In interpreting exit polls released on May 26, 2019 on the
E.U.’s Parliament election, The New York Times pointed to two issues, only
one of which pertained to the federal level. “Observers looked to [the
election] to gauge the popularity of the various anti-immigration, anti-elite,
Euroskeptic parties across the union.”[1]
Had the E.U. electorate focused on such a matter so central to the European
Union itself, democracy at the federal level would have been nearly perfect.
However, the encroachment of state-level politics in the federal election, the
other point, contributed to the democratic deficit at the federal level. This
takes away from the viability of the
federal system itself.
Looking at the exit data pertaining to the federal-level
issue, E.U. voters did not vote as much for the states’ rights parties as
predicted. Even so, those parties made gains in the Parliament. On the left,
the Greens did well. This means the mainstream E.U. parties lost some ground.
To the extent that voters voted on the federal-level issue, the message was
that the status quo was not working at the federal level. The states’ rights,
or Euroskeptic, gain probably reflected the E.U.’s response to inflows of
immigration during the previous session. The far-right also argued that their
state-level needs were being too often overlooked at the federal level. I
submit that a more serious problem at the
federal level was that federal-level issues were being too often overlooked
by E.U. citizens. It could be that the far-right gained in the E.U. because
democracy was stronger at the state level. Ironically, this was true in part
because even in democracy’s repository at the federal level, the European
Parliament, the elections have not been predominately about federal issues!
In the E.U. state of France, for example, the
unpopularity of the state’s governor, Emmanuel Macron, had an impact. His
far-right rival, Marie Le Pen, called the federal
election result “a vote for France, and for the people.”[2]
The election was not about their state, but the European Union. Macron
nonetheless “had put a lot of chips down on beating the far-right party led by
Ms. Le pen, which was once known as National Front.”[3]
The election was about Macron or Le Pen, two state leaders. Furthermore, that
Macron got involved politically in the federal
election doubtlessly muddied the water concerning the difficult task of
voting on the basis of federal issues
rather than to punish or “send a message” to the incumbent governor in France.
Regarding the state of Germany, The New York Times
brazenly interpreted the exit polls in state-wide rather than federal terms.
Even though people often confuse Lander with
Staaten, Germany itself is a state from the
perspective of the E.U. Deutschland
ist ein Staat. At any rate, the Times reported the following concerning the
federal election: “(T)the Greens did
very well, becoming the main party on the left, while the Social Democratic
Party did very badly, according to exit polls.”[4]
Was the Green Party the main party on the left in the European Parliament, in Germany, or among the E.U. citizens
residing in the state? The only one of these that is relevant to the election
itself is the first. The Times went so far as to claim that the election
results “will be seen as a judgment on the center-left Social Democrats, on the
far-right Alternative for Germany and the new leader of the Christian
Democrats, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who hopes to succeed Chancellor Angela
Merkel.”[5]
If true, the E.U. citizens residing in the state tended to vote on the basis of
state politics rather than a federal-level issue. Ironically, as the election
was for the E.U.’s Parliament rather than the German Bundestag, focusing so
much on state-level politics was a waste of time, with a huge opportunity cost—what
was lost in terms of democracy at the federal level by voters not voting
principally on matters pertaining to the Parliament.
If far-right
E.U. voters were disappointed with the E.U., their own prerogative that, as
Le Pen said, the election was a vote for France (or Germany) led to the
self-fulfilling verdict. If E.U. citizens want more democracy at the federal
level, then a certain amount of self-discipline will be needed to resist the
temptation to cave into the usual state-level preoccupation and vote instead on
which party in the Parliament has the
most fitting platform on issues pertaining to the E.U. itself or its competencies.
Crisis. For a
comparison, see Essays
on Two Federal Empires: Comparing the E.U. and U.S.
1. Steven Erlanger, “European
Election Results: The Mainstream Loses Ground,” The New York Times, May 26, 2019.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
