Following the E.U. 2024 election,
political parties jostled for members in the Parliament. Whereas the political
duopoly of parties in the U.S. House of Representatives severely limits such
skipping around, the European analogue puts more of an emphasis on party
management in terms of weighing ideological or policy “purity” against the
power that comes from size. In contrast, the two major parties in the U.S. must
be content to be “big tents,” each of which contains groups. From the
standpoint of the parties in the E.U. Parliament, the groups are at the state
level. The defection of Andrej Babis and the rest of his group from the Renew
Europe party just weeks after the E.U. election in June, 2024 demonstrates the
distinct balancing task of the E.U. parties. Such balancing is not something
that the American political duopoly of parties need do. I contend that the
Americans could benefit by looking at the European case in this regard.
On the one hand, the departure of
Babis’s group caused Renew Europe to go from 81 representatives to 74, further
weakening its power in the federal legislative body. On the plus side, however,
Valérie Hayer, Renew Europe’s head, observed of the departed representatives
that “their divergence from our values” had “increased exponentially and we
witnessed this with great concern.”[1]
For his part, Babis pointed out, “We went to the European elections saying that
we would fight against illegal migration, that we wanted to repeal the ban on
internal combustion engines and fundamentally change the Green Deal. . . .
Above all, we want the Czech Republic to remain a sovereign country.”[2]
Although Babis’ claim that the Renew Europe party would not change its party
platform on immigration and the Green Deal is correct, he could not very
credibly blame the party because the Czech Republic had given up some of its
sovereignty in becoming a state in the Union; qualified majority voting alone
is part of that transfer, since Babis’ state could be on the losing side of a
QMV in the European Council. Nevertheless, the ideological difference between
Bibis’s group and the party on immigration and the Green Deal meant that the
Renew Europe party would be more ideologically “tight” and thus powerful in
that sense with the departure of Babis and his fellow MEPs, and they in turn
could find another party closer to their views precisely because the Parliament
contained several parties rather than just two. Hayer pointed to the impact on
the party’s ideological position in saying that the departed MEPs’
“unwillingness to continue their commitment to liberal values has led to
today’s outcome. They have turned their back to our firm pro-European
convictions and values.”[3]
More to the point, Hayer predicted that the party would be “more united.”[4] Fewer members in the legislative body but
more united: this is the trade-off that any party leadership in the E.U.
Parliament had to balance in the post-election phrase of politics. I submit that
this is a good thing.
A major benefit of the balancing
act is that E.U. citizens going to the polls could more closely tailor their
respective votes to their political positions or ideology than can U.S.
citizens voting for members of the U.S. House. An American voter angry at the
Israeli government, for example, did not have a choice of party opposing the
military incursion into Gaza; both the Democratic and Republican parties
supported Israel in 2024. In contrast, a European could vote for a party with a
plank opposing military support for Israel. The drawback in the European case
is in terms of political stability in the Parliament, but as even an increase
in representatives in the parties on the right did not fundamentally alter the
majority coalition of parties, the inertia of the status quo has considerable
weight in maintaining stability even as multiple parties jostle for members
while trying to stay true to specific values on the political spectrum. In
other words, the fear of political instability from there being many parties in
the Parliament is overstated.
Therefore, Americans could be less scared of deviating from the American duopoly of major parties, as if the credible advent of other parties being truly competitive would trigger seismic political instability. A recalibrated “cost-benefit” analysis of having a duopoly of just two major “big tents” could result in reforms in which voters would be better able to tailor their votes to their values and political positions without having to vote for whichever party is closer even if it isn’t really very close and may even have antipodal positions. The political-legal electoral architecture, or basic framework, that favors the duopoly would have to be fundamentally changed, and in a political culture of incrementalism, such a change is only possible but not probable. Even so, it doesn’t hurt to look to the E.U. for ideas. That is to say, the U.S. could learn a thing or two from the E.U.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
