Crisis shifts sands of EU political divisions

In each of the 27 member states of the European Union, the campaign for the just concluded elections to the European Parliament (EP) took place in an atmosphere of indifference, with voters, candidates and the media focusing mostly on domestic issues. Perhaps for this reason, the abstention rate (an average of 57 percent) this time was the highest since the first elections in 1979. The EP's composition has not seen any significant change with the right wing still in majority.

After the 2004 elections, the European People's Party (EPP), a group of right and center right parties, had 288 members in the 785-seat parliament. It is still the largest group with 267 of the total 736 deputies. The fall in EPP membership is because the British Conservatives and Czech right party have left it to form their own party, with a stronger right-wing line.

The elections have also opened the way for a possible second term for Jos Manuel Barroso as president of the European Commission. The results seem paradoxical because Europe is experiencing one of the worst economic crises, with falling employment and living standards and rising worries over the future. In these conditions, one expected voters to reject the right wing in countries where they were in power. But that did not happen.

In fact, the results show quite the opposite happened in France, Italy, Poland, Denmark, and even Germany, where voters had elected a large number of Christian Democratic Union (CDU) representatives in 2004. The right improved its position in countries where it is in opposition, too, such as Spain and Portugal.

On the other hand, the socialists lost support almost everywhere, especially in countries like Spain, Portugal, Hungary, and the Netherlands, where they are in power. The European Socialist Party (ESP), which had 215 deputies in the outgoing parliament, could win only 160 seats this time. They did no better in France and Denmark either, where they are in the opposition.

The Socialist Party is almost outnumbered in France by Europe Ecologie, a green coalition gathered by the charismatic Daniel Cohn-Bendit (or Danny the Red of the 1968 French students' rebellion).

The only exception for the sociologists was Greece.

The liberals remain the third largest force in EP with about 80 deputies, 20 fewer than in the last time. The Greens appear to be the main beneficiaries in the elections. They will become the fourth largest force with about 55 seats, a gain of more than 10 seats.

"Extreme" and some "euroskeptic" parties, too, have benefited this time. Though Jean-Marie le Pen's party has been substantially weakened in France, the anti-Islam party led by Geert Wilders won 17 percent of the votes in the Netherlands. And in Austria, Denmark, Hungary, Slovakia and even the UK, far right parties did better than expected with the British National Party winning its first ever seat.

But people worried over the rise of extremism in Europe should take heart from the fact that there are many differences of views among the far right parties.

The predominance of the right in the future EP calls for some explanation. The main reason for that may be the poor fortunes of social-democratic parties, which now head only the governments in only eight of the 27 EU countries. This despite their concerted efforts since 2000 to minimize their waning influence among traditional voters: blue-collar workers and white-collar public-sector employees, mid-level managers and civil servants.

This is true not only of Northern Europe's large social-democratic parties (Denmark and Sweden), but also of parties that tried to "modernize" themselves by combining socialism and liberalism (as in the UK and Spain), and even of Europe's more traditional socialist parties (in Belgium and France), which have found it difficult to regain power at the national level despite local successes. Hence, parties that intend to move left, such as Germany's die Linke, risk being overwhelmed by the radical anti-capitalist left.

It seems as if the social-democratic ideal has failed to convince a majority of Europeans that - despite widespread expectations of a revival of the welfare state - it can effectively resolve a crisis that has called into question decades of finance-driven capitalism and dominance of free-market ideology. When it comes to managing a deep and complex crisis, European voters indeed tend to prefer the experience of conservative politicians.

This is all the more remarkable at a time when right-wing governments have embraced regulation and even state intervention - the cornerstones of leftist ideologies. At the same time, a request for transparency and a care for ecology are growing in the younger generations across Europe, which explains the success of the Greens in many countries.

In short, the global economic crisis has restructured the ideological divisions that for long defined the European political scene. These new chasms might be the most important long-term outcome of the EP elections.

The author is a member of the Conseil d'Etat and a professor at the Institut d'tudes Politiques in Paris. Project Syndicate

(China Daily 06/11/2009 page9)