In most cases, the elections for the EU Parliament are not actually about the continental legislature. Voters are supposed to elect lawmakers that will represent them at the EU level and propose legislation that will affect the whole continent. However, both the candidates and the voters usually see the elections for the EU Parliament as a referendum on the incumbent government.
The Election's Context in France and Italy
In France, the elections will take place against the backdrop of the ongoing crisis within the ruling socialist party. With France's economy stagnating, voters punished the Socialists in the municipal elections held in March. This led to the resignation of Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault and his replacement by the controversial Manuel Valls. The move exacerbated frictions within the government, and a group of dissident parliamentarians from the left wing of the party is threatening to withdraw support for the government permanently.
Because the elections for the EU Parliament will probably be a close race between the center-right Union for a Popular Movement and the nationalist National Front, they will likely deepen the divisions within French President Francois Hollande's government. This will endanger the president's plans for the rest of the year, which include restructuring France's territorial divisions to reduce state bureaucracy and lowering taxes for companies that hire new workers.
Italy resembles France in that Matteo Renzi's government will also deal with a populist and Euroskeptic opposition in the context of poor growth and record-high unemployment. Renzi's center-left Democratic Party will compete against the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, which is proposing a referendum on Italy's membership in the eurozone, and an increasingly populist center-right, which is campaigning on strong anti-German rhetoric. Even if the Democratic Party is expected to win the elections, roughly half of the Italian electorate will vote for Euroskeptic parties.
After the elections, Renzi's government will focus on reforms to reduce state bureaucracy, including reform of the public administration and fiscal reform meant to simplify Italy's tax system. In the long run, it will keep pushing to reform the Italian Constitution to modify the role of the Senate and redesign Italy's territorial divisions to simplify the state bureaucracy. Renzi's main challenge will be dealing with the forces within his own party, as the left wing of the Democratic Party will push the government to abandon the European Union's deficit target and join France in a direct push against Germany's leadership in the eurozone. In the short run, Renzi's coalition government will probably survive its internal frictions, because nobody is interested in early elections in the current political context.
The Electoral Race Begins in the United Kingdom and Spain
In other countries, the EU parliamentary elections will mark the starting point for the campaign season ahead of the next general elections. In the United Kingdom, where the EU parliamentary elections were held on May 22, Prime Minister David Cameron is dealing with issues that will define the final months of his mandate (the next general elections will take place in 2015). The ruling Conservative Party will face the consequences of the record performance by the Euroskeptic UK Independence Party. In recent months, Cameron's Euroskeptic rhetoric has been influenced both by the genuine convictions of some sectors of his party and by the fear of losing votes to UKIP. Cameron reacted to this by setting up more bureaucratic barriers to foreigners seeking jobs in the United Kingdom and by promising a referendum on the country's EU membership in 2017.
But Cameron is running out of time to get the concessions he wants from Brussels. The process of reforming the EU treaties is long and will not follow Cameron's schedule. In the coming months, Cameron will be forced to find a balance between the growing pressure from his own party to adopt an even more Euroskeptic line and the need to reach an agreement with Germany and France on some level of institutional reform that would allow him to honor his promise before the elections.
Cameron will also be dealing with the Scottish independence referendum, which has put London in an awkward situation: While Downing Street is threatening to leave the European Union, it is also threatening Scotland that it will lose its EU membership if it becomes independent. This rhetorical schizophrenia will probably intensify as the referendum date comes closer.
Spain will also see the EU parliamentary elections as a key test before the next general elections in 2015. The government of Mariano Rajoy is struggling to present Spain's relative stability as a success story. While Madrid is enjoying beneficial financial markets, unemployment remains very high and economic recovery is still not assured. Rajoy's Popular Party will perform relatively well in the EU parliamentary elections, but the party is increasingly divided, as some of its most conservative members are uncomfortable with some of Madrid's policies, including the constant tax hikes and the pervasive challenge from Catalonia, which is still pushing to hold an independence referendum in November. As with Scotland, the performance of the pro- and anti-independence parties in Catalonia will show the status of both camps in the region.
A 'Super Sunday' in Greece and Belgium
Two countries have more immediate concerns than those in the United Kingdom and Spain. In Greece and Belgium, the vote for the EU Parliament will coincide with important domestic elections.
On May 25, Greece will hold the second round of its municipal and regional elections. The first round showed mixed results, with the left-wing and anti-establishment Greek Coalition of the Radical Left, commonly known as the Syriza party, making it to the second round in the city of Athens and the Attica region, where most of the Greek population lives. Greece's traditional parties, the center-right New Democracy and center-left Panhellenic Socialist Movement, showed that they are still strong in smaller towns and rural areas, but the Greek crisis has seriously damaged their electoral supremacy. The elections were also marked by a low turnout of about 60 percent and by the pervasiveness of the far-right Golden Dawn party, which got roughly 16 percent of the vote in Athens.
After the elections, the main question will be whether the ruling coalition can last until mid-2016, when the next general elections are expected to take place. Ironically, a weak performance in the elections would probably allow New Democracy and the Panhellenic Socialist Movement to preserve their alliance, as neither would be interested in holding early elections in the current context. However, Athens will have to deal with a reinvigorated opposition from the left and the extreme right, while pushing its international lenders for a renegotiation of its debt. In the coming months, Athens will formally ask the European Union and the International Monetary Fund to extend the maturity of its rescue loans. While an agreement will probably be reached, Greece's lenders will likely link the deal to additional economic reforms.
May 25 will be a particularly busy day in Belgium, as the country will hold regional and federal elections. In 2010, an inconclusive election led to a political crisis, and Belgium spent almost two years trying to form a government. This year's elections could lead to a similar scenario, because the ideological and linguistic divisions in the country have not significantly changed. The nationalist New Flemish Alliance is still the largest party in the Dutch-speaking Flanders, and the Socialist Party remains the main force in the French-Speaking Wallonia.
Post-election negotiations probably will be slow and complex, and Belgium will likely spend several weeks, or even months, trying to form a working coalition, which could end up involving half a dozen parties. If the New Flemish Alliance manages to form a government (it was excluded from the current coalition), it will probably push for a reform of Belgium's political structure, seeking to move from a federal state to a confederation in which Flanders and Wallonia have greater autonomy.
The organization of an independence referendum in Flanders seems unlikely, but the party could push for a confederate model. However, this would prove extremely difficult, as most parties in Wallonia — and even some in Flanders — oppose the idea. The Flemish nationalists would have a hard time getting the necessary majority to pass such reform. If, on the contrary, center-left parties manage to form a government and exclude the New Flemish Alliance again, these parties will have to deal with the same fragility that defined the government of current Prime Minister Elio di Rupo.
These cases underscore the extent of the EU parliamentary elections' domestic repercussions for most EU member countries. At the continental level, the elections will be defined by a strong performance of nationalist parties. At home, the elections will offer a barometer of the social climate across a continent where the economic and political crisis is far from over.
