Getting European societies on board is a sine qua non condition for any major reform in the EU. It is also evident that major reforms are necessary to guarantee Europe’s competitiveness and – in the long run probably – its very existence.
The popular sentiment and political agendas that question the usefulness of European integration and sometimes even the basic European values are on the rise. European institutions and member states suffer to counter these rising anti-European and in some cases anti-democratic tendencies that will pose significant risks to European integration in the medium-term. One major factor of popular disenchantment is that people know very little about the Union and the role it plays in their life.
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is said to have quipped once that to understand how the European Union works, you have to be either a genius – or French. The central administrative structure of the EU has indeed claims to be the world’s most complicated bureaucracy, bearing all the hallmarks of the French administrative system. The signs of (though fading) French influence are unmistakable in its symbolism and its management structures, as well as in its organizational mentality (the meetings of the college of Commissioners take place on Wednesday mornings, just like those of the French government; all three seats of the EU are in a French-speaking country; and the competition one must pass to become an EU civil servant bears an eerie resemblance to the tests used by French public authorities). The EU is simply incomprehensible to the man in the street; being too distant, it is lost in the mists of obscurity and lack of interest. This opacity was aptly demonstrated by the Irish referendum in 2008. The new EU Treaty would legalize abortion and homosexual marriage, opponents alleged, introduce compulsory service in a European army and raise taxes; it was on the grounds of such silly fallacies that a sizeable portion of the Irish electorate voted against the watered down European Constitution in summer 2008. An even larger percentage of voters had no idea what they were deciding and, to be on the safe side, opted for maintaining the status quo and cast their ballots against the Treaty.
Three years earlier, the referenda in France and the Netherlands failed in a similar fashion: the French were scared of losing their beloved welfare state (remember the perennial bogeyman, the Polish plumber, who will come and take the jobs of honest French workers?), the Dutch — frustrated by the swelling tide of Muslim immigrants — were looking to punish the government and let the world know in no uncertain terms that they did not want closer European integration. There is a sea of literature out there on the hypocritical nature and destructive impact of referenda. Let us simply admit that it is not just dictators and shifty financial investors who derail countries and regions — the electorate can do the same if the elite mishandles crucial issues. If such matters must be decided by a referendum and they indeed should, let us hold one in all member states at the same time. If the Irish (or for that matter the citizens of any other member state) see that the Danes, Spaniards, Germans and Hungarians are all voting, the referendum will assume a pan-European nature and shed the stuffy air of navel-gazing domestic politics. Another important issue is that “Europe”, unlike its member states, lacks appealing faces that people can identify with and the way its institutions work is too complicated for the average person to grasp. The European Commission, Parliament and Council do not correspond as equivalents to the traditional national political institutions which makes their functions and relevance incomprehensible.
Europeans know very little about the EU’s policies and its 150 billion euro budget. One in four citizens is convinced that the bulk of the EU budget is spent on running its own administration. When asked what areas the EU should focus its expenditure on, the environment came first with 40% of the respondents ticking the box, and immigration, energy and social policy second with 30% each. Strangely, these are all areas that the EU has little budgetary clout. In brief, people have no idea what the EU spends its budget on, and clearly, what it does spend it on are not the areas that people consider most important. And by the way, the EU does not spend its budget on issues that are meaningful to their citizens. Nonetheless, it is worth noting how closely the public’s wish list (sustainable environment, immigration, energy supply and social protection) maps the key challenges that the EU must face. In reality, however, as I just said the EU continues to spend a little on a lot of things [1]
Of course, I would seriously oversimplify things if I were to blame public ignorance for the failure to adopt a new European constitutional framework; the fear of losing national sovereignty was an important factor as well. Which brings us to one of Europe’s greatest dilemmas: what is more important to Europe’s peoples – preserving their national sovereignty at all costs or maintaining Europe’s competitiveness, and thereby its prosperity and geostrategic role, by ever closer integration? This is a question that the elite has the habit of asking but which eludes the public at large. Eurobarometer tested people’s knowledge with three yes-or-no questions i) Does the EU have 15 member states? ii) Are members of the European Parliament elected directly? iii) Does your country have a European Commissioner? Only 1 out of 5 respondents could answer all three correctly (The answers, incidentally, are (i) No, it has 28; (ii) Yes, and have been since 1979; (iii) Yes, they all do, at the moment).
People do not think much of the EU’s communication skills: 4 out of 5 think that EU institutions do not inform them properly. As a result, two thirds claim they understand domestic politics but only one third how the EU works. To make things worse, views on European affairs are largely influenced by the atmosphere of national politics. The fears of the crisis, job losses and lately immigration are present all around Europe and therefore polls tend to produce sobering results. Citizens are right this time: the communication of the European Union is very inefficient.
Due to the EU’s failure to respond to growing societal fears, it is not surprising that the image of the Union has lost its shine in recent years. Less than half of its population holds a positive opinion of the EU, while every third citizen has an expressly negative view of it. Curiously, there seems to be widespread support for a common European foreign policy (65 to 70% of respondents polled in favor) and a political Union (60%), as well as for the single European currency, although the latter’s acceptance rate is dwindling. The EU Constitution was rejected by referendum, the bitter bickering over the common budget (a measly 1% of GDP) dragged on and on, fears of globalization and the social and security threats of enlargement grew, the European idea started to weaken.
Europe has achieved an awful lot over the course of the last two decades: the single market, the single currency, the reunification of Europe, the accession of twelve new poor member states and above all peace, stability and wealth. One source of the problem is that the European project has always been characterized by a top-down approach and has never managed to entice much interest from the media. Even though the Brussels press corps number several thousands, most correspondents report European affairs through a national prism. Election campaigns for the European Parliament focus almost exclusively on domestic issues. The political elites of member states concentrated on domestic issues even when communicating European policies, and just because the same questions interest the public in most countries does not mean that there is a European approach or even as much as a European public opinion. Euroscepticism flourishes all over Europe; chauvinism, efforts to protect prosperity, the democratic deficit, the incomprehensible nature of the European project and the lack of a true European identity have all contributed. Nevertheless, the majority — though only just — of Europeans approve of integration; mainstream political forces are to some degree or other pro-European in all member states.
What then do people expect from the EU? According to Eurobarometer, people consider the following should be the Union’s core tasks: reducing unemployment, eradicating poverty, safeguarding peace and security, fighting organized crime and combating terrorism. As this list reveals, Europeans have precious little information on what the European Union can and cannot do: in these areas “Brussels” has a limited or no remit. They remain a predominantly national competence. This, of course, does not stop the public in countries like Finland, where there are few social and employment problems, from rating the EU’s employment and social policy highly. The French, however, who have had their fair share of social trouble, take a dim view of European social policy, which is yet another example of projecting domestic problems onto Brussels. Clearly, the average citizen does not understand the Union, which translates into uncertainty concerning its future.
Members of the European Parliament have been elected directly since 1979. Turnover in the EP elections has been declining steadily for the last thirty years all over Europe. In 2009, fewer than one third of the 375 million eligible voters cast a ballot, 2014 did not a show improvement, and in some new member states turnout was shockingly low. Ten years earlier over 40% voted on average. This should be a warning sign to Europe’s political elite: fewer and fewer people believe – contrary to the reality that it does so more and more – that the European Parliament — or for that matter the European Union — plays an important role in their lives. In sum, the EU simply does not make it into people’s living rooms.
The EU therefore should overhaul its communication and open up to a much wider public debate and participation. In this respect Europe’s new “Erasmus generation” can be a decisive factor.
[1] For a Eurosceptic and one-sided take on EU spending you can visit: www.openeurope.org.uk/research/hardsell.pdf