A EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT ELECTION of CONSEQUENCE PAT COX Pat Cox Has Been the President of the Jean Monnet Foundation for Europe Since January 1St, 2015

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This is the address delivered by Pat Cox in Florence on 23rd November 2018 Cover: alain kissling / atelierk.org DEBATES Inner Layout: atelier Kinkin at the conference “40 years of European Parliament direct elections” organised AND DOCUMENTS Fondation Jean Monnet pour l’Europe COLLECTION A EUROPEAN at the European University Institute. Ferme de Dorigny DECEMBER 2018 CH - 1015 Lausanne www.jean-monnet.ch Pat Cox is the President of the Jean Monnet Foundation for Europe and PARLIAMENT ELECTION former President of the European Parliament. 11 OF CONSEQUENCE PAT COX

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FONDATION JEAN MONNET POUR L’EUROPE A EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT ELECTION OF CONSEQUENCE PAT COX Pat Cox has been the President of the Jean Monnet Foundation for Europe since January 1st, 2015. An Irish national, he is 66 years old. After teaching economics, he then became journalist and anchor-man of the news bulletin on the Irish national television. He was elected to the European Parliament in 1989, being re-elected for three terms until 2004. He was the President of the European Parliament from 2002 to 2004. 3 He was the laureate of the International Charlemagne Price of Aix- la-Chapelle in 2004. He subsequently presided over the European Movement International from 2005 to 2011. He was a member of the special European Parliament mission to Ukraine in 2012-2013, jointly with the former Polish President Aleksander Kwa´sniewski. He is currently the Coordinator of the European Union project for the transport corridor from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean. A EP Election of Consequence

Bibliographic Reference

Cox, Pat : A European Parliament Election of Consequence, Lau- sanne, Jean Monnet Foundation for Europe, Debates and Docu- ments Collection, issue 11, December 2018

The author expresses himself in his personal capacity and his text does not commit the publisher of the collection

‘World peace cannot be safeguarded without the making of creative efforts proportionate to the dangers which threaten it’ is the ope- ning sentence of the Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950. After seven decades of peace on our old continent that proposition may have lost some of its resonance for younger Europeans but cer- tainly none of its relevance. We meet in the shadow of the recent centenary commemorations of the end of the First World War in 5 November 1918. That war led to the collapse of four empires – the Austro Hungarian, German, tsarist Russian and Ottoman empires. The armistice ushered in an interlude between world wars but not an era of sustainable peace. Less commented on recently than the collapse of empires, but in its own way no less potent, was the US Senate refusal in 1919 to join the League of Nations and its rejec- tion of the Versailles peace treaty. Lessons were learned after the Second World War, not least by the victorious Americans. Enga- gement and global leadership were the United States chosen form A EP Election of Consequence for the self-expression of its enhanced national prestige and global power.

After World War Two, Pax Americana and NATO assured the peace in Western Europe but Europeans sought and found a dee- per reconciliation for themselves through the process of Euro- pean integration, ‘through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity,’ in the words of Robert Schuman. An Ameri- can-led rules based international order has served Europe and the wider world well but the underwriting anchor state of that order, the USA, today seems set to become its great disruptor. Combined with overt and covert Russian aggression in Ukraine, backsliding on the rule of law in some European states, the imminent exit of the UK from the EU and increasingly contested values and policy fundamentals remind us that recent past performance is no gua- rantee of future continuity or success. A drift towards more authoritarian models of government Low turnout abounds. Popular descriptions of Vladimir Putin as a Czar, of Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a Sultan, of Xi Jing Ping as an Empe- ror capture the zeitgeist. Viktor Orban, the self-declared illiberal democrat, and Donald Trump the want-to-be disruptor exhibit Regrettably one observes that though the European Parliament tendencies that are not dissimilar. Open and pluralist democracy has political and treaty-based constitutional legitimacy it has is a high water mark but not the long-term norm of human his- struggled to find widespread popular legitimacy in line with the tory. The next European Parliament elections will take place in rise in its powers and influence. From the first direct election this fraught context. What we value must be nourished, renewed across nine member states in 1979 to the eighth direct elections and re-energised by each generation rendering our democracies across twenty-eight member states in 2014 the turnout only ever 6 fit for the times we live in. This is well captured in the words of Il has declined, from a high of 61.8 % to a low of 42.6 %. Analytical 7 Gattopardo, the Leopard, ‘For everything to stay the same, every- and academic observations that these are second order elections, thing must change’. Complacency is not an option for those whose that turnout compares favourably with US mid-term elections or choice is open and liberal democracy. that there is no European demos though relevant as explanations do not of themselves compensate for a degree of disappointment Against the background of the turbulent first half of Europe’s that in voter turnout terms this unique experiment in trans-fron- twentieth century that we should have a directly elected parlia- tier democracy has not found a higher cruising altitude. ment operating at a supranational level, validated by conferred treaty powers and representing all the peoples of the European One can speculate on many reasons why this participation gap

A EP Election of Consequence Union is a truly impressive and unique phenomenon. It represents exists. On the policy input side, for most citizens, in spite of A EP Election of Consequence a civilizational and not just a political change. It has no precedent decades of exposure to the evolution of EU politics and adminis- in human affairs and nothing quite like it exists anywhere else tration, the system remains complex and opaque. There is wides- in the world. In its early decades the parliament had to assert its pread ignorance of how the EU including parliament actually democratic mandate as it laid claim to more extensive powers. It works. Many EU legislative acts are framework laws which in time now acts as a co-legislator with the Council, as a budgetary autho- are transposed into national law and thus, if at all, into national rity with influence over all Union expenditure, exercises oversight and popular consciousness but with a time lag. This obscures the of the European Commission and all high political authorities at essentially European origin of such initiatives. Union level, has the right of assent over international agreements and is buttressed by increasingly substantial inter-institutional The European Parliament, its political groups and its members agreements with the Commission. This is not the talking shop of are among the most active exponents of parliamentary social early critiques of its predecessor institution the European Parlia- media activity in the world, across twenty-four official languages mentary Assembly established in 1958. Institutionally and politi- and multiple platforms (including official websites, EP News Hub, cally the European Parliament is an indispensable player in the life Facebook, Foursquare, Flickr, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, and politics of the European Union today. Its ninth convocation Pinterest, Reddit, Snapchat, Spotify, Twitter and You Tube). This since the first direct elections will commence with the elections underlines the necessity to appreciate the distinction between of May 2019. The feeling is abroad that this time there is more at communications, in terms of policy and platforms, and com- stake in these elections than before. municating, in terms of reaching mass public consciousness and influencing voter participation and behaviour. Paradoxically there is a co-existence of both simultaneous tsunamis of information secular decline in voter turnout. Elections including those for and vast reservoirs of popular disconnection. Voter disconnec- the European Parliament continue to be fought mostly inside the tion and low turnout are not unique to the European Parliament political and linguistic boundaries of our member states. The role in contemporary democracy but these remain sources of concern of European political parties has advanced but in truth they still when one observes the ultra-low turnouts in several member are in effect confederations of broadly like-minded national and states, especially though not only in the Visegrad states. regional parties. It is the latter, the national member parties, who are the agents of political expression and activity on the ground As regards elections, Euro-constituencies range in size from in member states on behalf of the European party. No one, for national to super-regional in scale. While party lists typically are example, expects the EPP European election campaign to sound led by well-known personalities lesser-known candidates chosen or feel the same in Hungary under Fidez as it will elsewhere in the 8 by party selectorates frequently make up the rest. When a newly EU. Viewed through the respective lenses of creditor and debtor 9 elected MEP travels to a first post-election plenary session, largely states completing economic and monetary union will be a very unknown to their electorate at the point of departure, it is not the different debate in different places even inside the same pan-EU real geographic or perceived institutional distance of Brussels or political families, likewise for immigration, European defence Strasbourg from their electoral base that explains their compara- and other big ticket policy issues. tive anonymity. It is the party selection systems at home that must bear the burden of explanation. These essentially are a national and not a European challenge to resolve. A common electoral law that insisted, for example, on open list systems and proportional

A EP Election of Consequence representation could address this anonymity problem but resis- A EP Election of Consequence tance to change comes from the very sources of national party political power that prefer to manage and/or manipulate today’s diverse electoral systems.

Also, European elections remain essentially national in charac- ter. Voter mobilisation focuses more on topics and personalities driven by local or national preferences than cross-frontier and pan European issues. This reinforces an existing tendency among member state governments and media to treat EU issues as exter- nal rather than integral to national politics, less as a matter of partnership and more as an outside imposition. Even where Euro- pean policy issues come into play during national European election campaigns they can be highly differentiated from one state to another in terms of preferences and interests.

The Spitzenkandidaten process and its televised debates during the 2014 elections led to more awareness of pan-EU political issues among those who chose to follow them but failed to reverse the Contested politics The distribution of power

On the policy output side, the multiple and consecutive economic Every political group in the European Parliament has always been and migration crises of the past decade have left their electoral a minority. Every one of the eight convocations since direct elec- mark across the face of the continent. They have produced grea- tions has resulted in a power duopoly exercised by the two largest ter inter-state tensions and policy cleavages and have led to more groups, the EPP and S&D. For the first twenty years, 1979-1999, contested, more fragmented and more nationalist tendencies in the S&D were in pole position. For the next twenty years, 1999- politics. Striking a balance during the economic crisis between 2019, the EPP has been the largest group. The nature of this duo- 10 fiscal rigour and fiscal rigidity has proved elusive. The immigra- poly is most visible in the distribution of parliament presidencies 11 tion crisis has been contained but the radioactive political half- by group over the past forty years. These constitutive accords are life of its consequences has not. Agreeing an agenda and level of not formal coalition agreements but are a proxy measure of the ambition for reform lies trapped between Gallic enthusiasm and distribution and exercise of power. Of the sixteen two and a half Teutonic caution, with the possible exception of a Trump-inspired year rotations of office the EPP accounts for seven EP Presidents, but contested proposition to deepen EU defence policy. The fun- the S&D for six, counting Martin Schulz twice, the Liberals for damental values of liberal democracy, truths many thought we two and the British Conservatives for one. The three exceptions held to be eternal, are stress-tested too often for comfort inside outside the duopoly do not disprove the rule but confirm that our Union. it was not always enforced with iron discipline. In terms of seat

A EP Election of Consequence share the S&D peaked in 1994 with 34.9 %, while the EPP peaked A EP Election of Consequence In state after state the traditional centre left and centre right in 1999 with 37.2 % of the seats. In the current parliament these have been compressed as new parties, nativists and populists of two groups between them account for 54.4 % of MEPs. In the light the left and right and new centrists have made electoral gains. In of consecutive national and regional elections since 2014 one can terms of single party majorities and significant minority presence predict with reasonable certainty that this duopoly is about to be in government there now is an unbroken chain of populists and ended by the electorate. ethno-nationalists in charge from the Baltic to the Adriatic, one could say from Stettin to Trieste, echoing Churchill’s famous Iron Both the EPP and the S&D are set to lose votes. Several poll-of- Curtain speech at Fulton, Missouri in 1946. Against this back- polls analyses have been published suggesting that the combined ground let us reflect on the upcoming European Parliament elec- strength of these two parties is likely to drop to 45 % or possibly tions. Nothing is certain but some things are clear. less with both losing voter and seat share but with the centre left doing relatively worse of the two. As a consequence their collective future power political options will be diluted.

Following Brexit the number of seats in the next convocation of the European Parliament will drop from 751 to 705. Estimates suggest that new parties that were not in existence or did not contest the 2014 elections may win up to 80 seats, more than one in ten, of the next parliament. If the traditional centre left and centre right are set to be the big losers, the winners seem likely to Spitzenkandidaten be distributed in a nearly symmetrical split between, on the one hand, the more nationalist, more Eurosceptic and more extreme parties of the left and right and, on the other, the new parties of the centre. Politics is also likely to be more contested as the share The EPP has selected Manfred Weber to be its lead candidate in of Eurosceptic and nationalist deputies is set to increase but their 2019. The S&D selection will be made in Lisbon early in December collective policy coherence and its effects remain to be seen. The (2018). The ALDE group is fortified by the recent announcement Greens have being doing well in recent national and regional elec- at its congress in Madrid that President Macron’s En Marche will tions but their prospects for the next European Parliament appear join, signalling a rejuvenation of the centre. Others may follow. to be relatively limited. ALDE has not nominated a lead candidate but will convene early 12 in 2019 in Berlin to propose a leadership team for their EP electo- 13 On current projections, after the next elections – the EPP and ral campaign. This choice leaves the door open to future bargai- S&D will not constitute a majority – a coalition of the EPP and all ning in the light of the election outcome. It appears to be resiling parties to its right would not constitute a majority – nor would a from the Spitzenkandidaten logic of five years ago leaving future coalition of the S&D with all parties to its left. A coalition of the options open. It avoids for the moment tying President Macron, in EPP or the S&D with parties of the centre is unlikely to form a advance, to supporting a particular lead candidate or indeed any majority if current projections hold. Consequently, power in the lead candidate. The Greens meet in congress in Berlin as we speak. next European Parliament and across the institutions will need to be more distributed than in recent years to reflect the new politi- The Spitzenkandidaten experiment continues but in the light of

A EP Election of Consequence cal realities, probably with a shift from a two party duopoly, at a a probable change in the distribution of power its outcome is less A EP Election of Consequence minimum, to a three or four party oligopoly. This will be a more clear than in 2014. Declaration 11 of the Lisbon Treaty in relation fragmented structure necessitating more consensus building and to Article 17.7 of the Treaty on European Union designates the bargaining and more complex coalition construction not just for European Parliament and the European Council as being ‘jointly constitutive sessions but also on an on-going basis policy by policy. responsible for the smooth running of the process leading to the election of the President of the Commission’ and refers to ‘taking account of the elections to the European parliament’. It is worth recalling in the event that a candidate for the presidency of the European Commission fails to obtain a parliamentary majority in the Euro- pean Parliament that Article 17.7 of the TEU provides that ‘the European Council, acting by a qualified majority, shall within one month propose a new candidate who shall be elected by the European Parliament following the same procedure.’ In short the rules already anticipate circumstances where the parliament could fail to find a majority for a given lead candidate. This is not to predict that it will fail to do so but rather to illustrate how much will remain to be played for once the new parliamentary arithmetic will be revealed next May. Conclusion politics without populist excess. We owe it to ourselves and to our responsibility before history to make creative efforts together proportionate to the dangers which threaten us.

Let me conclude. I am an Irish European, Irish first and last but I do not like extremes in politics but at my stage of life I can not only Irish in terms of my identity. Identity has become a cen- countenance being governed by those who are slightly left or tral part of today’s divided political discourse. We need to defend slightly right, slightly liberal or slightly green but I cannot counte- a place for layered identity, for a sense of belonging to where we nance living under those who are only slightly democratic. This come from undiminished by feeling connected to a larger com- for me is the battleground for 2019. munity of shared destiny. 14 15 Pope Francis spoke of the need for a ‘memory transfusion’ in Europe when he received the Charlemagne prize of Aachen in 2016.

For my part, I fear the rise of xenophobic nationalism with its toxic echoes of the 1930s. I fear the rise of super patriots and fanaticism, of extremist ideologies and the creeping disregard for checks and balances and the rule of law. I fear a world of strong

A EP Election of Consequence leaders and weak institutions. I recall Mussolini’s remark “If you A EP Election of Consequence pluck a chicken one feather at a time nobody notices”. I remember our continent’s history and do not want to turn the clock back.

Today’s political battleground is moving from the traditional left- right cleavage, stranding many traditional political parties in its wake. The new battle is more between open and closed not left and right, between pluralist democracy and creeping illiberal majori- tarianism. We cannot let xenophobes appropriate what it means to be a patriot. We cannot abandon our capacity for consensus building and compromise. We need to create the space and time for mutually respectful reflection and debate in an age of accele- rated and instantaneous communication, which is not easy. We need to acknowledge that not everyone concerned about immigration is a racist or should be labelled as such. Not everyone who promotes openness disrespects national sovereignty or should be accused of such. Not everyone who is disillusioned and angry or bitter is wrong or should be dismissed as such. We need through policy innovation to rediscover the democratic energy of popular The Foundation was created in 1978 by Jean Monnet, the designer of the first Euro- European Parliament and the European Movement International ; Bronisław Geremek pean Community and the first honorary citizen of Europe. He entrusted all his archives (2006-2008), member of the European Parliament and former minister of Foreign to the Foundation. An independent institution serving the public interest, a non-par- Affairs of Poland ; and Henri Rieben (1978-2005), professor at the University of Lau- tisan and a non-militant structure, the Foundation receives support from the State sanne. Since 2012, the director of the Foundation has been Gilles Grin, doctor in of Vaud, the Swiss Confederation and the City of Lausanne. It operates out of the international relations and lecturer at the University of Lausanne. Dorigny Farm, located in the heart of the campus of the University of Lausanne, its main partner.

Today the Foundation houses and exhibits many other private archives, notably those of Robert Marjolin and the European papers of Robert Schuman and Jacques Delors, as well as iconographic and audio-visual documents. It includes a specialized library and a European documentation centre. The Foundation collects testimony from key actors and witnesses as a part of its filmed interview programme. It thus provides users, and especially researchers, with a coherent corpus of documentary resources on the origins and development of European construction and on Switzerland-Europe relations. Every year, the Foundation awards its Henri Rieben Scholarship to several advanced PhD students.

Thanks to the internationally recognised importance of these collections and to the col- laboration between Jean Monnet and Professor Henri Rieben, who chaired the Foun- dation until 2005, the Foundation has become a European intellectual crossroads and an essential venue for meetings, debates, and reflection about major current European issues. It regularly organises conferences, European dialogues, and international sym- posia, forming partnerships with prestigious institutions. It periodically awards its Gold Medal to prominent political figures who have worked for the common interest of Euro- peans ; among the laureates are José Manuel Barroso, Emilio Colombo, Mario Draghi, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Jean-Claude Juncker, Helmut Kohl, Romano Prodi, Helmut Schmidt, Martin Schulz, Javier Solana, and Herman Van Rompuy. The Foundation also welcomes many visitors and researchers, who are given assistance in their work, in addition to contributing to the training of students. Thanks to support from the State of Vaud, the Foundation created a new activity in 2016, a “think tank” made up of a group of experts, currently working on sustainable mobility in Europe.

An editorial mission supplements the range of the Foundation’s activities. The Red Books Collection, which was created by Henri Rieben in 1957, has been co-published with Economica since 2007 and now comprises 218 titles. A new series of shorter publications, the Debates and Documents Collection, was launched in 2014. These publications tend to highlight the Foundation’s documentary collections, its public events, or the expertise of its members and partners.

Every year, the General Assembly of the Council of the Foundation – consisting of about 530 members from all walks of life – is held, as well as the Scientific Commit- tee. Pat Cox, former president of the European Parliament and the European Move- ment International, has been the president of the Foundation since 1st January 2015. His predecessors are José Maria Gil-Robles (2009-2014), former president of the Previous publications in the Collection

Ferry, Jean-Marc : Les voies de la relance européenne, numéro 1, avril 2014, 51 pp.

Grin, Gilles : Méthode communautaire et fédéralisme : le legs de Jean Monnet à travers ses archives, numéro 2, septembre 2014, 27 pp.

Cox, Pat : De la crise économique à une crise politique dans l’Union européenne ?, numéro 3, septembre 2015, 59 pp.

Cox, Pat : From Economic Crisis to Political Crisis in the European Union ?, issue 3, September 2015, 55 pp.

Gil-Robles, José Maria : L’investiture de la Commission européenne : vers un gouvernement parlementaire pour l’Union européenne, numéro 4, décembre 2015, 43 pp.

Dehousse, Renaud : Quelle union politique en Europe ? Entretien réalisé par Hervé Bribosia, numéro 5, mai 2016, 51 pp.

Cox, Pat : Europe after Brexit, issue 6, July 2016, 27 pp.

Grin, Gilles : Shaping Europe : the Path to European Integration according to Jean Monnet, issue 7, March 2017, 34 pp.

Martenet, Vincent : Un pacte pour réformer et refonder l’Union européenne, numéro 8, mars 2017, 54 pp. Cox, Pat ; Oliva, Patrick ; Kaufmann, Vincent ; Lundsgaard-Hansen, Niklaus ; Audikana, Ander et Huberts, Leo : Mobilité durable : Un appel aux décideurs européens, numéro 9, mars 2018, 37 pp.

Cox, Pat ; Oliva, Patrick ; Kaufmann, Vincent ; Lundsgaard-Hansen, Niklaus ; Audikana, Ander and Huberts, Leo : Sustainable Mobil- ity : An Appeal to European Decision-Makers, issue 9, March 2018, 37 pp.

Fontaine, Pascal : La méthode communautaire : Entretien réalisé par Chantal Tauxe, numéro 10, novembre 2018, 28 pp. 32048-1.qxp_CDD 11 04.12.18 10:42 Page 1

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FONDATION JEAN MONNET POUR L’EUROPE