European elections : disappointment in France, but a step forward for Europe

In France, the outcome of the European elections has certainly given little cause for satisfaction in our ranks. The turnout was very low. As the opposition had hoped, the ‘punishment’ vote we saw in the regional elections was repeated, even if the advance of the left has been halted.

Within the majority, the UDF has managed to rally the equivalent of half the UMP votes. Yet the UMP managed to increase the number of its MEPs in Strasbourg (17 against 12 RPR and DL in 1999), at a time when the quota allocated to France has fallen to make room for the new Member States (78 French MEPs instead of 87). There are finally signs of a fall in the eurosceptic vote, on both the right and the left.

We are not so blinkered as to rejoice at the way the socialists and the UDF immediately spoiled their electoral victory. Although they now form the largest national delegation within the PES Group, thanks to their sectarianism, French Socialist Party MEPs performed the amazing feat of turning their colleagues against them to the point that they actually handed over the presidency of Parliament to a Spaniard and the chair of the Group to a German. As for our UDF partners, they could not find anything better to do than leave the EPP Group at the very time that Group had won the day with regard to the draft Constitution and confirmed its position as the dominant group in the newly elected Parliament! The political result is that, if the UDF had stayed, French MEPs would have been in second place within the EPP Group, just behind the Germans, whereas they are now in sixth place, behind the English, Spaniards, Italians and even Poles. Meanwhile, the UDF sits in a small and diverse group, next to passionate supporters of Turkey’s application and total opponents of public services à la française. It beggars belief…

Fortunately, these national disappointments are offset by a far more encouraging outlook for the European Union as a whole.

Firstly, although the left has won in France, the right and centre right are broadly in the majority in Europe. And the very isolation of the French Socialist Party within the PES Group confirms that our compatriots are the only ones still entrenched in a Marxist, archaic vision of the way the economy and society work. The reforms that Gerhard Schroeder is courageously undertaking in Germany with a left-wing majority – and the support of the CDU when national interests are at stake – are the same as those that Jean-Pierre Raffarin is trying to introduce in France.

Secondly, in this summer of 2004, the impetus given by the European Convention is still being maintained.

Thanks to its very well-oiled machinery, Parliament has managed to absorb, both practically and politically, in the space of a few days and with no opposition, 732 MEPs from the enlarged Europe, hailing from 25 countries, affiliated to… 162 national political parties and now working in 20 languages within seven parliamentary groups. It took just four sittings to elect the President and the Bureau of Parliament, together with the 20 chairmen and 60 vice-chairmen of parliamentary committees!

For its part, given the outcome of the elections, the European Council has managed to confirm its assent to the draft Constitution. Despite the breakthrough of small eurosceptic parties in the United Kingdom and some Central European countries, a very large majority of the new Parliament is in favour of the European Union.

Lastly, these results also gave the winning party, the EPP, the courage to impose a candidate from its ranks as President of the European Commission, which means we can anticipate that the Constitution will be applied in a key area. Hitherto the President of the Commission, appointed solely by the European Council, following an almost automatic vote of confirmation by Parliament, had no more legitimacy than a top international civil servant. José-Manuel Durão-Barroso now has democratic legitimacy because he was chosen by the direct decision of the MEPs whom European citizens had just elected. Prior even to the application of the Constitution, Europe has taken a genuine democratic leap forward. Even if the turnout was not very high, those who took the trouble to vote on 13 June have reason to rejoice because however they voted that day, they did a good turn for all the citizens of Europe.

Alain Lamassoure, 26 July 2004