- After its electoral successes, the only thing the EPP lacks is a common political agenda.
Five days before the Spanish parliamentary elections last sunday, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, top candidate of the governing party PSOE (PES), delivered a speech on the economic problems of the country, the main issue of the electoral campaign, and proposed his solutions for them. The options were two: either the European Central Bank should intervene massively and buy Spanish government loans – or the European Council had to adopt a public investment programme which Spain itself can't afford. The problem: Both options depend on European institutions, which means that even winning the elections Rubalcaba would not have been able to impose them himself. But, as El País wrote with some mockery: "at least, it should not fail because of lack of ideas". By contrast, the leader of the opposition, Mariano Rajoy from the conservative Partido Popular (EPP), didn't even bother to formulate an economic agenda. Instead, both candidates just went complaining around about "Merkozy" (see El País), until finally this paradoxical campaign came to an end and the PSOE suffered the disastrous defeat everybody expected, which means that over the course of 2011, there has been a government change in all five countries suffering most from the Euro crisis: Ireland, Portugal, Geece, Italy, and Spain.
At the same time, with the electoral victory in Spain the European People's Party probably arrived to the biggest institutional power it ever had. It not only provides the President and the largest group in the European Parliament, as well as the President and most members of the European Commission, but also the President of the European Council and the head of government of 17 of the 27 EU member states. In three more countries (Austria, Netherlands, Estonia) it is the junior partner of a coalition; in Italy and Greece it supports the recently appointed technocrat cabinets. In the Slovenian elections in early December, the EPP has a good chance of victory, too. Only in Cyprus and Denmark, which are governed by left-wing coalitions, the EPP is in the opposition, and in Britain and the Czech Republic it isn't even represented in the national govenment – the conservative governing parties there don't belong to the EPP, but to the Euro-sceptic Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists (AECR).
Party Congress in Marseille
Thus, the European People's Party has never had such a good occasion to present a political programme to the citizens and explain how to overcome the current economic and debt crisis. If the EPP can agree on a common line of its members, they will probably the ones who determine the way for EU reform. And as if historical fate was trying to interfere, the biennial EPP party congress will take place in Marseille just next December 7/8, and most probably, there will be an update to the position paper on Recovering from the Global Economic and Financial Crisis adopted in 2009 (which contains many good ideas and the rather touching quote "Today, financial markets are gradually beginning to normalize"). So, will we see a showdown on the Côte d'Azur?
Probably not – because the influence of the EPP is only matched by its discordance on the futue of the European Union. There is Nicolas Sarkozy, advocating a leading role of the eurozone, and Donald Tusk, insisting that also non-euro countries must have a say in all important decisions. There is Jean-Claude Juncker, the main proponent of eurobonds, and Angela Merkel, their most vehement objector. There is José Manuel Durão Barroso, supporting a deepening of European integration, and Horst Seehofer, who doesn't want to give away any national sovereign powers. And then there are Angelino Alfano, who for years has been Italian minister of justice and thus responsible for Silvio Berlusconi's ad-personam laws, Andonis Samaras, who until recently expressed his fundamental opposition to any austerity measures in Geece, and Viktor Orbán, who has restricted freedom of expression and established a dubious new constitution with a preamble called "National Credo" in Hungary.
And still, it would be nice if these politicians were able to thrash out their differences and present a coherent resolution all member parties could identify with. This would mean that the citizens could see what the EPP brand actually stands for – and have some orientation in the next elections, when once more the decisive political questions will only have an answer on the European level.
Probably not – because the influence of the EPP is only matched by its discordance on the futue of the European Union. There is Nicolas Sarkozy, advocating a leading role of the eurozone, and Donald Tusk, insisting that also non-euro countries must have a say in all important decisions. There is Jean-Claude Juncker, the main proponent of eurobonds, and Angela Merkel, their most vehement objector. There is José Manuel Durão Barroso, supporting a deepening of European integration, and Horst Seehofer, who doesn't want to give away any national sovereign powers. And then there are Angelino Alfano, who for years has been Italian minister of justice and thus responsible for Silvio Berlusconi's ad-personam laws, Andonis Samaras, who until recently expressed his fundamental opposition to any austerity measures in Geece, and Viktor Orbán, who has restricted freedom of expression and established a dubious new constitution with a preamble called "National Credo" in Hungary.
And still, it would be nice if these politicians were able to thrash out their differences and present a coherent resolution all member parties could identify with. This would mean that the citizens could see what the EPP brand actually stands for – and have some orientation in the next elections, when once more the decisive political questions will only have an answer on the European level.
PS.
Even before the EPP Congress, on November 25/26 there will be the Progressive Convention
of the Party of European Socialists in Brussels. Of course, it would also be great to get some answers how they are going to deal with the crisis in the future. For if we can trust the polls, during the next years the PES and its associated parties are going to take over government in one big EU country after another – in France, Germany, Italy and Britain.
Picture: European People's Party (EPP Summit 18 June 2009) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons
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