving both the major centre-right and centre-left groups. However, within the EP, many assert that the plenary is full of debate and is closer to national parliaments than many assume. There are also many concerns, which are also found in national capitals, that smaller parties are completely ignored and so it is an institution of alienation instead of consensus. Low EU citizens’ political participation and interest: causes and ‘solutions’? Across the board, most interviewees recognised that there is a general indifference to the European elections. Even in founding countries like France and Italy, interviewees cited the rise in euroscepticism with the public, despite being historically more pro-EU. Others, especially in the UK and Germany, have cited education as a huge problem regarding the public’s attitude towards the EP and the European elections. Often the general public knows very little about the elections, or that they’re happening at all. Lack of media coverage is often cited as a leading problem in this area. If the media does not deem the elections a worthy topic to report on, then many in the public will never hear about them at all apart from doing their own research. To solve this problem, a few solutions were given. For example, the educational system of MS could offer some kind of course in the European Union to educate students on its functions and elections. Another solution could come directly from the institutions themselves. MEPs could connect with voters more, in particular through social media, and the EU could work more on improving its communications outreach to its citizens. The EP could also send out its top candidates more, as it has started to do in this election, in order to better connect the public with the institution itself, rather than just national parties in another election. The European Parliament: a crucial actor to exit the economic, financial, political and social crisis? The economic crisis is clearly a major topic in European politics at the moment and is unlikely to change in the short-term. Therefore the question of the role of the EP in exiting the crisis must be addressed. Opinion on the EP’s role in the crisis is mixed. Some say the EP has in fact already helped to exit the crisis, while others claim that the EP could possibly help in the future. Then there are others who argue that in fact the EP has no role in this crisis, and that it should be left to national parliaments who can act more quickly and locally. Being the biggest issue in Europe at the moment, the EP could use the crisis to show the public that it is in fact a powerful institution that has real effects on the lives of its citizens. However, there does not seem to be much agreement on either how it can do this, if it has already done it, or if it will be able to do it in the future. The role that the EP plays in European politics, both national and

 

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transnational, is still up for debate among our interviewees, with no real consensus on what its role is, what it should be, or what it can be.

***

After conducting the research and interviews for this paper, one can conclude that the idea of pan-European politics, i.e. transnational democratic debate, is still that—just an idea. The EU citizens still feel very far from the institutions in Brussels, and thus need their national parties as a mediator to connect them with the EU. Furthermore, considering the interviewees’ opinions and after monitoring media from each of the countries studied, the only pan-European trend identified concerns common issues related to the crisis and populist or eurosceptic parties. However, the crisis, being such a negative force on the recent EU history, could act as a motivator towards more positive integration in the future. Even with the common ground of the crisis, there is still the tendency to treat these same issues as national issues and to come up with national solutions. For those who wish to see pan-European politics in the future, hope rests in the new development concerning the election of the EC president. During this 2014 European campaign, each of the main political groups have presented a candidate for the presidency who have campaigned across much of Europe and participated in televised debates. This transnational campaigning could be a starting point for a real pan-European politics across all 28 MS in the future.

 

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Appendix Table 1 – Part I

 

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Table 1 – Part II

 

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Table 2

Political Group National Party MS European People's Party Christlich Demokratische Union Germany Christlich-Soziale Union Germany Union pour un Mouvement Populaire France Partido Social Democrata Portugal Forza Italia Italy

Unione dei Democratici cristiani e dei Democratici di Centro Italy

Socialists & Democrats Sozialdemokratische Partei Germany Parti socialiste France Partido Socialista Portugal Labour Party UK Partito Democratico Italy Alliance of Liberals and Democrats Freie Demokratische Partei Germany Liberal Democrats Party UK Italia dei Valori Italy Greens Die Grünen Germany Europe Écologie France European United Left/Nordic Green Left Die Linke Germany Europe of Freedom and Democracy United Kingdom Independence Party UK Lega Nord Italy European Conservatives and Reformists Conservative Party UK Non-Attached Front national France

 

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Interview questions

1. What do you expect from the next 2014 European elections (turnout, outcomes, etc.)? And how is

the general mood in your country?

2. In your opinion, what are the major issues at stake in the 2014 EU elections? And what are the

specific issues related to your country/political party in particular?

3. Do you think that the European Parliament’s political groups should be the ones to campaign

transnationally or should national parties maintain their major role in the European elections? Why?

4. Many argue that the European Parliament’s politics are based on consensus. What do you think are

the impacts of this on European politics? What would change if these politics were based on a more

conflictual model like seen in most national parliaments?

5. Given that the turnout for European elections is lower than national elections, in your opinion, what

are the causes for this phenomenon? What measures do you think should be taken in order to increase

EU citizens’ electoral and political participation?

6. Do you think that the European Parliament can play a crucial role in exiting the current economic,

financial, social and political crisis? If so, why and how?

 

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• Valente Pulido, V., 2014, “A poeira”, Público. 20 April, accessed on 28 April 2014. <http://www.publico.pt/politica/noticia/a-poeira-1632860 - 5> UK

• Carling, A., 2014, “BBC will only show Election debate between leading candidates on minor channel”, New Europe, 24 April, accessed on 24 April 2014. <http://www.neurope.eu/article/bbc-will-only-show-election-debate-between-leading-candidates-minor-channel?utm_content=buffercccec&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer>

• Eurostat, GDP Data for each MS, 05 May 2014, <http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_PUBLIC/2-05032014-BP/EN/2-05032014-BP-EN.PDF >

• International Idea, "Voter Turnout Data for the United Kingdom", International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 5 May 2014. <http://www.idea.int/index.cfm>.

• New Europe, 2014 “Poll suggests UKIP could win UK Euro elections”, 16 January, accessed on 23 April 2014. <http://www.neurope.eu/article/poll-suggests-ukip-could-win-uk-euro-elections>

• "NSD" European Election Database (EED), 29 April 2014. <http://www.nsd.uib.no/european_election_database/ >.

• Ross, T., 2014, "European elections: Conservatives face poll humiliation as one in three Tory voters defects to Ukip", The Telegraph, 19 April, accessed on 24 April 2014. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/10776305/European-elections-Conservatives-face-poll-humiliation-as-one-in-three-Tory-voters-defect-to-Ukip.html>.

• Wintour, P., Watt, N. & Mason, R., 2014, “Farage v Clegg: Ukip leader triumphs in second televised debate”, The Guardian, 2 April, accessed on 23 April 2014 .<http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/apr/02/nigel-farage-triumphs-over-nick-clegg-second-debate?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487>

 

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• Young, T., 2014, “Nigel Farage vs Nick Clegg: the Ukip leader won convincingly, just by being himself”, The Telegraph, 2 April, accessed on 23 April 2014. <http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100266040/nigel-farage-vs-nick-clegg-the-ukip-leader-won-convincingly-just-by-being-himself/> Interviews FRANCE

• Bargas, Antoine - Parliamentary assistant of a The Greens MEP, Les Verts (via e-mail) • Dantin, Michel - EPP MEP, UMP (via e-mail) • Gauzès, Jean-Paul - EPP MEP, UMP (via telephone) • Juvin, Philippe - EPP MEP, UMP (via email) • Kelbel, Camille - PhD Student at ULB (via email) • Lamassoure, Alain - EPP MEP, UMP (via email) • Saïfi, Tokia - EPP MEP, UMP (via email) • Ziller, Jacques - Professor of EU law at the University of Pavia, formerly professor at Paris 1-

Panthéon Sorbonne University and at the European University Institute, Florence (via email) GERMANY

• Alberts, Peter - Die Grünen candidate for the European elections (via email) • Anonymous - EPP MEP, CDU (via email) • Cramer, Michael - The Greens MEP, Die Grünen (via email) • Dopp, Jascha - CDU candidate for the European elections (via email) • Ferber, Markus - EPP MEP, CSU (via email) • Ertug, Ismail - S&D MEP, SPD (via email) • Machnig, Matthias - Person responsible for the SPD’s European election campaign (via email) • Ovens, Carsten - CDU candidate for the European elections (via email) • Pack, Doris - EPP MEP, CDU (via email) • Papenfuß, Felix - Parliamentary assistant of an S&D MEP, SPD (via email) • Reintke, Terry - Die Grünen candidate for the European elections (via email) • Sommer, Renate - EPP MEP, CDU (via email) • Voss, Axel - EPP MEP, CDU (via email)

ITALY

• Alfano, Sonia - ALDE MEP, Italia dei Valori (via email) • Anonymous - Italian official at the EC (via email) • Anonymous - S&D MEP, PD (via email) • Bonsignore, Vito - EPP MEP, Nuovo Centro Destra (via email) • Confalonieri, Mariantonietta - Professor of European Political Organisation at Università di Pavia (via

email) • De Martini, Susy - ECR MEP, Forza Italia (via email) • Grilli di Cortona, Pietro - President of the Italian Society of Political Science and professor of Political

Sciences at University of Roma Tre (via email) • Illari, Silvia - Professor of Public Law and Italian politics and society at Università di Pavia (via

email) • Rinaldi, Niccolò - EPP MEP, Italia dei Valori (via email) • Speroni, Francesco Enrico - EFD MEP, Lega Nord (via email)

 

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PORTUGAL

• Pureza, José Manuel - Professor of International Relations at the University of Coimbra, activist of the B.E. (GUE/NGL) and former deputy at the Portuguese parliament (via email)

• Rodrigues, Maria João - Professor at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and in the Lisbon University Institute, known as the mother of the Lisbon Strategy and former Minister of Employment in Portugal (in person)

• Gomes, Ana - S&D MEP, PS (via telephone) • Patrão Neves, Maria do Céu - EPP MEP, PSD (via telephone) • Matias, Marisa - GUE/NGL MEP, B.E. (via email)

UK • Bearder, Catherine - ALDE MEP, Liberal Democrats (via email) • Howarth, Christopher - Senior Political Analyst for Open Europe (via email) • Read, Rupert - Green candidate for European elections (via email)