Elections to the European Parliament: a costly masquerade

Elections for the new European Parliament will be held from June 6 to 9, depending on the member state. Parliamentarians will have very limited power: they will vote on laws drafted by the Commission. Since its creation, the Commission has been NATO’s conveyor belt through the European institutions. It relies on both the Council of Heads of State and Government and the European employers’ association (BusinessEurope). Parliamentarians also have the power to pass resolutions by a simple majority, without anyone reading or acting on them. As the current majority is Atlanticist, all these opinions echo the logorrhea of Nato propaganda.

Traditionally, these elections are used as a way of venting their anger in the various member states. Executives therefore fear them and encourage a proliferation of alternative lists in their competitors’ territories. In France, where legislation on campaign financing is highly restrictive, the money that the United States and the Élysée Palace inject into these campaigns comes primarily from foreign (generally African) states and from the candidates’ printers. This strategy has led to an impressive multiplication of lists: already 21 in France and 35 in Germany!

Although elections are always by list, each state has its own voting system. In most cases, these are blocked lists, as in Germany and France. In some others, transferable lists are used: each post to be filled is elected one by one (which diminishes the role of the parties while retaining the proportional aspect), as in Ireland and Malta. In other cases, voters can change the order of the list they choose, as in Sweden and Belgium. Or, as in Luxembourg, they can choose candidates from different lists. Each of these voting systems has its advantages and disadvantages, but each does not measure the same thing.

The Treaties provided for European parties, but to date there are none; a sign that there is no European people.

National parties are therefore invited to come together in European party alliances, which can nominate their candidate for the presidency of the European Commission. From now on, the European Council of Heads of State and Government will choose the candidate from among them. This method of indirect election was introduced in 2014. In practice, the largest coalition was identified in advance. Jean-Claude Juncker, then Ursula von der Leyen, were thus designated before their coalition won a relative majority.

If Mario Draghi were to win the Commission, the leading coalition would have to change its mind at the last minute. They would have reappointed Ursula von der Leyen, but once they had seen the Draghi report on the competitiveness of European companies, they would have chosen him. This manipulation would make it possible to abruptly change the topics of discussion: during the elections, we talk about the von der Leyen administration’s record, then suddenly about the federalization of the European Union to the detriment of the member states.

This is a subject that voters don’t understand at all. They may think that "Union is strength", but not what the disappearance of the member states would mean for them. The Union is already not at all a democratic organization, and the State-Europe would be even less so.

Even if Mario Draghi is unable to appear, the central, yet hidden, question is: "Should the people of the European Union form a single state or not, even though to date they have not formed a single people? In other words, will they accept decisions being imposed on them by a majority of "regions" (we should no longer speak of member states) to which they do not belong?

German Chancellor Adolf Hitler explicitly raised this issue in 1939. His intention was to create a Greater Germany, made up of all German-speaking peoples, at the center of a constellation of small European states, each founded around a specific ethnic group. After the fall of the Reich in 1946, the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, wanted to see the formation of a United States of Europe, in which his country would have no part [1]. For the "Empire on which the sun never set", this meant being able to deal with a single interlocutor who could not compete with it. This project was never realized either, this time in favour of a "common market". It’s to this that we now return.

In economic terms, the Union is moving towards labour specialization: for example, Germany will specialize in automobiles, France in luxury goods and Poland in agricultural products. But what will happen to the German and French farmers who will be sacrificed, or the Polish carmakers that will also be sacrificed?

When it comes to foreign policy and defense, the Union is already taking an Atlanticist line. In other words, it defends the same positions as Washington and London. But this line would be imposed on everyone, including Hungarians who refuse to become anti-Russian or Spaniards who refuse to support Israeli genocidaires. According to the Treaties, NATO is responsible for the Union’s defense. U.S. President Donald Trump demanded that this defense should cost the United States nothing, and that Europeans should therefore increase their military budgets to 2% of their GDP. To date, only 8 out of 27 states have done so. If the EU were to become a single state, Washington’s wish would become an obligation for all. For some states, such as Italy, Spain and Luxembourg, this would mean a sudden drain on their social programs. The populations concerned are unlikely to appreciate this.

In addition, there is the particular case of France, which has a seat on the United Nations Security Council and the atomic bomb. It should put these assets at the service of the single state, at the risk of the majority of the European Council using them against French opinions. Here again, the populations concerned - the French in this case - would not accept this.

Incidentally, the State of Europe (which has nothing to do with the much larger continent of Europe) would be an Empire, despite the fact that part of its territory (Northern Cyprus) has been occupied by Turkey since 1974, and it’s happy with that.

None of these problems is new. It was because of them that certain politicians, including General Charles De Gaule, accepted the "common market" and rejected "federal Europe". Today, they are back at the center of the concerns of Europe’s Atlanticist leaders, but not of their peoples. That’s why they’ll be doing their utmost to conceal them during these elections. It’s the central issue, but it’s the one that makes people angry.
Added to these political problems is an organizational one. The industrial age has given way to that of computers and artificial intelligence. The vertical organizations of the early 20th century, whether in economics or politics, have given way to horizontal, networked ones.

The vertical model of the European State is therefore out-dated before it has even seen the light of day. In fact, anyone familiar with it has already perceived the emptiness of this enormous administrative machine, which ultimately only serves to slow down the growth it was intended to stimulate. The Union is now far behind China, Russia and the United States. The federal project will not only fail to revive the Union, it will set it back behind the emerging powers.

One might think that the advocates of the European state would have an interest in attracting broad participation in order to legitimize their project. But this would not be the case, since the federal project is not being discussed during this campaign; it’s being reserved for the next day with Mario Draghi. So they’re doing everything in their power to emphasize that the institution holds elections (which would be enough to make them democratic) and make sure that as few people as possible get involved. Turnout across the EU may not reach half the electorate.