In the wake of the E.U.’s parliamentary election in 2014,
the media reported the results as though a number of “national elections” had
just taken place. Unlike the European Council, the Parliament does not
represent states; in fact, the representatives of the people do not even sit by state, but by federal-level party, renders the reportage as distortive at best.
Moreover, its ideological bent can help us situate the E.U. along the interval
of federal-state relations possible in federal systems; this situs in turn can
tell us something about the likely trajectory for the Union—the electoral
success of the Euro-skeptic parties being only a symptom. To situate the
election results, I briefly cover a bit of federalism theory before discussing
the election-results coverage itself.
Modern federalism, which combines “confederal” alliance
governance with principles of national government, requires considerable vigilance
to balance the two systems lest one engulf the other. In his seminal work on
the subject, Federal Government, Kenneth
Wheare contends that modern federalism requires no such balance to operate; all
that is necessary is that the states and the federal government each have at
least one domain of authority that is autonomous. He would be at pains to show
that the nearly-consolidated U.S. “federal” system functions as a federal system rather than as a “one
size fits all,” empire-scale government. He would also have trouble explaining
how the state-centric E.U. “federal” system enables the federal level to
function viably.
Unfortunately, the respective imbalances may worsen.
Theoretically speaking, dissolution is the main risk facing a federal system
dominated by its state governments, whereas consolidation is the alluring danger
for a federal system dominated by its federal, or “general,” government at the
expense of those of the member-states. If this hypothesis is correct, then the
tendency of a given federal system can be predicted only once it has been
situated relative to a threshold point wherein federal/state powers are in
balance. Even though state-rights claims
of state sovereignty in the E.U.’s 2014 election season can easily be
classified as ideologically fanciful, the preponderance of governmental
sovereignty being at the state level portended a probably future of dissolution;
the U.S. nearly succumbed to this plight in 1832 (the Nullification Crisis) and
then again thirty years later (the USA-CSA war) because the states had most of
the power back then. By World War II, the U.S. had “crossed the threshold” in
terms of federal-state power, such that consolidation became the probable “end-game.”
As E.U. citizens went to the polls in 2014, no one would accuse the E.U. of
pursuing that course.
Notably, at least one major European press reported the E.U.
legislative election erroneously as “European elections.”[1]
Even though “countries” are not represented in the E.U.’s parliament, The Financial Times characterized the
election as several national elections—even claiming that the UKIP party’s
electoral success was the first time a third party had won a “national election”
in Britain.[2]
Even in terms of a “state delegation,” the Parliament, like the U.S. House,
acknowledges no such grouping formally; in both legislative bodies, the
representatives, who represent constituents in federal districts, do not even sit by state.
Marine Le Pen of France's National Front Party. Can the E.U.'s legislative election be reduced to several state-level elections? Je crois que certainment non.
To be sure, the E.U. was at the time much more state-centric
than the U.S., as evidenced by the plethora of state-level parties dwarfing the
federal-level ones. Even so, the characterization of “national elections” for
an election bearing only on the E.U. and its citizens cannot be justified, and
is thus likely the manifestation of a states-rights ideological agenda—the major
attendant danger to which being dissolution. Put another way, relegating the
direct relation between the E.U. Parliament and E.U. citizens in the public’s
mind could compromise the Union’s viability more than the electoral success of
the Euro-skeptic state-level parties in the national election (the Parliament
being in line with national rather than international principles).
1. Peter Spiegel and Hugh Carnegy, “Anti-EU
Parties Celebrate Election Success,” The
Financial Times, May 26, 2014.
2. Ibid.
