The chapter investigates the main topics of the electoral campaign and the division lines between political parties competing in the European Parliament elections in May 2019 in Romania. It aims to find out how present the European themes are within the electoral campaign in Romania. The previous European parliamentary campaigns (2007, 2009 and 2014) have shown that subjects such as the direction the EU should follow (degree of integration, more or less integration) and its various economic and social policies have not been very prominent in Romania. Neither the Romanian politicians nor the media gave the European issues enough emphasis, and when they are discussed, these topics are addressed rather from the national perspective, as internal policy issues. As the previous electoral campaigns, this one highlighted the division between some of Romanian parties/candidates and their European counterparts, on topics such as the cooperation and verification mechanism (cvm) or the EU's role in defending the rule of law and sanctioning antidemocratic slippages. This electoral campaign is of particular importance, both in the context of populist and Euroscepticism growth across the European Union, and as a test of parties' strenght for the next national elections (presidential elections in the autumn 2019, local and national elections in 2020).
Following the European Union wide debate on ways to enhance the democratic character of the Union the chapter will focus on the possible solutions envisaged in both Brussels and the national capitals towards creating a more democratic Union. A possible solution provided by EU officials and mep’s is the creation of the transnational lists for the European Parliament. Following Brexit, the idea of using the additional seats left by the departure of the British meps has become more and more attractive. Yet the discussions on this topic, are wider, ranging from the status of the representative democracy in the EU to national level discussion on designing a uniform EU wide electoral procedure. The way the current electoral system is organised would also be under scrutiny as the viability of Pan-European constituency opened to transnational candidates and the question of transnational lists as a tool to increase the European identity still needs to be assessed.
In this chapter we evaluate idea of cosmopolitanism in relation to some recent forces that appear to be reversing it in cases such as the UK in the forms of the return of the nationalism, the rise of populism in the West (Ashbee, 2017), counter-terrorism discourse and practices, and increasing xenophobia, Islamophobia and racism. This is taking place in the context of increasing social inequalities (Picketty, 2015) and global economic and political competition between nations. We begin with a discussion of Beck’s (2002) analysis of cosmopolitanism using this heuristically to assess recent developments in the UK in terms of three moments of ‘anti-cosmopolitanism’. They are all characterised to some degree by a form of populism, transformed public discourses and a shift in state institutions and practices. Each of these moments signalled an anti-cosmopolitan movement in different fields. Firstly, in terms of the field of internal relationships between ethnic groups within the UK and how these are managed by the state. For example the state’s response to the 2001 ethnic riots in the UK (Bagguley and Hussain, 2008) was distinctly anti-cosmopolitan, being focused upon encouranging the assimilation of British South Asians. Secondly, in terms of international relations and internal securitisation the state’s responses to the 9/11 attacks on the USA, but especially the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London also can only be read as being contrary to the process of cosmpolitanisation identified by authors such as Beck (2006). Thirdly, and most recently the vote in the UK’s referendum to leave the EU (Clarke et al. 2017) popularly known as Brexit, also demonstrates both a popular and state level anti-cosmopolitanism.
Fidesz get its third consecutive two-third majority in the Parliament in the 2018 legislative elections. The runner-up was the radical right-wing Jobbik party which started moderating its tone and policies in 2013. Although the Socialist Party kept the position of the strongest left-wing party, it lost a lot of votes. This balance among the opposition parties changed drastically in the 2019 European elections. First, the centre-left Democratic Coalition – the party of Ferenc Gyurcsány, the former Socialist Prime Minister – became the largest party in the field of the opposition, while Jobbik which almost totally abandoned its Eurosceptic policies got only 6 per cent of the votes, just a bit less than the Socialist Party. On the other hand, an extra-parliamentary liberal party called Momentum Movement made its electoral breakthrough and got 10 per cent. Following the elections, the opposition forces sought for cooperation in the local elections, while the quite controversial rhetoric of Fidesz towards the EU seemed to be softened.
Ever since Austria joined the European Union in 1995, Austrians have been among the most Eurosceptic nations in Western Europe, mobilised by the far-right, populist Freedom Party of Austria (fpö), one of the first of its kind. Despite being in government with the historically pro-European Austrian People's Party (övp) since early 2018, the fpö has not changed really their position towards the EU and was still part of the Europe of Nations and Freedom (enf) group in the European Parliament. Accordingly, the fpö faced a dilemma between maintaining cooperation within the government and continuing their successful Eurosceptic electoral strategy. The ep campaign in Austria was mainly concerned with domestic political issues and debates about the party lists. Particularly, the lead candidates of the two governing parties managed to portray themselves as two pols of the political spectrum regarding Austria's position towards the EU: Karas (övp) as a pro-European politician and Vilimsky (fpö) as the critical, anti-Brussels politician. This debate and the prior discussion regarding the lead candidate of the övp left little space for the opposition parties that were partially occupied with internal issues stemming from the national parliamentary election of 2017 (spö andGreens). Even the liberal neos with a very clear and pro-European campaign for a "European republic" did not really manage to draw attention to their manifesto. In addition to the strong focus on the two governing parties, the so-called "Ibiza-tape" occupied most of the public discussions, leaving not much space for topics related to the European Union. Nine days before the European elections took place, a short videotape displaying two leading fpö politicians offering political deals to a fake niece of a Russian oligarch caused massive political turbulences in Austria. The video led to the end of the national governing coalition and meant the (preliminary) end of the political career of the head of the fpö and Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache. Quite surprisingly, the effect of the scandal on the election outcomes was only minimal, yet the domestic consequences were overwhelming, including a government breakup and snap national elections that took place in September 2019. The övp and Greens were the clear winners of the European elections, while the Social Democrats neither benefitted from the scandal, nor from their opposition role.
There is a consensus among authors that the electoral system is one of the most effective instruments of political engineering (Sartori 1968; Lijphart 1995 etc.), having the capacity to generate or preclude democratic accountability, give a more important or a lesser role to ideologies, strengthening or loosening the voter-party bond (Norris 2004). In the same time, the question whether or not a European demos exists is at the very core of the theoretical reflection on the conditions of possibility for a European democracy. The perceived democratic deficit in the EU, a topic widely debated in the 90s and at the beginning of the 2000s, has nowadays made room for the rise of different types of (national) populism all through Europe. This chapter intends to put together those two issues, by addressing the linkage between the type of electoral system and the consolidation of a European identity necessary for the emergence of a European demos. It shows how the extraordinary diversity of the electoral procedures in the Member States has done little to consolidate the "we-feeling" (Walker 2001) of the Europeans: on the contrary. Meanwhile, the recent electoral innovations of the European electoral procedures, such as the Spitzenkandidaten, or the proposals for the reform of the ep electoral system, part of the institutional reform package of the European Commission ("A Union of Democratic Change"), such as the transnational lists and a "European constituency", show a desire to embark upon electoral engineering with the purpose of reducing the perceived democratic deficit.
The elections to the European Parliament in 2019 in Poland might be considered as an exit poll before parliamentary elections scheduled for autumn of 2019. This testing ground created an opportunity for political parties to implement some innovations in their programmes and organisational strategies. The opportunity concerned Law and Justice which was challenged by the European Union's requirement that Law and Justice government followed the rule of law principles. This stance of the EU was supported by the majority of Poles according to opinion polls conducted in December of 2018 by ipsos. Another problem was faced by the opposition parties. It might be shortly summed up as follows: together or separately. Eventually, along with consolidation of a large part of the opposition, emergence of a new party was observed. It was The Spring, led by Robert Biedroń whose objectives included promotion of lgbt rights and introducing supervision of funding of the Catholic Church. The Spring might become the major competitor of Civic Platform, the biggest opposition party.
