European elections 2019: what horizon for democracy?

March 29, 2019

Citizen actions, Article, Democracy, Elections, European Union

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“European Parliament, Post-election survey 2014. European elections.]. Cette faible participation mine ainsi la légitimité du Parlement, qui en même temps est critiqué pour son absence de reddition des comptes (elle-même due au manque de lien direct entre les députés et leurs électeurs). D�…”

Two months before the European elections, several questions spontaneously emerge: how will European voters shape the new European Parliament, which will represent them over the next 5 years? Will many of them participate in the vote? Or will abstentionism win this time again? And finally, can we still consider elections as the fundamental instrument of European democracy?

On May 26 we vote! The date of May 26, 2019 will be decisive for citizens of Belgium and other European Union (EU) countries, as they will be called upon to vote for members of the European Parliament, the only body of the Union elected at the direct universal suffrage. Following Brexit, the number of MEPs will increase from 751 to 705 [[ European Parliament, Reduction in the number of MEPs after the 2019 European elections, 2018.]]. Seats are distributed among member states taking into account population size, and once elected, members of national political parties group together into transnational political groups within the European Parliament. Since the 2014 European elections, each European political group has been encouraged to directly propose a candidate for the presidency of the European Commission, thus allowing citizens to vote indirectly for the future President of the Commission. Representative democracy or democratic deficit? The direct election of the European Parliament is one of the advances of the 2007 Lisbon Treaty, which, as the last historic step in the European integration process, strengthened the powers of the Parliament in the effort to reduce the democratic deficit of the Union and to strengthen its legitimacy [[European democracy: progress and limits, French documentation, 2011]]. However, if for some “representative democracy is based on elections” [[Mathis Porchez, The democratic deficit of the European Union: a questionable criticism, Le Taurillon, 2018.]], for others the Union has not succeeded in making up for this lack of democratic legitimacy. The causes are multiple: the nature and powers of its bodies, the complexity of its functioning and the low rate of participation in voting, the lack of accountability, the absence of a European public space... These are all factors which push some European citizens towards skepticism. A clear understanding of the different organs of the Union and their roles in decision-making therefore seems to be necessary in order to put the accusations leveled against the EU into perspective. Understanding institutions The European Parliament is the only body elected directly by the citizens of the Union, from which its role as representative of their interests derives. Citizen concerns are thus defended when Parliament exercises its power to vote on legislation, the approval of the Union budget, as well as the supervision of the work of the Commission – of which Parliament elects the President [[European Parliament, Citizens' voice in the European Union, 2017.]]. However, its legislative and budgetary power is shared equally with the Council of the European Union which is made up of ministers from EU member states and represents the interests of governments. It should not be confused with the European Council, which brings together the prime ministers and presidents of the member states. The European Council has no decision-making power but defines the general orientations of the Union and the priorities on which it must focus. In the process of adopting legislative acts, the European Commission, finally, has a fundamental role within the structures of the Union. It is a body which represents the interests of the Union as a whole – whose members are appointed by national governments – and has the power to propose legislative texts to be put to the vote of the Parliament and the Council, as well as to ensure to their application in the Member States [[European Union, Institutions and other EU bodies.]]. A unique distribution of powers What emerges is therefore a unique international governance system, sui generis, whose nature of its organs and their characteristics differ widely from those of the Member States which compose it. The first questioning in relation to the European democratic system thus depends on the fact that the separation of executive, legislative and legal powers, which is the foundation of democratic regimes, is not completely assured in the Union [[European democracy: progress and limits, French documentation, 2011.]]. This is thus accused of interference by the executive in the legislative branch, the Council “being both the main element of the “community legislator”, but also an essential element of the executive” [[The European institutional system with regard to the separation of powers: specificity and evolution of the community decision-making process, Forum-scpo.com.]] . Executive power is fragmented between the Commission, the Council and national governments, while the Commission, for its part, has executive, legislative and judicial functions [[Ibid.]]. Furthermore, the European Parliament, unlike the Belgian Parliament for example, does not have the power of legislative initiative. He cannot therefore propose on his own initiative laws which would emerge directly from elected parliamentarians. This competence is entrusted to the technicians of the Commission, expertise being the element which would make it possible to overcome partisan and national differences [[Nilsa Rojas-Hutinel, Can we talk about a concentration of power in the European Union?, 2017.]]. Can we speak of a European people? In addition to criticisms of the distribution of powers within the EU, there are criticisms of the lack of democratic legitimacy vis-à-vis European citizens. The complexity of the functioning of the Union is perceived as inaccessible by citizens. This distance between citizens and European institutions generates a lack of interest in European affairs, which results in a very low participation rate in elections [[Maxime Parodi, The European Union: a democracy of democracies, 2018, European Economy 2018.]] . Since the first elections in 1979, the number of Europeans participating in the vote has only decreased. In 2014 only 4 out of 10 people voted in the European elections (i.e. 42,54% of the European population[[ European Parliament, Post-election survey 2014. European elections.]. This low participation thus undermines the legitimacy of Parliament, which at the same time is criticized for its lack of accountability (itself due to the lack of direct link between deputies and their voters). On the one hand, citizens vote for national parties on the basis of national themes and demands. On the other hand, decisions within the Union are taken by transnational European political groups which bring together ideologically close national parties [[Dieter Grimm et al., European democracy: the reasons for distrust, Spirit, 2015.]]. However, the cause of the EU's democratic deficit that seems to find the most consensus among experts seems to be the absence of a European public space. The question is therefore asked: can we have a European democracy without a European people who share a feeling of belonging to the Union and without “properly European debates [[Ibid.]]”? Rather than a real link between European institutions and civil society, national discourses on Europe still predominate. Restoring the confidence of Europeans, a major challenge With the evolution of the European treaties, much attention has been paid to the importance of increasing the democratic legitimacy of the Union. Beyond the election by universal suffrage of members of the European Parliament, the Treaty of Lisbon introduced the democratic foundations of the Union: the principle of democratic equality, representative democracy and participatory democracy[[ The EU's so-called democratic deficit, Europedia.]] . The principle of equality of citizens finds an important concretization in the establishment of European Ombudsman for individual complaints [[The European Ombudsman for individual complaints or ombudsman investigates complaints of maladministration lodged against EU bodies. Any citizen or resident of the Union, as well as associations or companies established in the EU, can lodge a complaint with the ombudsman. To know more.]]. Representative democracy is based on the direct representation of citizens in Parliament, while the principle of participatory democracy finds its realization in the introduction of instruments such as the European citizens' initiative and the right to petition. While the right to petition and the European Ombudsman were already provided for by the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, the European citizens' initiative was introduced with the Lisbon Treaty, allowing a million citizens from different Member States to present to the Committee on new legislative proposals [[What is the right to petition the European Parliament?, All Europe, 2017.]] . Significant institutional reforms were thus introduced by the Lisbon Treaty, including the appearance of the new “Spitzenkandidaten” system initiated in 2014 [[Yves Bertoncini, Democratic crises in the European Union: towards “new frontiers”, 2017.]] . For the political groups, it is a question of being able to nominate the candidates to head the Commission (the new Jean-Claude Juncker, to get along better). This would make it possible to strengthen not only Parliament's control over the Commission but also to strengthen the transparency of this appointment with regard to European citizens. Many steps have therefore been taken towards greater European democratic legitimacy, which however still seems to be conquered. We then better understand the efforts undertaken by the European Parliament in launching an electoral campaign which aims to mobilize European citizens at the local level [[European Parliament campaign “this time I vote”.]]. Information meetings are organized in all Member States in order to activate volunteers on site to raise awareness among their loved ones of the importance of voting and to bring institutions and citizens closer together. It remains to be seen whether this campaign will be sufficient to bring about a true collective and European citizen feeling, and in what form. It is therefore up to us to seize these opportunities to shape the Europe of tomorrow in our image. Beyond individual positioning and the idea we have of the European Union, these elections will give citizens a voice. They will be responsible for the choice, between remaining a bitter spectator in the face of political developments, or acting and positioning themselves for a common future. Veronica Lari, volunteer.