Do the European Elections Matter?

Historically, elections to the European
Parliament haven’t mattered much, even to Europeans. Their main
role has been to give disgruntled voters a chance to deliver a good
shellacking to the parties in charge of national governments. Like
mid-terms, then, but with little potential to alter the balance of
power or sway the course of policy. The fundamental indifference of
Europe’s voters has been reflected in turnout percentages, which
have fallen at every election since the European Parliament was
established in 1979. Most expect turnout to reach a new low this
year, falling below the 43 percent figure from 2009.

To a certain extent, this lack of enthusiasm is hard-wired into
the structure of the European Union (E.U.). For starters, the
European Parliament has not traditionally had much power. It still
can’t initiate legislation, which is the sole preserve of the
European Commission, the EU’s permanent bureaucracy. What’s more,
the European Parliament—which houses representatives from more than
100 national parties, grouped into 12 European parties, and then
grouped again into seven different alliances—feels very remote to
most voters. What power the European Parliament does have is often
exercised through back-room deals concluded by politicians the
voters don’t know, on behalf of parties and alliances they’ve never
heard of. A vibrant democracy this most certainly is not.

And yet the 2014 elections—which begin on Thursday in the UK and
the Netherlands—may be different. For one thing, the 2009 Libson
Treaty extended the European Parliament’s power to approve, amend,
or block legislation to 40 additional areas of policy. It also gave
the European Parliament a greater say on the EU budget, as well as
a range of international agreements (including, for example, the
proposed U.S.–E.U. trade deal). Legislators have not been shy about
exercising their new powers: The Financial Times
notes that they now wield more influence than their limited
constitutional role would suggest.

The latest power-grab involves each parliamentary group
nominating a “lead candidate” in the elections, and demanding that
the victor be made president of the European Commission. It remains
to be seen whether the European Council—consisting of the heads of
the E.U.’s 28 national governments—will accept this usurpation of
its authority, but if it does, the consequences for E.U. policy
could be significant. The European Commission has traditionally
been a force for liberalization and market competition; the
European Parliament, by contrast, tends to prefer regulation and
protectionism.

This matters because the E.U. is at an important crossroads in
policy terms. The eurozone crisis may have abated for now, but
growth remains sluggish, unemployment is shockingly high, and a
Japanese-style “lost decade” looms on the horizon. And that’s to
say nothing of renewed geopolitical instability in the E.U.’s own
backyard. Europe desperately needs to liberalize its labor and
consumer markets, strengthen its trade links with other economies
(not least the U.S.), and develop an energy policy that doesn’t
leave it reliant on the Kremlin to keep the lights on. For better
or worse, the European election results will go some way to
determining whether any of this is possible.

One crucial factor will be the electoral performance of Europe’s
insurgent populist parties, which may end up controlling more than
a quarter of the seats in parliament. These parties do not
constitute an homogenous political force—Italy’s anti-establishment
but relatively liberal Five Star Movement has little in common with
Greece’s neofascist Golden Dawn, for instance. But for the most
part, Europe’s populists are skeptical of European integration,
suspicious of globalization, and hostile to immigration. The most
extreme among them can be downright nativist. Their rise to
prominence gives libertarians precious little to cheer: The result
can only be a Europe that is more illiberal and less free
market.

So do the European elections matter? In so far as they give some
indication of the economic prospects of the world’s biggest market,
the fate of the U.S.–E.U. trade deal, and the future complexion of
a political union serving more than 500 million people, the answer
to that question must be “yes.”

Tom Clougherty is managing editor at Reason
Foundation.