Europe needs an overhaul
It is late on Saturday night in an ridiculously large hypermarket in a less than salubrious suburb of north Berlin. The air smells of chemically enhanced fruit flavoured tea, the light is harshly fluorescent, the shelves stacked with beer stretch over the horizon and at the checkout a veiled Muslim woman is stocking up on bargain priced Marlboro cigarettes. 'Is it ok to smoke American brands again now that Obama is president?', I wonder.
I am sure she needs a fag as we have, for several days now, been subjected to a nerve grinding advertising blitz: videos, leaflets and posters, all cajoling people to go out and vote the following day (in Germany the EU elections were held on Sunday). I do not know if the Marlboro lady actually cast her vote, but the statistical likelihood is that she did not. Even after the extensive marketing campaign only 43% of Germans bothered to go and help select the next government of the continent that now hands down up to 80% of all the new laws in the countries that comprise the European Union.
It was not just the late night smokers of the lower income demographics who gave the ballot box the swerve. On Sunday evening I attended the official EU after poll party, held in the swanky headquarters of Deutsche Telekom. There were no women in veils there; instead there were lots of tall, beautiful, blue eyed, blonde haired and very well heeled bright young things who seemed intent on draining the last of the European wine lake. It turned out that the EU shindig is apparently a big deal on the Berlin social calendar.
In the front hall a very thin crowd had gathered to watch Theo Koll, Germany's answer to Jeremy Paxman and one time German TV correspondent in Northern Ireland, grill a minister or two and broadcast the poll results live to the nation; in the other room, where the free wine, food, music and pretty girls were, it was packed. The joke of the night was that parties thrown were more popular than voting for parties in the EU. It maybe loses something in translation, but in any language it comes out as, "never mind the ballots, here's the free booze."
Some older and wiser heads did not see the funny side of it; for them the EU means just one thing: the absence of war. They believe that Europe has stopped going to war with itself on a regular basis solely because of the EU has been there to stop it, and that all the silly business of bendy bananas and the squandered billions of Euros are a small price to pay to avoid another Waterloo, Somme or Stalingrad.
"They do not realise we can only party now because we do not have to fight," one Berliner told me.
At the end of a week when the American President had visited the site of a Nazi death camp and in which we paid tribute to the many thousands of young men sacrificed on the beaches of Normandy liberating Europe in the name of democracy, it was a poignant and sobering point, and one that, while I do not wish to in any way belittle the genuinely held opinions that divided voters between the DUP and TUV, sort of makes our own problems seem pretty small beer.
Some Germans did vote, but it is unlikely that the experience will be encouraging them to do it again any next time round. Earlier on Sunday I visited a primary school in the agreeable neighbourhood of Charlottenberg which was serving as a polling station; I was accompanying my other half, who comes from a former Soviet state and has recently gained German citizenship. She felt it was her duty to engage in democracy for the first time in her life.
The voters were arriving in unenthusiastic trickles and having shown their identification, were presented with a voting sheet about a meter long, listing some 30 parties, each fielding lists of up to 10 candidates. Trying to understand it all will have driven many people quite mad.
That last point was not totally fatuous. Earlier in the week I ran into one of those desperately earnest over-achieving clean cut young Americans who tend to pop up everywhere you go and who you want to dislike, but cannot. He was surveying attitudes to the EU and the election. The results were surprising him as Germans were displaying the sort of Euro-scepticism that had previously been the preserve of the British. One of the main complaints he was hearing that the complicated party list voting system detached the voters from their elected representatives. It fed into a mix of gripes that the EU was too distant, too complicated, not transparent, unaccountable and too powerful. All the usual stuff including a lingering suspicion that the introduction of the Euro had been a blind to hike up prices.
The icing on the German Euro-sceptic cake is the Lisbon Treaty, a blatant power grab dressed up as housekeeping. The swaggering, bullying and deceitful way that it has been forced through has put noses out of joint from Munich to Cologne.
Germany is not the only country to succumb to EU-apathy. Further east in Europe voter turnout was in the teens. That the Eurocrats had been throwing money at trying to turn out voters shows that they know full well that they have lost the interest and in many cases the trust, of the electorate. But what are they going to do about it?
Worryingly the answer seems to be "not a lot". The EU seems to be in collective denial regarding the depth to the PR problem it is facing. One friend, a top Eurocrat, was wandering around on Sunday night muttering "it's not good". She believes that the problem is that "the people" are not well enough informed and that the answer is to throw more expensive propaganda at them. She has been known to bemoan that she "only" had €7million to spend on pro-EU propaganda in Germany in the second half of last year. (In response I have been known to go quite red with rage.).
She has a point though; few people really know what goes on in the EU, but that is to miss the bigger picture: that if they did know more they might get very angry indeed. I have been to Brussels on the lobbying trail and the industrial levels of waste, inefficiency and borderline corruption are simply staggering. Having seen Brussels from the inside it is no surprise to me that last Thursday across the UK some 70% of all the votes cast went to parties that are either Euro-sceptic or outright Euro-hostile.
But remembering my acquaintance with the simple and direct fear of another European war I do not think that knee jerk UKIP style complete rejection of the EU is only option left, but radical reform is urgently needed if it is to remain in any way relevant.
For starters, instead of talking down to the electorate, the EU needs to listen and respond to what is being asked of it. Instead of hammering the Lisbon Treaty on to us, why do they not do what the voters are asking: tear it up and rewrite the EU rule book, with a few new sections abut transparency, and accountability? After all that is what is meant by democracy.
If the EU does not respect the views of the voters then is it any wonder that the voters no longer respect the EU?
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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