Europe is resilient

Jun 01, 2019 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

When the Euro Zone was locked in crisis and, later, when a million migrants fled to Europe from the Syrian war and elsewhere, many predicted that the European Union would not be able to stand the strain. When these crises were followed by the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump, it was common to say – especially in the English-speaking world – that this was only the start, and that other European countries would also succumb to a domino effect of their own nativist revolts and populist demagogues, and that this would hasten the probable disintegration of the post – 1945 European project.
It would be extremely foolish, even now, to pretend such a thing could never happen. After all, the political mood across Europe is still volatile. Confidence in rulers remains mostly at a low ebb. Nevertheless, it is also clear that those earlier prophecies of EU doom were wrong.
Europe did stand the strain. The disintegration did not continue. The populists did not storm the ramparts. The European Parliament elections of May 2019 show many things, and the results add up to a complex picture. But they show a Europe that is largely holding together even as it undergoes many changes.
Last week, fifty-one percent, of Europeans took part in these elections. That’s definitely not a great turnout, but it was markedly better than the 43% last time, and it was the best turnout figure this century. The percentage went up in 21 of the 28 countries, with spectacular increases in diverse places like Spain, Hungary, Germany and Poland. Warnings about voter disengagement proved mostly to be wide of the mark.
Those who were worried that renewed voter engagement might create more problems than voter disengagement were proved wrong too. The much-touted tide of populism, in which reactionary nationalists were predicted to flood to Brussels from all quarters, has not materialised. True, in some countries – France, Italy and Britain among them – there were large votes for anti-EU and hard-right parties. Yet these votes were not new; France and Britain have sent such MEPs to Brussels in the past. Nor, in spite of some gains, were they very numerous this time. On the most generous estimate, they now have around 170 seats in the new 751-seat parliament. That’s significant, but it is not decisive. It is a long way short of some earlier overblown claims. The populist right parties have not swept across Europe. Nor have those of the left.
But the old centre has not held either. It has been shrunk – again. That process is familiar too, including from the British results. The two big groupings in many previous parliaments – the centre-right of Jean-Claude Junker and Angela Merkel, and the centre-left S&D, in which Labour sits alongside Europe’s social democrats – shrank from 412 seats for the two parties together to 328, and lost their majority. The old carve-up is no longer so easy as a result. That is a good development.
But those other forces will not be the nationalists and anti-Europeans. They are far more likely to include the pro-European ALDE liberal alliance, and the pro-European Greens, if those changes seem familiar, then so they should. Britain’s results partly contributed to that change too, with faith in the old parties giving way to greater pluralism and resulting in a more balanced parliament.
None of this should be taken to imply business as usual for the EU. The old integrationist idealism is mostly gone, and rightly so. There are now many ‘Europes’ – west and east, north and south, left and right, core and peripheral – not just one. Even if the nations of Europe face many challenges in common, the politics of one country is always different from those of the next. Yet, although there is not yet a single European demos, these results suggest that most Europeans, even in Britain, can cope with and accept multiple levels of political identity. These elections show that the European project is heading in a more multifaceted and less federal direction. But they show that Europe is also resilient.

Yours
Rooplall Dudhnath

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