ROOTCAUSES OF POLITICAL DISCONNECTION WITH THE EU

Author: Heather Grabbe, Director of the Open Society European Policy Institute

1. Faraway

For people who are not connected to the EU elite, especially those who mistrust their national leaders already, the need for a supranational layer over all the European governments is not self-evident. Identity is still primarily national, and so is political legitimacy. Only 46 percent of Europeans feel attached to the EU, whereas 52 percent feel no such connection; by contrast, 87 percent feel attached to their town or city, and 91 percent to their country. European identity exists, but it is weak: only 9 percent identify themselves primarily as European, whereas 87 percent give their nationality as their primary identification.

This is not surprising after hundreds of years of nation-state building in Europe, compared to sixty years of European integration. But time is not the only factor. Heterogeneity also affects how warm and fuzzy people feel about Europe. Its diverse cultures, histories, and lifestyles are Europe’s wealth, but in many places that diversity does not generate a sense of belonging together. The three dozen languages used in the European media also make EU-level politics seem faraway. News is reported in silos because the press coverage is in different languages, and there is no pan-European newspaper for millions to read the same stories.

Identification with the union is strongest in countries with weak national identity or dysfunctional central institutions. If individuals-Bulgarians or Italians, for example-don’t trust their own national elite, they might prefer it if faceless bureaucrats in Brussels constrain the excesses of that elite. Yet in the past five years, support for the EU has fallen most dramatically in Italy, mainly because the euro crisis forced austerity measures on Rome that caused unpopular reforms.

The institutions in Brussels seem distant and foreign to many Europeans. Attempts to build a European identity through the traditional means used in nation-states, like common flags and anthems, have failed.

When EU institutions impose painful measures, many Europeans ask themselves why they need to exist. They are not accepted features of the political space in the way that national political institutions are. If an individual is angry about EU-imposed measures, he or she might reject the entire EU project-from its treaties to its institutions.

Wholesale rejection of the union is gaining popular support because in many countries, the EU is perceived as an amplifier of globalization and a symbol of those states’ loss of power. The crises in representative democracy at the national and EU levels concern the same issues-frustrations about globalization and the growing incapacity of states to ensure jobs, public services, and welfare. But those frustrations are expressed in different ways.

For Europeans who want to regain control of their national destiny, there might still be hope that national leaders can help-so they protest outside the national parliament. The EU seems so faceless and remote that its citizens don’t believe they have any say there despite the union’s elaborate system of multilevel representation. Brussels-based institutions seem like part of the reason why individual countries are at the mercy of international markets rather than the means to defend ways of life.

2. Top-Down

This distance is partly the result of design. The officials and politicians who work in the institutions in Brussels inevitably live further removed from what is happening in European societies than national and regional politicians do because of the way the system was built.

European integration was created through elitist decision making. High-level bureaucrats and politicians started the process with little public discussion. Postwar governments in the 1950s and 1960s had less public involvement than today’s governments, and negotiations between countries were the preserve of the political elite. The culture in EU institutions still bears traces of the 1950s mentality: top-down, inflexible, process-oriented, and based on the assumption that Brussels knows best what is in the European interest.

EU officials were created as a “priestly caste” of elite technocratic functionaries who were encouraged to forget their own nationalities and commit themselves to the European cause. The EU was set up to foster European integration by building projects around long-term goals to which its Member States agreed. These projects were always intended to be largely isolated from the vicissitudes of national politics so officials could work on them consistently over many years and through many changes of government. The officials were never supposed to be as responsive to political change in one country or another as their national counterparts.

The European Commission, which initiates all EU legislation and oversees its enforcement, is modeled on the traditional French system of administration: very hierarchical and staffed by a merit-based elite, who enter through a tough competition and then stay in the institution throughout their working lives. The founding belief is that insiders should be loyal to their institution above all, with expertise in administration rather than a particular policy area.

The center of the EU political system is the community of law, which inevitably involves institutional rigidity, technical expertise, and incomprehensibility to outsiders. These characteristics can earn the public’s respect for institutions- for example, constitutional courts are held in high esteem by the public in Germany and Ireland- but they are not user-friendly.

The law is also inherently top-down: it constrains rather than enables, and it is authoritarian because it requires the enforcement of rules. Individuals may know that their government has to enforce the law, but they can still resent the ensuing reduction in personal freedom. When that restriction comes from outside their country, the resentment grows.

The European Parliament was created in part to bring the EU closer to the citizens, initially as an assembly of national parliamentarians and then directly elected members from 1979. But this democratic innovation and others did not occur because of popular demand. Rather, they were imposed from above by governments that envisaged an eventual federation.

This is the opposite of the modern idea of participatory policymaking through deliberative processes and flexible institutions that are open to new management methods and expertise from outside. Many EU-level policymakers’ understanding of the daily social reality felt by individuals in different parts of Europe is broad-brushstroke at best.

3. Unfair

In their daily lives, many European citizens do not perceive the benefits of integration. The EU does not fail to deliver benefits- they are just asymmetrical and only become apparent over a long period of time. Moreover, the costs of integration and liberalization tend to be felt acutely by the losers, whereas the widespread gains are not as perceptible to the beneficiaries. The media reports on closing factories and angry fishermen, but rarely on the slow gains in overall prosperity that have resulted from more trade.

The heart of the European project is opening markets and opportunities, and that provides very tangible benefits directly to individual citizens, not mediated by their governments. Since the single market and Schengen area were created, people have enjoyed passport-free borders (40 percent say they have benefited from this), diminishing roaming fees (over 25 percent), cheaper flights (25 percent), more consumer rights (19 percent), medical assistance when travelling abroad (12 percent), as well as more possibilities to live or work in another EU country (10 percent) or study in one (8 percent).

Many of the gains from European integration go to people who are already equipped to take advantage of them- those who are already more mobile, cosmopolitan, and employable and have resources such as education, city residence, and managerial or professional work experience.

Trade deals benefit the well organized and economically powerful. Big business has always done well from the abolition of trade barriers, but smaller enterprises complain about the amount of resources it takes to adhere to harmonized regulations and standards- even though they benefit from the rules being the same in 28 countries. What little protection the vulnerable have is provided through national social security programs, not the EU.

From the start, the EU has tried to provide buffers to certain groups that were losing out from modernization. But the few workers that had always benefited from direct EU subsidies- the farmers and fishermen- now account for a dwindling proportion of the population. The EU also created policies and funding to assist the poorer parts of society through the Structural Funds and specifically the Cohesion Fund, which was designed to help Greece, Portugal, and Spain catch up with the richer members after they joined in the 1980s. These funds have financed a huge network of motorways and much other public infrastructure across the poorer and more remote regions of the EU. However, this money is not economically significant compensation for those who are losing out from globalization, as it accounts for less than half a percent of the EU’s gross domestic product (GDP).

The EU offers special opportunities for the young who are doing well at school. The Erasmus program has given 3 million Europeans the chance to study abroad, no doubt widening their perspectives, enhancing their life skills, and introducing them to friends and future colleagues in other countries. It is a great achievement. Yet, the program has benefited only 6 percent of the EU population over thirty years, according to the European Commission, and many students without parental support cannot afford to participate. 

To the individual, the EU’s claim to safeguard the famous European social model looks extremely flimsy. Much of the economic pain that citizens feel seems to have been imposed by the EU as a result of its fiscal disciplines, but it is not responsible for giving out the pensions, unemployment benefits, or housing that help those who are suffering from international competition. 

Since the euro crisis, the costs have been acute and highly visible. The austerity policies imposed to reduce public debt and pay for bank bailouts caused massive disruptions, from cuts in social programs to mass redundancies of public sector workers, and drastically limited the protective powers of the state. Governments could not cushion the effects of economic interdependence by providing pensions and social security to those who lost out from the disruption of adjustment because their budgets were constrained. In debtor countries especially, the burden fell unfairly on those who could not protect themselves by moving their savings abroad or finding a job in a creditor country. This exacerbated the asymmetry of gains and losses from European integration. 

All this mirrors the larger effects of globalization, which tends to benefit disproportionately the stronger in society rather than the poor and vulnerable. The crisis has made the downsides of interdependence much more visible to individuals, and all the costs seemed to flow from euro membership- even though the problems had started long before the financial turmoil. No wonder people have started voting in record numbers for anti-EU populists.

4. Technocratic

The EU’s modus operandi is also out of touch with today’s realities. The method for European integration invented in the 1950s by Jean Monnet, one of the EU’s founding fathers, was to turn political disagreements into technical issues that could be resolved through extended negotiations among expert representatives of various interests. In the EU’s DNA are managerial approaches to problems rather than open debates about them.

Accordingly, the political drama that provides public entertainment and elicits the interest of voters is missing. European integration is a terrible spectator sport. The EU lacks a public arena for open clashes of interests with champions duking it out, and the political personalities are not photogenic celebrities- which is why colorful populists do well when compared to the gray technocrats. The fun is missing from the political contest.

This decisionmaking system is designed not to highlight who lost and won in the end. The union is the grandest of grand coalitions. All players must have prizes so they can praise decisions in their press releases. To eliminate barriers to trade and build a common market, it is essential to harmonize regulations. The basis of EU-level decisions about how to do this is deliberately kept below the political radar, because otherwise it would be impossible to make the necessary compromises.

Already in the 1990s, the permissive consensus that had allowed technocratic solutions was breaking down. Popular resistance to the EU’s approach began to grow as the technocrats moved into policy areas that were politically sensitive, such as border control and visas. There was insufficient public support to create the political union that would have made the euro work properly. Publics began to reject new treaties in referendums-Denmark in 1992, France and the Netherlands in 2005, and Ireland in 2001 and 2007. The EU found solutions, either by adding protocols and opt-outs to the treaties on sensitive issues that rendered them acceptable to particular countries, or by reducing the level of ambition by turning the rejected European constitution into a series of amendments under the Lisbon Treaty.

The tendency toward technocratic solutions was greatly reinforced during the euro crisis. The clash of interests between creditor and debtor countries created a political blockage that could only be overcome through technocratic solutions such as the de facto extension of the European Central Bank’s mandate. Political leaders outsourced decisions and resource management to the single EU institution that has no real accountability to any parliament.

5. Obscure

The EU’s political visibility may have increased, but that does not mean it has become more accessible. Indeed, EU-level governance has reached a level of complexity beyond that of any national government. It is designed as a system of multilevel governance that takes into account the many interests across the EU and has ample checks and balances. It is a giant compromise-forging machine, and the institutions are supposed to give everyone a say, from regional governments to consumers.

The system is often accused of being unaccountable, but in fact it has many accountability mechanisms- they are just built into a complex web of institutional procedures and requirements rather than into a public forum where voters can see the restraints on power. Accountability has become the enemy of comprehensibility.

The myth of the overweening, faceless bureaucracy that wields enormous power outside the control of national governments is just that- a myth. As the guardian of the EU’s treaties, the European Commission monitors how national governments implement and enforce EU law. The Commission, in turn, is overseen by the European Parliament, which can throw out the whole commission, as it did in 1997, and holds hearings for individual Commissioners. The Presidents of the European Commission and European Council both have to report to the EP regularly. The European Court of Auditors rigorously examines how the EU manages money. The European Anti-Fraud Office investigates misuse of EU funds. The European Ombudsman can call EU institutions to account when individual citizens complain.

The negative side effect of all these mechanisms is that they make EU policymaking more obscure, hard to understand, inefficient, and sclerotic. Overall, the EU institutions’ integrity system is stronger than that in some Member States, as Transparency International recently concluded in a detailed report. But it is very hard for an individual outside the institutions to experience this accountability because it happens within the Brussels bubble.

Most people who are not paid to understand the EU give up quickly on the 170,000-page body of EU law known as the acquis and the thick glossary of technical jargon needed to understand it. 

Leaks from institutions are common, and information is easy to obtain but only if you know where to look for it. Lobbyists are well known in the corridors of power in every capital city; but in Brussels, you cannot even know which corridor to go down unless you already know the game well enough to ascertain who is deciding what. Stakeholders have to be very well organized and have money to invest in gaining specialist knowledge and networks if they want to be heard in the EU. Backroom dealing increases the opacity of the system. The pressure to handle EU legislation more efficiently and speedily has reduced the transparency of negotiations between the institutions. For example, the trialogue procedure is becoming the default method of bringing all the interests together. In 2013 alone, representatives from the European Commission, Council of Ministers (officially, the Council of the European Union), and European Parliament met approximately 1,000 times to thrash out disagreements on proposed legislation after their institutions had decided their respective positions. However, these trialogues are informal meetings and happen behind closed doors, with no public access and no minutes taken. 

The Commission usually gets the blame for being obscure and unaccountable. But in fact, it is relatively transparent. Four other institutions have accountability deficits: the Council of Ministers, the European Council, the European Central Bank, and the European Parliament.

The Council of Ministers is much more political than the Commission, but the Member States are highly secretive about their negotiations. Once an agreement is reached, each minister gives a press conference in his or her language, and the interpretations can vary widely. The ministers do the same when they report to national parliamentarians about the agreement.

The same problem afflicts the European Council, where Prime Ministers and Presidents fight entirely behind closed doors. Only a minority of European Council decisions are ever put to a formal vote, with most made by consensus, so outsiders cannot know which governments lost out. Each Minister can then issue a press statement in his or her native language to spin the decision as a good one for his or her home country. 

During the euro crisis, the European Council was the black box where the most important decisions were made. This was necessary for emergency firefighting to save the currency. Many decisions were made in the middle of the night to avoid an attack from the financial markets once they opened in the morning. Only Heads of State and Government could commit the sums of money that would convince the markets. Journalists and commentators could not follow the deals or make them public until much later, and both members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and national parliamentarians were consulted after decisions were made. Public discussion of these steps with far-reaching consequences never happened. 

These tactics set a dangerous precedent. The legacy of the euro crisis is a new method of deal making among leaders that excludes other branches of government and is not transparent. The outcome was to privilege the executive branch, and within it the small circle of advisers and officials around the Prime Minister, President, or Chancellor, depending on the country. The normal institutional processes of checks and balances were suspended. Most Member States were marginalized as the large creditor countries took charge. They gave press conferences and debriefed national parliaments, but only after decisions had been made. Nobody outside the process really knows what happened between the leaders, who gave 28 different press reports.

The euro crisis coincided with the appointment of a full-time President of the European Council, who has a staff and agenda, which further strengthens intergovernmentalism. The Heads of State and Government grabbed power collectively and deepened the impression that the EU process was not democratic, especially without public consultation about key decisions. It laid bare the reality of power distribution in today’s EU: the Member States have gained power and the Commission has lost it, and the large creditor countries are evidently in charge on economic matters. This created an accountability problem for the many European voters who chose their national leaders and then watched them having to submit to decisions imposed by larger countries.

The entire European Economic and Monetary Union also has a persistent accountability deficit that the euro crisis made very public. The European Central Bank’s independence in setting monetary policy is the cornerstone of eurozone management, but many of the innovations introduced as emergency measures to save the euro lack accountability mechanisms. The roles of the European Central Bank and Commission have expanded greatly in financial regulation, which has been necessary to ensure a more responsible financial sector that does not impose enormous bailout costs on taxpayers and depositors again. But the importance of their roles and the huge implications of their decisions mean that reports to the European Parliament are not enough. There is now an intense debate among experts on how to remedy this deficit. 

Finally, there is the European Parliament. Although the EU has relied on increased parliamentary powers as a source of democratic legitimacy, the EP has its own array of accountability problems.