© REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

Back in the summer of 2016, the winds of change were sweeping across Europe. In their shock over the Brexit referendum, European Union leaders promised deep reform: the EU would make such a leap in efficiency, democracy, and cohesion that no other country would ever be tempted to leave. “We got the message!” they told the public.

Almost three years on and, at least in Germany, voters are facing one of the dullest European Parliament election campaigns ever. No big plan for the EU’s future has emerged that politicians or citizens could passionately debate; no controversies over major policy decisions; not even a heated battle over who will lead the EU in the future. Only the Greens and the right-wing populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) are even talking about policies on their campaign posters.

Just take a look at the parties currently governing in Angela Merkel’s grand coalition, the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD). “Peace can’t be taken for granted” is one of the uninspiring CDU election slogans; “Prosperity can’t be taken for granted” another. Merkel herself, having stepped down as party leader in December 2018, initially refused to even take part in the campaign. In the end, she grudgingly agreed to two appearances (although one of them is in Croatia rather than Germany).

Domestic Faces Prevail

Not that you would guess it, but Germany’s conservatives actually have a big stake in this election. Their top candidate Manfred Weber stands a reasonable chance to become the next president of the European Commission. That would make him the first German to lead the Commission since Walter Hallstein was appointed in 1958.

Weber was nominated as Spitzenkandidat by the European People’s Party, which will likely remain the largest group in the new European Parliament. While this does not oblige the heads of government to nominate Weber, a good election result would translate into considerable political pressure to do so.

Weber works hard on the campaign trail, crisscrossing Germany and the EU for numerous appearances and speeches. Having spent 15 years as an MEP, he is also extremely well versed in the ins and outs of Brussels. Weber is smart, decent, and personable. But one thing he is not: a person who can inspire people to believe in Europe. His party seems to be aware of his lack of charisma: even in his homeland Germany, the Spitzenkandidat rates only small-format campaign posters. “For Germany’s Future. Our Europe,” the slogan says.

The second Spitzenkandidat who has a realistic chance of becoming European Commission president, is Frans Timmermans, current vice-president of the Commission and former Dutch foreign minister, who is standing for the center-left Party of European Socialists, the European Parliament’s second-largest group. Timmermans is far more passionate and eloquent than Weber, but Germany’s Social Democrats haven’t even put him on a poster. While they back his nomination in Brussels, in Germany they only show German candidates.

EU Reform Is Dead

It’s not just the faces on the posters that seem curiously lacking a European flavor. There seems to be very little debate over the big European issues as well. Little mention is made of Brexit, the reform ideas of France’s President Emmanuel Macron, the rift between eastern and western Europe, the risk of another eurocrisis, or the uncertainty surrounding transatlantic relations. Indeed, after the first shock, the Brexit saga seems to have actually contributed to the stagnation.

So little has come of the pledges made in the wake of the Brexit vote in 2016. The EU summit in the Romanian city of Sibiu on May 9, originally scheduled to take place after Brexit, was supposed to provide the opportunity to EU leaders to open a new chapter in European integration. In reality, however, EU reform is dead for now, while the United Kingdom has still not managed to leave the union.

The miserable spectacle of Britain’s political elite mismanaging Brexit in fact let the EU of the hook: in most countries, approval rates for “Europe” have risen through no particular merit of the EU leaders, but because nobody wants to be caught in the same situation as the British. Even right-wing populists who used to be rabidly anti-European have stopped calling for an exit the EU. Instead, they now plan to join forces in Brussels to weaken the EU from the inside—a project that, given their continued rise in popularity, could prove just as dangerous to Europe’s future as a crumbling membership.

European leaders clearly share responsibility for not seizing the chance for reform that arose after 2016. But nobody is more to blame than Angela Merkel who let every opportunity to embrace change slip by. It seems fitting, then, that the most interesting issue that has emerged from the European election campaign is one that at first sight has nothing to do with EU politics: when will Merkel finally leave office?

The post A Desperately Dull Campaign appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

The European Union has been under center-right domination for a decade. Starting in 2005, voters across the continent turned against Social Democrats and center-left parties and put conservatives and Christian Democrats in power, collectively represented by the European Peoples Party (EPP) in the European Parliament.

Now, that dominance is faltering. This month’s European elections will be the big test of whether the center-right’s stranglehold on the continent’s politics has come to an end. The vote on 23-26 May could lead to a dramatic shift and deliver the most fragmented parliament in the history of the European Union.

To understand why, it’s important to know how we got here. By 2011, 17 of the EU’s then 27 member states were led by center-right leaders. Four were economically conservative liberals. Only five of Europe’s leaders were from the center-left Party of European Socialists (PES). That dynamic shaped the EU’s response to the economic crisis.

Many on the left blame the EU for what they say were the crippling effects of austerity. But it was the voters who chose this response, by consistently electing conservative leaders over the past 15 years. In the 2014 European elections they reaffirmed this political preference by handing the EPP a huge majority in the European Parliament.

As a result, today the EU’s top positions—European Council president (Poland’s Donald Tusk) and European Commission president (Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker)—are held by the EPP. Both of their predecessors were from the EPP, too.

All of this, however, may be about to change.

Timmermans’ Moment?

Recent national elections in Europe have dislodged the entrenched power of the center-right, creating a more multipolar political landscape where new and (previously) small parties have suddenly risen to the fore. Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche party, which still has no pan-European political affiliation, trounced the Socialists and Conservatives in 2017. Theresa May and Angela Merkel were hobbled at the ballot box since. Italy has been taken over by the far right and Five Star Movement populists.

Through all of this, the Socialists have failed to capitalize on their rival’s misfortune. Tarnished with the same “politics as usual” brush, they have also been equally punished by voters.

So when the Netherland’s Frans Timmermans, the Vice President of the European Commission, was selected by the PES to be their candidate to be the next commission president last year, there was skepticism as to whether it was even a remote possibility. Surely, people said, the former Dutch foreign minister is actually aiming for a different position—perhaps High Representative for Foreign Affairs, a low-power position that has gone to the socialists since it was created in 2009.

Polling indicates that the EPP will come first on May 26, though by a much smaller margin than in 2014. The Commission President needs to command a majority vote in both the European Parliament and the European Council, made up of the leaders of the 28 member states, so the math matters.

And Europe’s center-left is still dead.

The PES’s fortunes haven’t improved much since 2011. They still have only five of the 28 seats in the European Council. But the EPP has markedly declined. They currently hold nine of the seats—having lost Poland and the United Kingdom to the break-away European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group. The Liberals are in a unique position of strength with eight seats. Three of the seats, including those of France and Italy, are now independent and not part of any European political family.

So even though the PES may not have gotten any stronger, the EPP has gotten weaker. That means that it cannot be assumed that their lead candidate, Manfred Weber, will be automatically anointed as Jean-Claude Juncker was.

Until now, it has been assumed that the Liberal’s lead candidate—unofficially Margrethe Vestager—would be the logical compromise candidate given that they have so many seats in the council. But recent developments mean Timmermans is now in it with a shot, and he knows it.

The first game-changer was the UK’s decision to delay Brexit and participate in the European elections. Initial polls put the center-left Labour party in a commanding lead, though this has slipped lately as Nigel Farage’s Brexit party has surged. The result remains unpredictable, but there is still a good chance Labour will come first in the number of seats. Given the UK’s size, this would give Timmerman’s a big boost in the PES’s ratio in the parliament. However, it remains unclear whether UK MEPs will take part in the commission president vote in July.

The Spanish Model

Perhaps the more promising development for Timmermans is Spain’s general election result on April 28, where the Socialists scored a major victory and emerged as Spain’s main political force after almost two decades in the wilderness. It was a morale-booster for a long-demoralized center-left across Europe, who hope they can emulate the strategy of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to move firmly to the left and run a positive campaign while still denouncing the populists and the far right.

As the European election campaigns heat up, the center-left is already trying to emulate Sanchez’s strategy—particularly in Spain’s closest neighbors Italy, Portugal, and France. They are in particular trying to emulate Sanchez’s strategy of winning female voters through targeted campaigns and a high proportion of female candidates high on the list.

The most tangible benefit for Timmermans is that it keeps Spain’s seat on the European Council in PES hands. But it could also signal that the PES will do better than expected in the European election on May 26.

The man himself was keen to grab the momentum at a presidential debate in Maastricht last week, televised across Europe. He made repeated references to the Spanish win, saying it is proof that EPP parties like Spain’s Popular Party are paying a political price for trying to emulate the far right. He said he will work to attract a “progressive majority” in the European Parliament to support him as president, which likely means he will reach out to the Greens and possibly the far left GUE group. He will also almost certainly make overtures to Macron’s En Marche MEPs, even though they have made a tacit agreement to support the Liberal candidate.

According to a snap poll by communication technology company Slido, 42 percent of viewers said Timmermans performed best in the debate. Though he may have been counted out early on, Timmermans—and Europe’s social democrats at large—may very well defy the odds.

The post Socialist Comeback? appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.