© REUTERS/Piroschka Van De Wouw

“There is no majority in the European Council for any of the Spitzenkandidaten,” declared German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the end of this week’s summit of 28 national EU leaders in Brussels. “I don’t see that I can change this assessment.”

Whether or not this was the death knell for the prospects of Manfred Weber, the nominee of Merkel’s center-right European People’s Party (EPP) to become European Commission President, depends on who you ask. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that after this week’s summit it is certain that neither Weber nor his social democratic challenger Frans Timmermans, the nominee of the center-left PES group, will be Commission President.

Orbán is no fan of either men because of their criticism of his rule of law violations (from the latter much earlier than the former). But his assessment was echoed by other EU leaders including Slovakian Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini, who said, “None of them have a majority, and I don’t believe they will have a majority next week.”

The most prominent voice against the process was French President Emmanuel Macron. “It is clear there’s no majority in the Parliament to support the EPP,” he said after the summit. “Then President Tusk said there was no clear majority for any Spitzenkandidat in the Council. Accordingly, this system was not considered to be the valid one, like I’ve said constantly, to appoint the president of the European Commission.”

What Next for Top Jobs?

The Spitzenkandidaten are the candidates for Commission President put up by the European political groups ahead of the election. In addition to Weber and Timmermans, there is the EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager from Denmark representing the third-largest group, the Liberals (which Macron and his LREM party have recently joined).

The system was used for the first time in the last European elections in 2014, when Jean-Claude Juncker was the EPP candidate. The idea is to make the EU’s executive branch more democratic, by having voters indirectly choose the Commission President. The party that can command a majority of seats in the parliament has its candidate become Commission President. But the process has been marred by difficulty in getting the word out to citizens that it even exists. Most voters do not know the names of the three main Spitzenkandidaten.

The other problem is that the system is not laid down in any law, and technically it is still up to the Council of 28 national leaders to appoint the president. But, the parliament can block their appointment by majority vote. And MEPs have threatened to do so if the council appoints a non-Spitzen.

Macron bristled in his final press conference to accusations that he is trying to stymie EU democracy by keeping the choice over Commission president in “smoke-filled backrooms” of the European Council of 28 national leaders.

“The treaties [giving the European Council this power] were put to people and approved,” he said. “Now we hear a tune that the Council should no longer use its powers. But all the people in the Council were elected and have as much legitimacy to make these decisions.” He noted that his idea to have the president selected by transnational lists was rejected by the EPP, because they know the current system benefits them as the largest party.

All In the Mix

There are other positions to fill as well—European Council President, High Representative for Foreign Affairs, European Parliament President and European Central Bank President. All of them are in the mix in these negotiations, but the big prize is the Commission presidency. And the EPP is insisting it should be theirs. In the past, all of these “top jobs” have been chosen at once – though there is no requirement to do so.

At the end of the summit, it was clear that many leaders think it is time to broaden the search beyond the list of Spitzenkandidaten. They would prefer it to be one of their own, a current or former national leader. Angela Merkel’s name has continually come up, though she shot down the suggestion for the umpteenth time when it was put to her at her press conference. Belgium’s Prime Minister Charles Michel has been suggested for Council President.

But the most likely person to get the role continues to be Michel Barnier, the EU’s Brexit negotiator. He was not a Spitzenkandidat, but he is a member of the EPP and seemed to be running a stealth campaign ahead of the election. What remains to be seen is whether the parliament would confirm a non-Spitzenkandidat.

Council President Donald Tusk yesterday called an extraordinary summit for June 30, so all of the leaders will come back to Brussels a week from now to try again for an agreement. But it is unclear how they will be any closer to deciding by then.

Macron insisted that they must, because the issue needs to be settled before July 2, when the new European Parliament meets for the first time in Strasbourg and new presidents of the parliament and the European Central Bank must be chosen. “We’ve seen in the past that any time we lag or waste time, it only makes it more difficult to make a decision,” the French president warned.

Climate Failure

The leaders also failed to take a decision on a plan to decarbonize the EU by 2050. This was the last chance for the EU to adopt the target ahead of a UN conference of the parties to the Paris Agreement in New York in September. The UN secretary general had written to the leaders urging them not to come to the summit empty-handed, saying the commitment for the EU to increase ambition was needed to get other countries to also strengthen their emissions reduction targets.

The target needs to be unanimously agreed by all EU countries. In recent weeks support for the target was building, with Merkel flipping on her initial hesitation and backing the target last week. But in the end, four countries still opposed the target this week. Poland was in the lead with wielding the veto, followed by Hungary, Estonia, and the Czech Republic. They objected to the commitment to decarbonization by a specific date, preferring instead a more vague time commitment.

The summit’s final conclusions say that the EU will “ensure a transition to a climate neutral EU ‘in line with the Paris Agreement’”—removing a reference in the original draft to the specific target date of 2050.

The EU could still adopt the 2050 target at its next European Council summit in October, but this would be after the September climate summit in New York and therefor unlikely to make a difference.

As the national leaders gave their final press conferences, there was a sense of frustration over the fact that so little had been accomplished. And they were certainly even more frustrated that they will have to come back to Brussels in just a week.

The post Failure in Brussels appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Vincent Kessler

(1) The Key Decision

During the first months of its term, the new European Parliament will need to confirm the new president of the European Commission. According to the treaties, it is the heads of state and government who nominate the commission president—the most powerful position in the EU—and the parliament only gets to confirm or reject her or him. But in 2014, the European Parliament instituted the Spitzenkandidat (lead candidate) system and elected Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European Commission.

2019 will show whether that system is here to stay, but a bit of background is needed to understand how it works (or why it might fail): the various national parties represented in the European Parliament organize themselves into political groups. They whip MEPs in votes just like in national parliaments. Each of these groups has fielded a Spitzenkandidat, and parliamentarians have vowed to make that choice stick: In theory, only a Spitzenkandidat who can command a majority in the parliament is supposed to become the next president.

If you listen to the EPP, the next president will almost certainly be their Spitzenkandidat, Manfred Weber of Germany, since they are projected to come first in the election. The EPP is also currently the largest group in the parliament, with almost a third of the seats. It is a broad tent that includes liberal parties like Finland’s NCP, centrist parties like the German CDU/CSU, and right-wing parties like Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz of Hungary, which is currently suspended as part of the civil war between the right and left flanks that is wracking the party.

Other groups in the Parliament, however, have soured on the Spitzenkandidat process and are unlikely to anoint Weber simply because the EPP comes first. He needs to command a majority, which the EPP will not have on its own. The center-left Socialists & Democrats, presently the second largest group with a quarter of seats, have fielded Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans from the Netherlands as Spitzenkandidat and may not be willing to support Weber.

The process is also meeting headwinds from national leaders, particularly from French President Emmanuel Macron, who says it is the right of the European Council to appoint the commission president. So the council may choose to disregard the Spitzenkandidat system altogether and appoint someone who was not a candidate, such as Frenchman Michel Barnier, who distinguished himself during the Brexit negotiations.

Margrethe Vestager, the high-profile competition commissioner from Denmark, could be a choice that satisfies both the parliament and the council, since she has somehow managed to run as a Spitzenkandidat for the third-largest group, the liberal family of ALDE, without endorsing the system.

(2) The Biggest Issues

In contrast to national parliaments, the European Parliament is not allowed to draw up legislative proposals of its own—that’s the privilege of the European Commission, which therefore tends to set the agenda. But European laws need to be approved by both the parliament and the council, which is made up of ministers from each national government.

The parliament tends to be more ambitious and strengthen commission proposals, while the council is more conservative, watering down proposals more often than not. National governments complain that the European Parliament adds unrealistic amendments to legislation because MEPs aren’t the ones who have to implement the laws—that will fall to the national governments represented in the council.

MEPs also have a say about spending. While the outgoing Commission makes a proposal for the EU’s upcoming seven-year budget, and the member-states must reach unanimity in the council, the Parliament must give its final consent. As usual, the current parliament has asked for higher spending than the Commission has proposed for the 2021-27 budget round, particularly in areas related to climate protection.

In the coming term, the new parliament may take up Macron’s ideas for reforming the eurozone’s financial rules. MEPs will need to take up recent proposals to establish a European Defense Union and a beefed-up defense capability that is more independent of the United States. With political pressure mounting over the migration issue, MEPs may also take up a proposal to change the EU’s border policies.

With EU-US trade talks having resumed in April, the parliament will likely also need to vote on whether to approve such a deal. The result is anything but certain, because MEPs passed a resolution last year saying the EU should not sign free trade deals with countries not party to the Paris Climate Agreement.

During the 2014-19 term, the parliament voted on almost 1,000 legislative proposals from the Juncker Commission. On a macro level, the big issues MEPs grappled with over were navigating a way out of the economic slump, handling the migration crisis, and reacting to Brexit.

But the more important achievements came in individual pieces of legislation. MEPs voted on a new set of privacy laws, and just before the end of the term they approved a controversial reform of the EU’s copyright rules—a law some have labeled the “meme ban.”  The parliament also held a hearing with Mark Zuckerberg to demand answers about what data Facebook is collecting on its users and how it handles political advertising.

One of the decisions that has had the biggest immediate impact on EU citizens was the 2015 vote to end mobile phone roaming charges within the EU in 2017. The parliament also voted to end card payment fees in the EU. Furthermore, it enacted a number of climate laws, including new CO2 reduction targets for 2030, car emission reduction requirements, and requirements for energy efficiency and renewables. It also cracked down on plastic carrier bags and other single-use plastics.

(3) The Dangerous Split

Polls predict a sizeable rise of far-right populist parties in the new parliament—parties who will certainly try to use their clout to hinder European legislation. To be effective, they need to organize in political groups, but given the many competing agendas, that may prove difficult.

In the old parliament, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group were the largest group of the right-wing. It was formed by then British Prime Minister David Cameron in 2009, when he took his Conservative Party out of the EPP and instead got into an alliance with Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) and the Czech Civic Democrats (ODS).

It has been unclear what will happen to this group in the next term. If Brexit goes ahead before May 23, ECR would be dominated by the Poles, or it could take on like-minded allies like Fidesz and Italy’s Lega. However, the two party leaders, Orbán and Matteo Salvini, seem keen to form new groups that revolve around them. But even if the United Kingdom takes part in the election, it’s unclear whether the British Conservatives would want to disrupt the group formation process by continuing to be part of the ECR.

The other current groups on the far right are Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD) and Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF), which hold 5 percent of seats each. Former UKIP and now Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage heads the EFDD, and the group was long dominated by UKIP. This changed in 2014 when they admitted the Italian Five Star Movement (M5S), with both parties having a roughly equal number of MEPs.

However, UKIP and M5S have had a tumultuous relationship, and it is unlikely they would sit together again in the next term. UKIP has since almost collapsed and about half of its MEPs have quit the party, including Farage (though he has remained as leader of the EFDD).

(4) The Biggest Unknown

Speculating about UKIP and Farage brings us nicely to a short and particularly thorny question about the European elections: Will the United Kingdom take part? Prime Minister Theresa May certainly has an incentive to try and push through a deal before May 23—having to take part in the elections will deepen the splits within her Conservatives. What’s more, given her performance on Brexit over the past several months, the party is likely to take a beating in the elections.

For the time being, the specter of Brexit continues to loom over the parliament, and because of the latest extension it’s not even clear how many MEPs there will be after the election. The number and distribution of MEPs had been changed in anticipation of the UK departing, but now that will have to be shelved. And not to forget: MEPs will have to approve any final Brexit deal.

(5) The Great Hassle

With or without Britain, one thing is not going to change for the new European Parliament: MEPs will continue to split their time between the French city of Strasbourg and Brussels.

The treaties stipulate that the parliament’s seat is in Strasbourg, but in 1985 MEPs unilaterally built themselves a new home in Brussels in order to be with the other two EU institutions and not be shut out of decision-making. France took the parliament to court, and a compromise was reached, whereby MEPs must spend one week a month in Strasbourg.

Recently, CDU leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, possibly the next German chancellor, dared to suggest dropping Strasbourg. Most national governments would probably be happy to agree—but certainly not France, champion of the city of Strasbourg and its flourishing hotel and restaurant trade. And as changing the seat of the parliament would need a change to the European treaties, unanimity is required.

In other words, the “traveling circus” will continue, and new MEPs had better get used to that quickly.

The post Europe’s Parliament: Five Things to Know appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

From its very beginnings, the European Parliament has often been the target of scorn from commentators. They claimed it was a mere bauble of European integration with little power to challenge the member states of what was then the European Community. This reputation for institutional weakness fostered a tendency to treat elections to the European Parliament as a sideshow, where the strength of parties on a national level could be assessed in contests that were unlikely to cause them existential trouble. Yet through the Lisbon Treaty of 2009, the power of the European Parliament to shape legislation and affect the composition of the European Commission has expanded to a level far beyond the expectations of those first MEP candidates who stood in 1979.

In the process, gaining MEPs in European elections has become a central goal for any party or movement that wants to exert decisive influence over a European integration process that is reconfiguring Europe. Moments of turmoil such as the eurozone crisis, the Syrian refugee wave, the tensions between Ukraine and Russia or the end of old regimes in North Africa have underlined how the fate of member states is intertwined with the development of the EU and the states along its collective borders. Moreover, the Brexit crisis has starkly demonstrated the extent to which EU institutions can exert enormous pressure on states who attempt to challenge the structural foundations of European integration.

The ongoing nature of this process of institutional transformation has turned this year’s European elections, on May 23-26, 2019, into a crucial test for the political survival of newer as well as more established political groups, as part of the wider struggle to shape Europe’s future course. In the process, the long-term trajectory of key party families could be crucially affected by successes and failures on the European level. Right-wing populist parties, the Green movement, traditional Social Democrats, the alliance of center-right parties organized in the European People’s Party (EPP), and groups oriented toward liberalism as well as the far left could each experience a massive boost through these electoral battles or be plunged into a difficult position if its results point to further setbacks to come.

Far Right’s Change of Tactics

Of all these different political forces, right-wing populists have attracted the most attention. The recent entry of such parties into government in Austria and Italy in combination with the successes of the Leave campaign in the United Kingdom have fostered a misleading tendency to portray such movements as a new force within European politics. In reality, French parties under the leadership of the Le Pen family have been a force to be reckoned with since the 1980s, while Italy’s Lega and Austria’s FPÖ have gained power on the local and national level since the early 1990s. Even in Germany or Spain, where right-wing populist parties have only broken through at the national level since 2014, they have built on activist networks that have been operating on a regional level for several decades.

This history of right-wing populist parties in the EU means that there is also a track record that can be examined when it comes to assessing their ability to build a cohesive EU-wide party family. Such efforts have often foundered as the particular national interests of such movements hampered their ability to cooperate effectively on the European level. Yet the emergence of figures who have become Europe-wide household names, such as Lega leader (and Italian interior minister) Matteo Salvini, could well mark the beginnings of a decisive shift toward cooperation within the European Parliament and other institutions. Also, transnational far-right networks such as the Identitarian movement show an increasing interest in capturing EU institutions rather than bringing them down

European parties committed to defending an open society face many of the same strategic dilemmas as their right-wing populist rivals. Yet though they share an abhorrence of the populist right, the liberal parties grouped in ALDE as well as France’s La Republique En Marche, the German Green Party, Poland’s Wiosna or Romania’s USR, to name just a few examples, each draw on their own distinct set of ideological traditions. The way the Remain movement in the UK has splintered politically is typical of how attempts to push back against right-wing populism do not make other ideological dividing lines disappear.

Green Surge, Flailing Center-Left

Green surges in Germany and the Netherlands are likely to bolster the number of Green MEPs, who will want to carve out their own distinct ideological niche. By contrast, the way the votes of those who identify with social liberalism have fractured across different parties will make coordination more difficult for the ALDE party family. Far-left parties like Spain’s Podemos that enjoyed rapid growth in the wake of the Eurozone crisis face their own struggle to retain voters. They may be tempted by new populist options while still trying to maintain a coherent ideological identity to ensure that core supporters who abhor far right ideas remain loyal.

As elections in Europe increasingly become affected by mobilization for the populist right and counter-mobilization against it, parties that are not strongly identified with either position are struggling. Having presented itself as being neither left nor right, Italy’s Five Star Movement (M5S) has become ground down as the voter coalition it constructed has become difficult to sustain. Perhaps most severely affected have been traditional Social Democratic parties such as Germany’s SPD, who in trying to triangulate to appeal to voters on both sides of the divide in the battle over populism have ended up satisfying none. Others like Spain’s PSOE have been more successful. All in all, however, the center-left group, the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, is likely to return to the European Parliament in a weakened condition.

Dramatic Structural Shifts

In an environment where established party networks are fragmenting while emerging ones are struggling to coalesce, the EPP can still maintain dominance despite losses and internal tensions of its own. Even if Hungary’s Fidesz breaks with the EPP, all it needs to do is to remain stronger than any rival in a fragmenting party landscape is to control ad hoc processes of coalition-building and shape the composition of the European Commission. One of Europe’s many paradoxes at this juncture is that, at a moment where the EU’s emergence as a central global actor has accelerated the fragmentation of European politics, the political network most likely to take advantage is made up of center-right parties that have dominated the politics of member states for decades.

The relentless emphasis on the rise of right-wing populism in much of the US and British news media in particular has diverted attention from how the EU’s growing geopolitical power and the European Parliament’s rapidly expanding influence within its system have led to more dramatic structural shifts in European society. These dramatic structural shifts have fostered the emergence of different players as new parties have risen to prominence during moments of crisis that link the individual fate of voters with that of the EU as a whole. Yet while some parties that have dominated the European Parliament since that first election of 1979 have come under enormous pressure, others have adapted to sustain a strong grip on Europe’s future. In a period when so much in European politics is in flux, perhaps being the least noisy player in the game can ultimately be the cleverest move of all.

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EuropeElects; Data as of April 24, 2019

From May 23 to 26, 2019, voters across the European Union will head to the polls to elect a new European Parliament. With party politics undergoing a revolution at the national level and uncertainty over the future of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU, the European elections come at a pivotal time. How will these elections change the EU’s political and institutional dynamics? It’s up to the EU’s 400 million voters (not counting Britain) to decide.

Will the Center Hold?

The elections will likely end the long era of big party dominance of the parliament’s business and of its committees. Mainstream center-right and center-left parties have traditionally retained a comfortable majority in the EU’s main institutions, including the European Parliament. Now, however, the populists are on course to make big electoral gains that could disrupt the Christian Democrat/Social Democrat tandem that have run the chamber for over 40 years.

Rising socio-economic inequalities and the divisive 2015 migration crisis have had a damaging effect on the public’s trust in political leadership. Consequently, disaffected voters are increasingly casting their votes in favor of anti-establishment candidates who promise radical change. If the recent national trends continue, both the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) and the center-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) are expected to lose many seats.

According to the latest data from Europe Elects (and assuming UK participation), the EPP will come in at 180 seats—a net loss of 41. It will, however, remain the parliament’s largest political group. The S&D is predicted to lose almost as heavily, with a drop of 30 to only 161 seats.
For the first time, the EPP and the S&D then may fail to jointly command a majority, which could empower other groups, especially the liberal ALDE, which is projected to become the third largest grouping. The Europe Elects model projects 104 seats for ALDE, should French President Emmanuel Macron’s projected 23 MEPs from La République En Marche join the group.

The question then arises as to whether the centrist parties will manage to agree on the most important topics. In the new parliament it will likely become more difficult to garner enough votes to pass legislation. While this may decrease the parliament’s legislative efficiency, the pro-EU political groups will still command a clear majority due to the Liberals and the Greens/EFA, who are set to win 51 seats. However, with the right-wing populists surging, all centrist parties will have to pull together to guarantee the regular functioning of the Parliament.

No Business as Usual

A number of reasons make us assume that the European Parliament will be less governable after the elections.

First, it is very difficult to predict the composition of the right-wing political groups after May. At a news conference on April 8, Italy’s Interior Minister and Lega leader, Matteo Salvini, announced his plan to form a new right-wing alliance called the European Alliance for People and Nations (EAPN), which would draw members from existing right-wing groups, among them the far-right Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF) alliance. Traditionally divided, the populist right will aim to join forces to challenge the power of the governing bloc.

It is too early to say how much influence the new grouping could have, but a strong performance of right-wing populist parties could shake up the dynamics inside the European Parliament. Assuming that all ENF members—which is currently projected to win 62 seats—join the new group, EAPN may be in contention to beat out ALDE and become the third largest parliamentary group, at 85 seats. The right-wing populists would thus be far from commanding a majority, but the resulting polarization may cause uncertainty for policy-making and risks paralyzing the EU.

The creation of EAPN will also lead to the breakup of the right-wing populist Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy group, which was already likely to collapse following the departure of the British MEPs, and the shrinking of the conservative ECR group (64 seats projected). This would leave large parties like Italy’s Five Star Movement (M5S) and Poland’s PiS in search of new allies, and potentially able to tip the balance of the new parliament. With 49 seats (projected), the left-wing GUE/NGL group will likely repeat its performance of 2014.

These numbers assume that the UK will not leave the EU before May 23. UK participation will prevent the planned reduction from 751 to 705 MEPs—and an eventual UK departure would weaken the social democrats, possibly bringing them down to their worst result in EU history.

Indeed, an average of polls compiled by Europe Elects shows that the UK Labour Party is likely to win a landslide should the UK participate, picking up around 30 seats. Labour would then represent the largest national delegation in the S&D group. This would help close the center-left’s gap with the EPP, which would not gain a single seat from British participation, since the UK has no EPP party.

This swing could even be enough to tip the balance of power in favor of a progressive alliance between the S&D, ALDE, the Greens and parts of the radical left (the GUE-NGL group is more likely to make small losses than gains in May), sending the EPP into opposition for the first time. The UK participating in the European elections would have a disruptive impact, on Brussels as well as Westminster.

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© REUTERS/Ints Kalnins

For months, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has been walking right up to the line of seceding from his center-right EU political group, the European Peoples Party (EPP). This week, he made an unprecedented attack on EPP group leaders, seeming to openly dare them to expel him.

On Monday, Orbán’s hard-right Fidesz party, which governs Hungary as a virtual one-party state, launched a taxpayer-funded campaign attacking the European Union and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker specifically.

The government’s official Facebook page shared an image of Juncker and Hungarian-American businessman George Soros saying, “you have the right to know what Brussels is preparing for!”. It accused Juncker of threatening Hungary’s security.

“They want to introduce mandatory resettlement quotas,” the post said. “They want to weaken member states’ rights to border protection. They would ease immigration with migrant visas”.

Juncker, who is a member of the same EPP group as Orbán, hit back the following day at a public event in Stuttgart. “Against lies there’s not much you can do,” he said. “There is no overlap at all between Orbán and myself…I believe his place is not in the European People’s Party.” Key EPP members in Berlin also turned up the pressure on the self-styled “illiberal democrat” from Budapest: CDU party leader Annegret-Kramp Karrenbauer said “it is up to the Hungarian side to prove it still feels a part of the EPP”, while CSU leader Markus Söder said Orbán was “going in the wrong direction”.

Back in Brussels, Joseph Daul, the EPP’s president, released a series of tweets defending Juncker and decrying the Hungarian government’s campaign. “Instead of casting Brussels as a ghost enemy, Hungary must realize it is a part of it.” However, he stopped short of calling for Orbán to be kicked out of the group.

New Far-Right Behemoth?

But EPP insiders say Budapest’s new campaign could be the last straw in the long-simmering tensions within the EPP–because the party’s highest-profile leader in Brussels is now openly calling for Fidesz to be kicked out.

Such a split would have huge implications for the upcoming European Parliament elections in May. The EPP has been at pains to avoid a fracture for fear that Orbán will start a new hard-right political group to rival the EPP, jeopardizing its strong majority in the Parliament and the European Council of the 28 national governments.

Such a hard-right group could lure other EPP parties, as well as current members of the Eurosceptic European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group such as Poland’s Law and Justice party. The ECR, set up by the British Conservatives in 2009, seems likely to disband after Brexit. Italy’s Lega Nord and Five Star Movement, as well as far-right parties like France’s Rassemblement National, could also be tempted to join Orbán’s new group.

Such a realignment could create the most powerful far-right movement in Europe since World War II.

Orbán is angry because the EU has opened infringement proceedings against his government for rule-of-law violations.  He stands accused of having dismantled democratic institutions and freedom of the press in the country since his party took an unprecedented two-thirds majority in the Hungarian parliament in 2010. Here the Hungarian has something in common with Poland’s government, which is also facing EU investigations.

Following the European Parliament’s vote to open infringement proceedings, all eyes were on Orbán to see if we would leave the EPP, which until that time had protected him from EU scrutiny. However, Orbán chose to remain in the group at that time, though his continued presence caused tensions at the EPP party congress in November.

European election hangs in the balance

All of this will have clear implications for who becomes Juncker’s successor following the end of his term in the Autumn. The European political groups intend to once again turn to the spitzenkandidat (lead candidate) process, which was used for the first time in 2014 to elect Juncker. Under the system, each group nominates a lead candidate, and the candidate that can secure the most votes in the new European Parliament, which will take its seat in July, will become Commission President.

However, national governments are not keen on the idea, having only sleep-walked into it in 2014. There is intense doubt about whether one of the six lead candidates will actually become the next Commission President, even though the European Parliament has vowed that it will not approve anyone other than them. Instead, the governments are expected to nominate their own person and pressure the parliament to accept him or her.

In 2014, there was intense pressure on national leaders to accept Juncker, the spitzenkandidat for the EPP, as the president. The EPP had clearly won the European election, obtaining far more seats than the other parties. But though the EPP is again projected to ‘win’ the elections this year, it will likely be by a far lower margin. Losing Orbán and perhaps others would push them even lower, jeopardizing the chances of this year’s EPP spitzenkandidat, Manfred Weber, being approved by the Parliament and Council. A majority vote in both institutions is necessary to become president.

With the Liberal ALDE group gaining traction, in part thanks to the prospect of a partnership with French President Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche party, there is an increasing possibility of the EPP failing to come first in this year’s election. The Orbán decision may determine ALDE’s fate. Even though his Fidesz party does not have many MEPs, Orbán could bring other defecting EPP parties with him.

Juncker is well aware that Orbán was one of only two prime ministers to vote against him in 2014 – the other being Britain’s David Cameron. Orbán is now focusing his ire on Weber, his one-time defender turned critic. Weber came out strongly against Orbán on Friday, saying “I find some of the wording unacceptable. One cannot belong to the EPP and campaign against the current EPP Commission president.”

The task of keeping the EPP together will now fall on the party’s spitzenkandidat, and he must make a choice. Either Weber will heed the advice of Juncker and expel Fidesz from the group, or he will avoid the risk and try to placate Orbán over the next three months, postponing a decision about his party’s future until after the election. He will need to make a decision soon.

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© REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo

The widespread assumption that good governance and high quality of democracy lead to better policy outcomes may hold true for many countries, but not for all. The 2018 report of the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI) found that “all eastern European countries (…) achieve better political results than their governance quality would suggest.” In other words, despite democratic backsliding and political polarization, even countries like Hungary, Poland, and Romania receive better scores for policy outcomes than might be typical for countries with institutional and governance problems.

And the SGI report notifies another very important fact: Decreasing the quality of democracy does not immediately reduce citizens’ confidence in the government. The report concludes that “fundamental democratic values are not sufficiently anchored in the political consciousness of a considerable part of society.” A high level of trust in governments with poor rule-of-law scores is mainly observed in central and eastern European countries—and Turkey, which will be left aside here. But what are the root causes of this trust? It would be foolish to focus solely on governmental influence on media, state capture of the public sector, or disinformation campaigns—all of them have their impact, but the origins of this phenomenon have to be searched for in different places.

Own Way Is Best

While these countries are as different as their respective paths, there are a few common features. Firstly, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Jarosław Kaczyński in Poland, and Andrej Babiš in the Czech Republic have all questioned the transformation process of the 1990s. They have characterized the import of economic liberalism and some political attitudes (but not the whole process of democratization) as a failure, one which primarily served the interests of new political and economic elites and therefore must be undone or corrected. Such political messages understandably attracted a significant number of voters who lost out during the economic transformation process. It’s not an accident that two of these national-conservative and right-wing populist parties, Fidesz in Hungary and Law and Justice (PiS) in Poland, have strong support in economically underdeveloped and peripheral areas.

Secondly, some people still feel left behind despite the improvement of general economic performance since 1990.  In particular, the social policies of the 1990s and 2000s were perceived as underdeveloped by the public, and the new governments partly succeeded in filling this gap. For example, a study by the Polish Public opinion research center CBOS shows how the activities of the state toward the family were assessed over time: from mid 1990s until 2013, only around 10 percent of the respondents rated the state’s policy toward families as good or very good. But since the PiS government came to power and introduced a program of subsidies for families with two or more children, the public rating of government’s family policies rocketed. In 2016 and 2017, around 50 percent assessed it as good or very good, 35 percent as sufficient, and only 10 percent as poor. However, in other social policy areas, especially education, PiS hasn’t been as successful. Poles criticized the government’s education reform for overly centralizing control—they perceive the quality of education to be worse than before.

Thirdly, identity politics also plays an important role in maintaining support for the present governments. Political leaders have exploited the so-called refugee crisis in Europe to consolidate of their popularity. The depiction of refugees as a security threat became part of the political mainstream, and politicians like Slovakian Robert Fico, Orbán, or Babiš have spread the message that their firm attitude of “zero tolerance” would stop migration. Moreover, their political narrative also included islamophobia and bashing of the Western European countries for their policies of tolerance and solidarity. It has to be said that politicians and the vast majority of the public are on the same page in this regard.

Confronted with an East-West Divide

These leaders are aware of the great confidence they enjoy among citizens. They are also backed by good economic performance. Though nothing should be taken for granted in politics—the next general elections could change the current political course, at least in some countries like Poland and Slovakia—the growing self-confidence among the present central and eastern European leaders has implications for the EU.

More generous social policies make people feel that they are being seen and recognized. Moreover, assertive foreign policies create a distinction between the new governments and the previous political elites, who generally followed the western European (development) model.

Migration remains a key issue. The division between some central and eastern European countries on one side and EU institutions as well as some western European countries on the other side regarding compulsory relocation of asylum-seekers still resonates. Especially the Visegrád Group countries (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia) see these liberal migration policies as a threat to their identities, for they believe that the “policies of multiculturalism” would ruin central European societies, value systems, and cultures—as has allegedly happened in western Europe.

Enlargement fatigue—the feeling in some member states, including France and Germany, that the major round of accessions in 2004 has weakened the EU—has transformed into the present East-West divide. The East, for its part, is presenting itself as a confident player, with leaders who are not connected with the liberal transformation and meet the expectations of the public to speak up for their interests at EU level. The quarrel started with migration policies, but it is spilling over into a broader cultural conflict.

Central European leaders win additional points for saying that this part of Europe is different (that is to say better) than western Europe, which must be no longer so diligently imitated. This East-West fragmentation (like the North-South divide on austerity) will play a significant role in the run-up to the European elections in May. And after that, it may be difficult to put the European puzzle together again.

The post Weak Polity, Strong Policy? appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

In May 2014, the European Parliament in Brussels was the scene of some must-see TV. The European Broadcasting Union, mostly known for organizing the Eurovision song contest, held a televised debate between the five people running to be the next European Commission president.

The parliament’s plenary chamber was turned into a dramatic TV set, complete with changing lighting and suspenseful music. The Brussels bubble was enthralled. But even though the debate aired on TV stations across Europe, the ratings were dismal. This led people to ask the fabled “tree in the forest” question—if a presidential election takes place, but nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

The truth is that even among the EU politics wonks in the audience, there was skepticism about whether one of these people would actually become the next EU Commission president. That’s because the parliament’s political groups were essentially holding this contest without getting permission from the EU’s national leaders, who are the ones who appoint the head of the commission.

But in the end, one of those people did end up becoming president: Jean-Claude Juncker, the candidate of Angela Merkel’s center-right European People’s Party (EPP). This improbable outcome was the result of shrewd political manipulation by Juncker’s right-hand man, some might say puppet master, Martin Selmayr.

Five years on, here we go again. The contest is shaping up, and the parliament has sworn it will not confirm any candidate who was not put forward by one of the European parties. But many are skeptical that one of these so-called Spitzenkandidaten (“lead candidate”) will once again become president. Even though they were proved wrong last time, this time around the nay-sayers have more cause for their incredulity.

Spitzenkandidat’s Birth

The whole exercise has less to do with European democracy than it does with EU institutional power games.

The idea was first devised 15 years ago, by the people drafting the European Constitution. That charter eventually became the Lisbon Treaty, passed in 2009, and a nebulous phrase regarding the selection of Commission president survived: the 28 national leaders of the EU will select the Commission president by “taking into account” the result of the European elections.

The European Parliament insists this means that the leaders must select the candidate of the political group that won the most seats in the election, or the one that can get a majority vote in the parliament. Last time around, it was the EPP that received the most votes and so, under a procedure similar to national parliamentary democracies, its candidate, Juncker, got first crack at trying to form a majority. That he did, by getting the votes of MEPs from the other two main parties, the center-left Party of European Socialists (PES) and Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE).

The national EU leaders didn’t accept the legitimacy of what became known as the spitzenkandidat system, from the German word for top or lead candidate. But they never did anything early on to stop the process from going ahead, much to the annoyance of then-British Prime Minister David Cameron, who warned the leaders the process was going to become an unstoppable freight train unless they clearly rejected it early in 2014.

Cameron was right. By the time the election was over, Selmayr was able to convince his friends in the German media to launch a full-scale pressure campaign on Merkel to accept Juncker as the democratically-elected president of Europe. Never mind the fact that most voters had no idea the contest was even happening, and even political elites had laughed it off as a bizarre experiment. Merkel felt the pressure, and in turn strong-armed other EU leaders to accept the result. Only Cameron and Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán voted against confirming Juncker.

In February 2018, the EU’s national leaders again said they do not recognize the legitimacy of the spitzenkandidat system. Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, always good for a cryptic tweet, warned “don’t count your spitzens before they’re hatched”.

Lackluster Candidates

The parties have again chosen their candidates now. In 2014 they included two former prime ministers (Luxembourg’s Juncker and Belgium’s Guy Verhofstadt for the Liberals), one current prime minister (Greece’s Alexis Tsipras for far-left GUE), and a parliament president (Martin Schulz for the PES, who later went on to lead the SPD’s failed election campaign to be chancellor of Germany).

This time is quite different. The EPP was the only party to hold a primary campaign to select its nominee, and in what many considered a “backroom deal,” they rejected the dynamic former Finnish Prime minister Alex Stubb in favour of the mild-mannered EPP group leader Manfred Weber, largely unknown outside the Brussels bubble (and not very known within it either).

PES failed to hold a primary contest and anointed the only man interested in the job, the current Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans, who is relatively well-known on the European stage for taking on Hungary and Poland for their rule of law violations.

The Liberal ALDE group has so far refused to put forward any candidate at all. That’s because French President Emmanuel Macron has come out strongly against the spitzenkandidat system, and the Liberals are hoping to woo him into placing his En Marche party within their group. They are waiting to see what the lay of the land is in February before deciding whether to put forward a candidate.

The euroskeptic European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, formed by Cameron in 2009 by uniting his Conservatives with the strongly nationalist Polish PiS party, refused to participate in the process in 2014 because they viewed it as a further attempt at forming an EU super-state. But with the Brits on the way out and the future of the group unclear, the Poles have chosen to put forward Czech MEP Jan Zahradil as the ECR’s candidate. The Greens have put forward two candidates, Dutch MEP Bas Eickhout and German MEP Ska Keller. GUE, the far-left political group that put forward Tsipras last time, has not yet decided whether to participate.

Watch Out for Barnier

Out of all the candidates, the only one with significant political stature is Timmermans, a prominent politician in the Netherlands who has some clout on the Europeans stage. But given the social democrats’ waning political fortunes, it is doubtful that a PES candidate could become Commission president. Right now it looks like the PES could come third or even fourth in May’s election. Given that there are currently only three center-left governments in Europe (in Spain, Portugal, and Slovakia, with Sweden’s government set to fall any moment), it would be bizarre for the EU Commission president to be from the center-left.

Indeed, the betting money in Brussels right now is on a man who is not one of the candidates—the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier. He is center-right but was unable to enter the EPP nomination contest because his current job is not yet over. But don’t be surprised if he is put forward by EU leaders following the European election, if they choose to disregard the spitzenkandidat process. The big question will then be whether the European Parliament will carry through on its threat to reject any president who was not a candidate.

The underwhelming nature of the candidates so far could mean that ALDE has everything to play for when the liberals make their decision on a candidate in February. And much will depend on Macron’s political fortunes.

When he first came out against the process in early 2018, Macron’s voice carried some weight. His En Marche party, having just won a majority in the French parliament, was expected to win many seats in the European Parliament, too. But now, with the yellow vest movements having damaged his political power both domestically and internationally, Macron may not have the political capital to spend on a bareknuckle fight against the winning spitzenkandidat.

A Damp Squib in 2019

Macron’s big issue with the system is that he views it as an EPP-stitch up. The center-right was certain to win the largest number of seats in 2014, and the center-right designers of the system knew that. They are also almost certain to win the most seats this time, although by a less crushing margin than in 2014.

Macron has proposed that the European elections be fought on ideological grounds, with the centrist pro-EU parties rallying around a single platform against the anti-EU populists—to give European voters a clear choice. It is still possible that the ALDE candidate could emerge as such a de-facto pro-EU candidate, either before or after the election. One name that has been bandied about as someone who could deliver that message convincingly and engagingly to the public is Margrethe Vestager, the Danish EU Commissioner for competition.

Because it is not enshrined in law, the spitzenkandidat process is only as strong as the political groups make it. On the current path, the process is very likely to be a damp squib in 2019. Without Selmayr’s aggressive support, the second time around could also be the last for this democratic experiment.

That is, unless ALDE delivers a surprise in February.

The post Red Herring & Black Swan: Don’t Count Your Spitzens Before They Hatch appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Andreas Gebert

Germany’s Die Grünen, now polling around 20 percent as the second-strongest party after Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats and surging in regional elections in Bavaria and Hesse, refer to themselves as the “alternative to the Alternative” in a poke to the German anti-immigration, far-right party, Alternative für Deutschland. Indeed, the pro-Europe, pro-environment, pro-immigration party offers strikingly different answers to the issues mostly dominated by the far-right rhetoric recently.

Their sister parties in Belgium and in the Netherlands have also done well at the polls. In the 2017 general Dutch elections, while all eyes were on far-right Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party, the GroenLinks clinched the highest number of seats in parliament in their history. With their roots in environmental protest movements, Green parties can claim to be outsiders rather than mainstream.

The Greens have been picking up voters who feel betrayed by socialists or social democrats, and are uncomfortable with the far-right’s fear-mongering. They have been less successful in persuading liberal or center-right voters in significant numbers, except in Germany. Nevertheless, they seem to be well-equipped for a political arena that is no longer only divided by left and right, but is also dissected along fault lines between open and closed societies, pro-European and nationalist, urban and rural.

Isolated Successes

But despite the enthusiasm around the Green momentum this fall, it’s not likely to translate into a substantially bigger portion of the seats in the European Parliament at next spring’s election, or a bigger say in EU affairs. The Greens are not expected to dramatically increase their numbers, currently at 52 MEPs, although top mainstream parties, the center-right European People’s Party (EPP), and the center-left Party of European Socialists (PES), are both likely to lose dozens of seats.

Yet the Green group’s co-chair in the European Parliament Belgian MEP Philippe Lamberts sounds optimistic that Greens can deliver the recipe against populists in an age of anxiety about climate change and migration, coupled with the fear of being left behind by globalization.

“I have a good feeling about this election. The situation is worrying, populism is on the rise, but their victory is not a given. They have won in Italy, but have performed worse than expected in Sweden and the Netherlands,” he said recently.

While French president Emmanuel Macron is pitching himself against champions of illiberal democracy in Europe, such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán or Italy’s Matteo Salvini, expectations that he could transform European politics have dipped sharply. Macron has been mired in a political crisis at home, facing protestors whose cause the Greens are aiming to embrace.

“Macron is right that this election will pit national-populists against ‘progressives.’ But he is mistaken as far as the subject of the confrontation is concerned. This is about who offers the most credible and desirable alternative to mainstream policies, which Macron himself embodies—policies that make the EU the vehicle of adaptation for our countries to the neo-liberal version of globalization,” Lamberts quipped.

 Addressing Common Concerns

Greens are arguing for a need to address the concerns of voters who fled to the far-right. They point to deprived rural areas, where people feel abandoned as public services withdrew due to spending cuts. They point to the middle classes who are struggling to make ends meet, and some in the party argue that a socially blind green party has no future.

“We have put human dignity rather than the obsessive pursuit of short-term profit maximization at the center. Today, human beings and the planet are made to serve the economy, which in turn is made to serve finance. We have to reverse this and put finance at the service of the economy and the economy at the service of a dignified life for all human beings,” Lamberts added.

That means rethinking some of the underlying policies of the European project, such as pursuing economic growth above anything else. “What is good for Volkswagen is not automatically good for Germany. We have to do away with this thinking,” the Belgian politician said.

Greens emphasize that this approach could quell anxieties about migration as well, arguing that in the October elections Greens gained votes not despite, but because of migration.

“Either you run exclusion policies inside and outside, or you promote solidarity outside and inside,” Lamberts said, adding: “People want to hear a realistic solution on migration, that combines humanism and realism.”

“Not a Luxury Thing”

Lamberts’ emphasis on the social aspects has a practical side. Greens have to battle the perception that they represent well-off urbanites who can afford to worry about whales and forests.

“Green issues are not a luxury thing,” the German co-chair of the Green group in the EU parliament, Ska Keller said. She is one of the party’s lead candidates in the European election. “Climate change is very much a social issue,” she added, pointing out that rich people can move away from bad air quality or buy better quality food products.

But while it seems that uncertain voters in Germany and the Nordic countries hear that message, it has been far less successful in eastern and southern Europe.

Doru Frantescu, director of VoteWatch Europe, a think-tank in Brussels, said it is unlikely there would be a green wave next May. Victories are isolated and do not represent a continent-wide trend, he added. However, if the German Greens maintained their position as second biggest party at home, the party could come 5th overall in the EU parliament next year.

“But that’s the exception, not the rule,” Frantescu said. “Greens are quasi non-existent in Spain, Poland, and Italy.” According to VoteWatch Europe’s projections, the Greens will more or less maintain their numbers in the European Parliament, he added.

Few and Far Between

Currently, the Greens have two Hungarian MEPs who hail from different national parties, and a few from the Balkans and the Baltics. In general, however, Greens are seen as too radical and too left-wing in much of central and eastern Europe to attract sizeable support. While environmentalists played an important role in standing up for human rights and the rule of law, they face considerable obstacles in actually becoming viable political forces in countries that tend to be culturally more conservative, Frantescu said.

Keller, however, insists the tide is turning. “It’s not just a northern, western thing. In the south and the east of Europe we are doing well, too” the German MEP said, pointing out that a Green party managed to put forward candidates in each district in local elections in Poland recently. Green topics have also come to the forefront in Bulgaria, she added.

Indrek Tarand, an independent Estonian politician who sits with the Greens in the European Parliament said he hoped that voters would pick “a humanist trajectory for Europe, instead of those who want to take us back to the Middle Ages,” he said, referring to populist and extremist forces.

He also pointed out that Die Grünen in Germany were founded almost 40 years ago. “Perhaps we need more time,” he said.

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© REUTERS/Simon Dawson

March 29, 2019 is the date when the United Kingdom will, according to all expectations, become to first country to ever leave the European Union. That’s just eight weeks before citizens in the remaining 27 EU member-states will be called to the polls to elect the next European Parliament.

With Brexit negotiations hitting the wall and political paralysis reigning in London, it is still completely unclear how Brexit will unfold. Even an extension of negotiations beyond the envisaged exit date cannot be ruled out. However, whether it ends up being a “hard Brexit,” “soft Brexit,” or a “no deal,” the UK’s political representatives, including the 73 British members of the European Parliament, will have to leave the EU institutions as soon as Britain withdraws from the EU. This also applies for the transition period—should one be agreed—during which the UK, according to the draft withdrawal agreement, will continue to be bound by EU rules but will no longer be represented in the EU institutions. That won’t just mean the departure of Nigel Farage, the former leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP). It will also have a noticeable impact on the balance of power in the Strasbourg parliament.

The EPP as Winner

Among the major parties, the European People’s Party (EPP), home to the German Christian Democrats, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party, is set to benefit the most from Brexit. Since the British Conservatives left the EPP in 2009, Europe’s largest party has had no partner in the United Kingdom. As every other parliamentary group is set to lose MEPs, the EPP’s weight will increase in relative terms. In contrast, the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) will lose the British Labour Party. Labour has not only 20 MEPs, but also reached 40 percent of the votes in the last UK elections—while Social Democratic Parties slumped in Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and elsewhere. The S&D are thus set to lose one of their biggest members. The expected losses for the liberal ALDE group, the European Greens, and the European left will be significantly smaller.

This matters for the balance of power in the European Parliament. Combined with the expected losses of the social democratic parties in most of continental Europe, Brexit is expected to further strengthen and secure the EPP’s prospects of remaining the largest group in Strasbourg. These shifts will also have an effect on the Spitzenkandidat or “lead candidate” system. In 2014, the battle for the position as the largest parliamentary group was still considered an open race. Then, Martin Schulz, S&D’s leading candidate, could see himself as having a chance of becoming President of the Commission. But after 2019, majority building in the European Parliament will probably only be possible with the EPP. The EPP’s Spitzenkandidat will have, therefore, the best chance of becoming the President of the European Commission.

A Bad Deal for EU-Skeptics

The impact on the EU-skeptic groups will be even more significant. Due to their gains in the 2014 elections, EU critical parties have, overall, picked up nearly 20 percent of the seats in the EP. Nevertheless, they are divided across three political groups, and British Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) play an important role in each of these. The (so-far) moderately EU-skeptic grouping of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) is supported by two main national groups, the British Conservative Party and the Polish Law and Justice Party (PiS), which together account for 37 of the 73 ECR MEPs. Given Britain’s departure, the EP will lose the EU-skeptic MEPs who have at times been the most constructive. Even after Brexit the ECR, which is comprised of parties from 17 member-states, will have enough members to continue as a political group. However, its identity will be much more Central/Eastern-European, as 31 of the 54 remaining ECR MEPs will come from this region.

On the other hand, the “Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy” (EFDD), a fundamentally EU-skeptical group, is on the brink of collapse. From the start, this group has been a partnership of convenience between UKIP and the Italian Five Star Movement. While Brexit will see UKIP leave the European Parliament, the Five Star Movement has (at least rhetorically) scaled back on its criticism of the EU. For example, it voted for the Article 7 sanction procedure against Viktor Orban’s Hungarian government. It is thus likely to leave the EFFD, which will find it difficult to survive Brexit. The EFDD’s smaller members will therefore have to reorient themselves, either to the ECR or the ENF. The Swedish Democrats, for example, already left the EFDD in July for the ECR. This also affects the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), whose sole remaining MEP (of an original seven) sits with the EFDD. After the next elections, however, the AfD hopes for a significant number of MEPs, who thus may have a strong influence on the shape of the EU-skeptic groups in the EP. The EFDD’s time is certainly coming to an end.

The also fundamentally EU-skeptical group “Europe of Nations and Freedom” (ENF) is not home to any British party, though it still relies on individual British members to maintain its status as a political group. However, given expected gains for example for the Italian Lega, the ENF is likely to be able to form again after the 2019 elections.

Put simply, the EU-skeptic spectrum will have to rearrange itself after Brexit and the 2019 European elections. There are two basic scenarios for this: The first is a continued division into a national conservative ECR group with a strong central and eastern European influence on the one hand and a deeply right-wing, populist, fundamentally EU-skeptic ENF on the other. In this scenario, both groups would continue to struggle for the allegiance of national parties and thereby the dominance of the EU-skeptic camp. The second scenario is a collective EU-skeptic group that could reach from Hungary’s Fidesz (currently EPP), to the ECR parties, the EFDD and the ENF. A collective parliamentary group such as the one envisaged by Lega leader Matteo Salvini and supported by Donald Trump’s former advisor Stephen Bannon would have the potential to become the second largest parliamentary group in the EP after the 2019 elections.

A Shift Toward the Eurozone

However, shifts take place not only between political parties but also between member states. Already in the summer of 2018, the EU institutions decided how to deal with the 73 soon-to-be-vacant seats after Brexit. 27 of them will be divided up among 14 underrepresented member states in order to address imbalances in parliamentary representation.

The European Parliament will still become noticeably smaller for the first time, shrinking from 751 to 705 MEPs. France, for example, will get five additional MEPs, and Ireland two. Germany, however, will receive no additional representatives, as it is already at the upper limit of 96 set by the EU treaties.

The redistribution is based on shifts in the population sizes of the member states, but will also have a political effect. As a result of the withdrawal of the largest non-euro country, 85 percent of the EU economy will be concentrated in eurozone member states.  At the same time, 22 of the 27 redistributed seats are going to eurozone members. As a result, the share of MEPs coming from the eurozone will increase from 65 to 72 percent. The “South” in particular will benefit, i.e. the eurozone countries France, Italy, and Spain.

The 46 remaining British seats will initially be removed,  according to the principle “a smaller EU, a smaller parliament”. They will not only serve as a reserve for future EU enlargements but could also be used to introduce transnational lists for the European Parliament. This idea, promoted in particular by French President Emmanuel Macron, foresees using those 46 seats for a Europe-wide constituency in which European parties would directly compete for votes. Its proponents were unable to implement it for the elections in 2019, mostly because of opposition by the EPP. It is possible that such lists will be introduced for the next elections in 2024, seeing as Macron and Angela Merkel among others are calling for it.

The Risk of Extension

With less than six months to go before Britain’s planned withdrawal, Brexit negotiations continue to be characterised by maximum uncertainty. As of late October 2018, departure without an agreement, a rejection of the negotiation result in the British House of Commons as well as new elections are all still in the realm of the conceivable. Notably, Article 50 allows the EU-27 and the UK to unanimously agree to extend negotiations. This is currently not the wish of either side, but cannot be ruled out in view of the political crisis in London.

Should such a scenario come to pass, it would have considerable consequences for the European elections. If the Article 50 negotiations were extended, the UK would continue to be a member of the EU until the next deadline, with all the rights and obligations. This includes the retention of the 73 seats in the EP and would therefore require the UK to partake in the elections in May 2019.  According to the relevant texts, the EU would have to temporarily suspend the redistribution of seats.

From Brussels’ perspective, holding European elections in a country as it departs would be quite uncomfortable. The consequences for Britain, however, would be even more serious. Given the tense domestic political situation, European elections would almost inevitably become a sort of second referendum on Brexit. They would breathe new life into parties such as UKIP. Brexit advocates would attack the extension itself as a betrayal of the 2016 referendum, and Brexit opponents would beat the drum  at the prospects for staying in the EU. This would be an explosive combination—though it is, at this moment in time, only a fringe scenario.

A Historic Rupture

Finally, it is important not to underestimate the psychologic effect Britain’s likely departure will have on the European elections. The current negotiations are mainly focused on the economic and technical aspects of Brexit. At the same time, the clock seems to have stopped for Britain to some extent, as the country has not yet left the Union. Shortly before the European elections, however, the reality of Brexit will become abundantly clear—British representatives will leave every EU institution, Brexiteers will celebrate the consummation of the withdrawal, and the EU will be without its second-largest member-state. All of a sudden, there will be a large western European country on the EU’s doorstep that has opted for an alternative to European integration.

Causing and winning the British referendum to leave the EU is so far the greatest political success of the EU-skeptic movements, and anti-EU parties often hold Britain up as an example. At the same time, however, the difficulties of the Brexit negotiations, the ongoing political crisis in London, and Britain’s painful struggle over its decision are acting as a deterrent to other member-states. Since the Brexit referendum, support for EU membership has grown  across all of Europe. Most EU-skeptic parties seem to have learned from Brexit and Marine Le Pen’s defeat in the French presidential election. They no longer want to question their country’s membership in the EU per se but rather seek to fundamentally transform the EU’s political orientation from liberal democracy to a union of states with authoritarian tendencies that build new and old borders.

Thus, both Brexit itself as well as the forced rearrangement of the EU-skeptic spectrum underlines the importance of the next European elections for the future direction of the EU. At stake here is nothing less than the fundamental orientation of European integration.

The post Brexit Tectonics appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

As the European election campaign approaches, Emmanuel Macron is going back to a familiar playbook: He is promising to use a progressive centrist movement to leave behind the classic right/left framework. He made this bet in 2017 for the French presidential election—and won. Macron continues to follow this logic today, describing himself and his party, La République en Marche, as the antithesis of Viktor Orbán’s right-wing nationalist vision of Europe, and seeking new partners all across Europe.

The French president argues that an alliance of pro-European “Democrats and Progressives” will be better placed to address new divisions between “open” and “closed” societies than the existing Europe-wide party groupings which are aligned along the traditional left-right-divide. Macrons new forces won’t be able to replace the European People’s Party (EPP) as the strongest grouping in the European Parliament, but he would be glad to assume the role of kingmaker, thereby increasing his influence on the European stage.

Many of the concepts from his 2017 campaign are being reused. Just as he told French voters that his “Flexicurity” model would bring both an economic upswing and greater social protection, he now vows to live up to Europe’s promise of prosperity by combining open markets with protective measures like a “Buy European Act” and common social standards.

France’s return to diplomatic heavyweight status is reflected in Macron’s demand for a “sovereign”—i.e. strong and unified—Europe as a response to the unstable relationships with the USA, Russia, and China. And Macron presents himself and his movement as the only effective answer to right-wing populism, to Marine Le Pen in France, and to Orbán and his partners in Europe.

Macron’s program is coherent, both on the national and international level. But as he tries to transfer his blueprint for success to Europe, it’s becoming obvious that this is a different challenge. Macron can no longer rely on being a fresh face. Instead, he has to count on his authority as the President of France, which has begun to diminish in recent months. And Macron has only had limited success on the EU stage so far.

For Macron’s strategy to work in the European campaign, it needs to fulfill three conditions: the movement must achieve a certain success in his own country; it must find reliable partners in as many EU member states as possible; and last but not least, it must be a convincingly pro-European force that positions itself beyond the traditional party-political divisions.

European Policy as Domestic Policy

It may sound paradoxical that national context is important for, of all things, the European elections. Yet Macron’s authority as Europe’s creative director heavily depends on his success within France’s border. This is all the truer since the French leader has declared the elections a top priority and will, unlike his predecessors, make himself the face of the campaign. “I will do my best to ensure that progressives, democrats, and those for whom I speak are heard”, Macron said on September 29 in an interview with Le Journal du dimanche.

There is no doubt Macron is credible. His ideas for EU reform have long been well known, even before the famous Sorbonne Speech of September 2017. They were a major topic of his presidential campaign, and he is taking the same approach in the EU context. What’s more, the attacks of Marine Le Pen, his main adversary from the Rassemblement National or RN (until recently Front National), have boosted Macron’s profile. It helps both sides to duel in public. Macron has denounced the nationalism that is “spreading like leprosy all over Europe,” while Le Pen has called on the right-wing nationalist parties of Europe to band together. To this end, she met on October 8th with the Italian interior minister and Lega leader, Matteo Salvini, who stands for a brutal anti-migrant policy, and announced from a press conference in Rome “the emergence of a Europe of nations and protection.”

Le Pen won’t give Macron any peace in the coming months. For her, this election is a one-off opportunity to avenge her defeat in the 2017 presidential election. Her goal is to shore up her party’s position in the European parliament.Macron must keep something else in mind: European policy credentials are one thing, electoral success another. The French president is a professed believer in European integration, but this was not the reason for his victory in 2017. In France, as in many other European countries, the EU continues to be a target of criticism. Even if radical steps like leaving the euro continue to be rejected by large majorities—Le Pen was calling for a euro-exit until her electoral defeat—the French left in particular often criticizes Brussels’s supposedly excessively liberal economic policy. And pro-Europeans are disappointed with the meager results of Macron’s EU reforms, regardless of whether intra-European blockades or German reluctance are responsible.

Moreover, Macron’s road to victory may become more difficult if domestic policy issues dominate the election. The fast pace at which the government is reforming the labor market, the education system, and social policy is unsettling many French; the promised positive effects have so far failed to materialize. In order to be successful, Macron’s movement urgently needs some tangible successes.

A lot can happen before May 2019, but the most recent polls give the president reason to worry. A large majority of respondents have negative views of Macron’s record. He is considered arrogant and, after the recent resignations of the environment and interior ministers, a weak leader. The fact that both ministers were symbols of Macron’s cross-party government (Nicolas Hulot as an environmental activist without any background as a career politician, and the interior minister Gérard Collomb as a former socialist) raises questions about the durability of any new alliances. The European elections could turn into a neck-and-neck race between Macron and Le Pen.

Liberal Temptation

An alliance of pro-European forces can, moreover, only have success when all or at least most EU member-states are represented. There is more to this than having representation from seven member-states, the minimum required to form a grouping in the European Parliament. For only a broad-based movement can reach the critical mass necessary to change the balance of power in the European Parliament and do justice to its claim of pan-Europeanism. Two options are conceivable: either an entirely new movement, like the one Macron successfully created in En Marche!, or a movement based on already existing forces. Of course, the first would have the advantage of embodying the renewal Macron is advocating. Yet because of the complex relations inside the EU and the growing time pressure, the second option is more likely.

The main liberal grouping in the European Parliament, ALDE, appears to be interested in joining forces. The acting leader, Guy Verhofstadt, is already planning to campaign side by side with Macron: “We share not only the same analysis of the problem but also have more or less the same proposals. [Macron’s] speech in the Sorbonne was well received by the ALDE parties,” Verhofstadt told Ouest France on September 9.

It’s not yet clear what the cooperation will look like, but the goal is certain: ideally, after the election, the two sides want to form a grouping. In Germany, too, some (liberal) FDP politicians have long called for cooperation with the French president. While some differences seem irreconcilable, such as the question of a budget for the Eurozone, what matters is that Macron and other liberals share a common market-liberal and reform-oriented approach. Negotiations are underway to make Margrethe Vestager, the liberal EU competition commissioner from Denmark, the future Commission president on the strength of this alliance.

As fleshed-out as this plan may sound, such cooperation could be tricky for Macron. For one thing, the liberal label can be a burden in parts of Europe, especially in France, where many take it to mean growing social inequality and the dismantling of the welfare state. This danger is clear to Macron, who advocated for a “Europe that protects” in the presidential campaign and today ostentatiously criticizes the EU’s “ultraliberal” course. For another, the pro-Europeans cannot allow themselves to be imprisoned by party-political logic. If anything, Macron’s strategy is based on overcoming the traditional dividing line of right and left. But if he only cooperates with the liberals in the European elections, he would no longer be able to credibly advocate this strategy.

A Wider Alliance?

Indeed, the pro-European alliance that Macron desires is meant to thrive on a diversity of party-political preferences. Just as there is in France, where for the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic socialists, conservatives, and civil society representatives are sitting at the same cabinet table, there should also be an amalgamation of various groupings, of party families, in Europe. The motto: for Europe, against nationalism. Names of possible allies are already circulating. According to the most optimistic predictions, the conservative president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, the liberal prime minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, the socialist Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, and the radical-left Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, are all supporters. But officially nothing has been determined yet.

What looks promising on paper will have to overcome a lot of obstacles in practice. It is far from certain that the bigwigs from the two main groupings, the EPP (Christian Democrats) and the Socialists & Democrats (Social Democrats), will be prepared to turn their backs on their political families: that was only possible in France because the established parties had lost their credibility and thus any chance of electoral success. For many of their representatives, working with En Marche! was a question of political survival.

It’s not only that the political relationships are more complex in a European context. Some of the established “people’s parties” are also in better shape than their French counterparts, which makes radical reorganization more difficult. It’s also unclear how exactly cooperation would work in an alliance based on the common goal of combating nationalism. One wonders what actually unites Tsipras and Tusk with regard to the future of Europe.

Macron propagates the idea of a dichotomy between democrats and populists in order to mobilize as many pro-Europeans as possible for the elections. But this also generates another effect: the urgently necessary debate about the conservatives’ and social democrats’ thoroughly different concepts of Europe, which go well beyond populism or anti-populism, is swept under the rug. This is not just dangerous for the parties, as they risk further blurring the lines between them; it also prevents a real European debate about reforming the eurozone, migration policy, or the design of a social Europe.

At the moment, it’s others who are showing that clear political positioning and transnational movements are possible. Other new formations are staking a claim to build a pan-European movement. They are in the process of forming transnational lists. This is a good thing for European democracy, though it could weaken Macron’s alliance. The strongest competition certainly comes from Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister and the founder of European Spring. With his pro-European, progressive vision, Varoufakis is doing more than simply challenging the En Marche! claim to be unique. He is, by virtue of his left-wing roots, reintroducing the divide between left and right that Macron’s allies reject, and forcing conservatives and liberals to keep things in perspective.

Macron and his party have picked the basic tone for their campaign before the others have. Yet now the detailed work of coming up with a coherent strategy begins. The results of the “Grande Marche pour L’Europe”, a “listening tour” where En Marche! activists talked about Europe with everyday citizens, have been analyzed and are meant to provide the basis of the campaign program. Candidates have been able to apply for the electoral lists of the République en Marche for a few weeks now; the final list will be released in January. In parallel, better communication of the positive effects of Macron’s reforms is supposed to help improve his low poll numbers.

Unfamiliar Competition

In Berlin, Macron has hardly been able to get anywhere. Angela Merkel opposes an approach that assumes the division of Europe. Outspoken criticism came from Norbert Röttgen, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Bundestag: “If Mr. Macron would like to be the leader of a certain camp in Europe, he cannot be at the same time the leader of Europe,” he told Le Monde on September 6.

Furthermore, it remains axiomatic that the CDU and CSU belong to the EPP. Macron might have tried to attract progressive parts of the EPP by pointing to the fact that the grouping is also home to Viktor Orbán’s party, Fidesz. Yet the CDU preempted any such attempt by making a decisive contribution in the European Parliament to the triggering of the Article 7 procedure against Hungary. Cooperation with Macron would be delicate for EPP politicians, because if they do in fact decide to kick Fidesz out of the grouping before the 2019 elections, they would risk losing their status as the strongest parliamentary force.

Another question about Germany will become urgent if Macron has success with his pan-European movement. How can the two countries continue to work on Franco-German compromises in European politics? So far, France has sent a clear signal: Without Germany—in other words without the governing CDU/CSU—progress in Brussels is not possible. And yet this progress has so far failed to materialize. By the time of the elections, Merkel and Macron will not just be partners as heads of government, but also competitors as party representatives. That makes it more difficult to put forward Franco-German initiatives for Europe.

After the election, there will certainly be a new window for progress. But even if it’s hard to imagine an open rupture in Franco-German coordination, this will take place under new conditions, whether across new front lines or in new alliances.

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