Globalisation demands a more political and more democratic Europe

John Palmer

Only by embracing a European dimension will national political parties be able to regenerate in the era of globalization.

As it crosses the largely unchartered seas of globalisation, the European Union sometimes implements policies which prove inadequate for reforming its economy, strengthening its internal decision-making or seeking greater influence internationally – not least to help shape the governance of globalisation itself.

But such failures, if followed by an appropriate change of strategy, are likely to be permanently or fatally damaging to the Union itself. A continuing loss of political legitimacy, however, could pose a mortal threat to both the EU and the wider process of European integration. The warning signals in recent years of a growing popular unease about the evolution of the EU can no longer be ignored. Opinion polls confirm that the gulf between the EU institutions and citizens in many of its 27 Member States is still growing.

The EU will not be able to confront the challenges of globalisation unless it becomes less technocratic and diplomatic, and more political and democratic. This must involve political parties giving voters in European elections a greater choice of alternative policy strategies.

The European public is bewildered by the complexities of policy-making and decision-taking in the EU. This is, in part, due to the speed of developments, especially the (necessary) enlargement of the Union and seemingly constant changes in both EU policy and governance. Voters have little idea how to engage with the European process or what democratic choices they are being called on to make. EU affairs tend to be dismissed as excessively technocratic and diplomatic, and insufficiently political and democratic.

What passes for public debate on Europe in many Member States does not help. The political elites in most countries conduct their public discourse about EU affairs in a ludicrously short-sighted way. Quick to demonise the Union and its institutions when unpopular decisions are taken – very often at the instigation of the Member States themselves – governments have not surprisingly found it difficult to mobilise support for the EU when they have desperately needed to in their own interests. It is less widely appreciated that national politicians and political institutions are held in even lower esteem than the EU and its institutions in most Member States.

Opinion polls reveal a startling decline in public confidence in national political parties and government systems, irrespective of the political orientation of specific governments. Fifty years ago, one in 11 of the electorate belonged to a political party; today, the figure is just one in 88. In 1966, 42% professed a “very strong” attachment to the party of their choice; today only 13% do so. A recent Eurobarometer poll found that across the EU as a whole, just 17% of the population trusted political parties, compared with 29% for civil society organisations – not least the church.

The EU has suffered enormous collateral damage as a result of the backlash against unpopular Member State governments. The referenda on the proposed Constitutional Treaty provided an irresistible opportunity for voters in France and the Netherlands to punish deeply unpopular national administrations, mainly because of domestic economic, political or social issues quite unrelated to the EU. But as a consequence of the two ‘No’ votes, the proposed EU treaty has been derailed.

Why should voters feel so disenchanted with national politicians? There has been a striking decline in ‘ideological’ politics since the end of the Cold War. Voters today are now uncertain what the basic ‘mission and values’ of mainstream parties really are. Accelerating bureaucratisation and the professionalisation of party politics has also marginalised the influence of voluntary party members. Parties across Europe report a massive decline in membership. The energy and the idealism which led younger people to join political parties in the past now tend to lead them into support for single-issue campaigns and activity in voluntary organisations.

At the same time, globalisation is restricting the political space which parties need to develop alternative national policy strategies that sharply differentiate them from each other, but which are credible in the new global environment. Mainstream parties have found themselves driven into an ever smaller and more crowded space in the political centre. This loss of policy differentiation restricts the political choices open to voters.

More worrying than the implosion of membership of political parties has been the downward trend in voter participation in both national and European elections. Even in the larger EU Member States, governments tend to be seen as increasingly marginal actors in the dramas generated by the sometimes painful adjustment to the new patterns of employment and social welfare policies required to survive and prosper in a global economy. Only extreme ‘populist’ and xenophobic parties benefit by exploiting public unease at the apparent impotence of national governments and mainstream parties to respond to the challenges of globalisation.

At the European level, these problems have been reinforced by a sense that EU decision-making is too remote, too esoteric, too technocratic and too elitist. Many citizens believe that they are denied the information they need to adequately understand (let alone pass judgement on) what is being done in their name by their governments and by the EU institutions.

More can be done to improve public knowledge and understanding of how the Union functions and the key policy issues it faces. The recent initiatives taken by European Commission Vice-President Margot Wallström to address these problems are welcome. But to be effective, an EU communications strategy requires Member States to take shared ownership with the EU institutions (notably the Commission) of the messages delivered to the public. Communications cannot simply be left to ‘Brussels’.

Thanks to the Convention on the Future of Europe, a European Citizens’ Initiative was included in the Constitutional Treaty. This gives citizens the right to propose that the Commission introduce new legislation, although it is still unclear what the minimum number of Member States in which signatures need to be collected should be. It is encouraging that this has been retained in the new EU Reform Treaty.

Improved information or a more structured system of consultation with citizens – while indispensable – may not suffice to close the gap between the public and the EU institutions. Advocates of the more radical versions of ‘direct democracy’ recognise that it is vulnerable to the charges of ‘corporatism’ and elitism. Consultative democracy will tend to appeal most to organised special-interest advocates. For the mass of people, involvement in the European governance process will only have meaning when they are asked to choose in European elections between parties with different programmes and values, led by personalities who present themselves as aspirant leaders of the EU executive.

The growth and complexity of EU affairs has made democratic accountability weak to non-existent when it is exercised purely through elected Member State governments and scrutiny by national parliaments. More can be done to strengthen the powers of national parliaments to scrutinize the behaviour of governments in the Council of Ministers. But only a dedicated, elected European Parliament can really be charged with holding the EU’s executive institutions to account. This means not only the Commission, but also the Council of Ministers (when governments legislate under Community law).

Without doubt, political parties (national and European) will need to re-invent themselves at the national level if they are to survive the profound changes in political culture brought about by globalisation. At the EU level, genuinely European parties with their own identities, programmes and (eventually) membership still have to be built. Of course they will retain close links with their national affiliates in the Member States – in the same way that many regional parties in Member States do. At present, European Parliament elections lack sufficient political consequence to engage voters. They are ‘not about enough’ in terms of the European political choices offered voters and, therefore, tend to be fought on purely national issues. When they act together through shared sovereignty to meet the challenges of globalisation, EU Member States can create new space for policy alternatives at a European level in a way which would be impossible for any single state acting alone.

Of course, the realities of globalisation will always impose some limits on the freedom of action open to the Union. But the balance of power which would exist between the global market and the huge potential of the European economies if collectively mobilised by the Member States would be very different to that which exists between the global market and individual countries acting alone.

In this perspective, it becomes possible to offer voters far more wide-ranging and significant choices on issues such as jobs, prosperity, social justice and sustainability. Moreover, if Member States are forced by changes in the global environment to take the construction of an EU Common Foreign and Security Policy more seriously, a healthy democratic debate about alternative European strategies in these areas too becomes possible. Taken together, these developments would imply a cultural revolution for European politicians. They have – for good reasons – traditionally seen consensus rather than conflict and choice as central to the dynamic of European integration.

Today the EU has evolved to the point where, without democratic political choice between differing strategies, no popular consensus is likely to remain intact for long. On the assumption that the Reform Treaty, which was agreed by EU Heads of Government in Lisbon at the end of 2007, is ratified in all 27 Member States the way will be open for EU parties to elect the President of the Commission in 2009. The EU parties should go to voters in the 2009 European Parliament elections presenting serious programmatic alternatives to exploit the space for collective action and also presenting voters with their candidates for the Presidency of the European Commission as part of their lists. Indeed there is no reason why they should not also make public who they will support for the new posts of President of the European Council and the enhanced High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy.

This would give voters the power to help shape the EU executive (the nearest equivalent to a Member State government). The major political groups in the European Parliament are at last serious about achieving full party status – a development that the Constitutional Treaty would have encouraged by giving European parties their own legal identities and by providing funding. Change is already under way.

In a study of voting patterns, Simon Hix, Professor of European and Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics, states that “…on the positive side, and potentially far more profound, is the emergence of a genuine ‘democratic party system’ in the European Parliament. First, voting in the Parliament is more along transnational and ideological party lines than along national lines, and increasingly so.” It is already possible to discern the outlines of a developing European demos – in the ever-growing cross-border activities of business, trade unions, non-governmental organisations and other civil society interests as well as through the still slowly-emerging political life of the EU institutions, above all the European Parliament.

A more democratic European Union politics will involve more conflict between the different political families and emerging European parties. But through this contestation for power and the political direction the Union should take, the evolution of European democratic politics will strengthen. It will also strengthen and certainly not undermine democracy at the national and sub-national levels.

John Palmer is a member of the Advisory Board of the Federal Trust in London and the Advisory Council of the European Policy Centre in Brussels.

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