It is not just my personal experience that many people’s opinion’s about the EU and its institutions are predominantly based on a political chicken and egg problem: No one knows what came first, ignorance or lack of interest; however, both do a great job in reinforcing each other.
A particularly eye-opening experience was the change od hearts of a conservative friend who now actually works for the Tory party. Only a couple of days of un-biased research for a paper about the EU and much of the previously stated Superstate rethoric had become obsolete and intellectually dishonest.
Sure, institutional Europe does feature a certain, and often bemoaned “democratic deficit”. But more importantly, I’d say, Europe lacks citizens appreciating the importance of the democratic procedures already in place. But this, I suggest, is much less the people’s fault than now suggested by the same media that usually avoids explaining the complexity and importance of European governance for our life. A little because many journalists have a hard time with complexity themselves, but more importantly, because the technocratic and rather invisible way politcs is done in Brussels – while appreciated by national politicians – does not make good tv.
The media thus usually constructs a simplified reality that not accurately reflects the true nature of our multi-level political system. With respect to Germany, it may be indicative of this trend that Wolfgang Klein, a former EU correspondent for the German public network ARD, who once produced a very informative yet little known programme about the EU, has now moved to Berlin and become the editor of the much less informative, yet influential, political talk show “Christiansen“. Gresham’s law applies to eyeballs, too.
After the first direct election to the European Parliament the political scientists Karlheinz Reif and Hermann Schmidt stipulated that it was largely a “second order national contest”. Subsequent analyses largely confirmed their intuitive proposition that the national, not the European political agenda – and electoral alternatives – are the most decisive factor for voters. That was at a time when the Parliament did not have nearly as much influence as it has today. Strangely though, in light of the predominance of the national political sphere, it does seem somewhat cynically appropriate to group the EU elections with local elections, as in Britain or some regions of Germany – why not get over with all second order elections at the same time?
So should you still have doubts about the your choice for the European election and will cast your vote in Germany, why not take a look at the European “Wahl-O-mat“, if only to give this election the consideration it deserves. The application has been developed by an independent editorial board in cooperation with the German Bundeszentrale f?r Politische Bildung (Federal Centre for Political Education) and the Dutch Instituut voor Publiek en Politiek, which developed the original application “stemwijzer“. They do still offer a Stemwijzer for the Dutch EU elections, but then it might be a little late for a change of heart in this respect.
For everybody not voting in the Netherlands or in Germany, votematch.net offers the first Stemwijzer derived electoral helper-tool based on European party statements, not those of national lists – and it’s in English. One word of advice though – don’t be shocked if the results aren’t what you expect. The weighting seems a little arbitrary at times, despite the possibility to choose areas of importance in the end.
Interestingly, answering “neutral” for all 30 questions leads to a recommendation to vote for the Social Democrats in the German case. And somehow I wasn’t even surprised…
