Primaries Update #2: ALDE and EPP

Last week we took a quick look at how the primaries are progressing with the Party of European Socialists and the European Greens. On the centre and centre-right, ALDE (Liberals) and the EPP (Christian Democrats) have also set out their process for selecting their candidates for Commission President.

The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) will open up their nominations process at the end of November (28-30th) during their London Congress, where they will also adopt their election manifesto. The nominations will be made at a Congress on December 20th.

ALDE has introduced a role for their associate members as well, with nominees being put forward by at least 2 member parties from more than one member state, or by 20% of the ALDE Party Congress voting delegates (the December 20th Congress). This will include the associate member delegates, which have already been elected. It's a small role, but it's good to see a Europarty ensuring that its members can play an active role beyond just being members of national parties.

The ALDE candidate will be announced at a special Electoral Congress on February 1st in Brussels.

ALDE timeline:

• 28-30 November Nominations opens & Election Manifesto adopted at London Congress
• 19 December       Pre-Summit liberal leaders meeting to discuss nominations received
• 20 December       Nominations formally close
• 1 February           ALDE Party Candidate to be announced at special Electoral Congress, Brussels

The European People's Party will hold their special Congress announcing their candidate on the 6-7th March in Dublin. The 2,000 delegates at the Congress will select the candidate and vote on the election manifesto.

It's a late start for the largest Europarty in the Parliament, and you have to wonder if this could be damaging to this election campaign. Given that the Europarty campaogns and election manifestos have made little inroads in European elections so far, and that the EPP essentially stand for a continuation of current Eurozone economic policy, the EPP probably doesn't have that much to fear on this. But if the other parties manage to create a bit of a media splash with their candidates, then they could add to the struggle the EPP will have as the incumbant in many EU member states.

Electric Shock: Oettinger finds out that Green energy doesn't attract the most subsidies

Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger seems to have gotten quite a shock over energy subsidies. The German commissioner, who also proposed a list of Common Interest infrastructure projects this week, has long maintained that Green energy receives more in subsidies than other non-nuclear power sources and asked for a report from his Directorate-General. But the Sueddeutsche Zeitung has reported that the results weren't quite what the Commissioner expected, and claims that he has had the more embarrassing figures removed.

The SZ uncovered that the figures for the energy industry for the 27 Member State bloc (i.e. before Croatia joined) were: €30 billion on renewable energy, €35 billion for nuclear, and for fossil fuels €26 billion in direct subsidies, with a further €40 billion in subsidies delivered indirectly. The embarrassing numbers didn't make it into the final report (the SZ provides the draft and the final report in the article).

As the paper notes, it is strangely reminiscent of the behaviour of the CDU-FDP German government in editing the report on inequality in Germany. This report initially reported that the inequality gap in Germany has grown in recent years but the final report had key sections altered to suppress this finding, allegedly at the behest of the market liberal FDP.

In any case, the numbers indicate that subsidies and state intervention are a pretty key part of the energy sector in Europe. The politics of slamming renewables for being "expensive" to support need to give way to a broader debate about the energy industry. What does it say about this market that it requires such a high level of state support - and what do we get in return? And are our priorities right in what energy sources we are supporting (coal being part of this mix)? Are these subsidies cost effective?

Cost effectiveness will be a key point, particularly for renewables that are supposed to be the growing market sector. Are we getting the growth in this sector that we should be?

European Elections 2014 Update: State of the Primaries

After the failure of the European political families to turn the 2009 elections into a true battle for power with the lack of presidential candidates, the Europarties have started to set up their own procedures to select the men and women they'd like to see steer the ponderous European ship.

The Party of European Socialists have opened their nomination period this month, to close at the end of October. The timetable for the PES is:

• 1st October 2013: opening of nominations - candidacies, letters of nomination and support should be sent to the PES

• 31st October 2013: close of nominations 

• 6th November 2013: PES Presidency meeting to check that all criteria are fulfilled – Official announcement of the candidates’ list

• 1st December 2013 – 31st January 2014: internal selection process within each member Party/organisation.

• February 2014: PES Election Congress, to ratify the votes on the candidate and adopt the Manifesto – Launch of the PES European election campaign

• May 2014: European Parliament Elections

The timetable is actually the biggest weakness of the PES's process - will there really be much of a campaign over the winter months? It will be nigh on impossible to generate media interest in the candidates unless they're former prime ministers, and hard to engage the party base when everyone's geared towards spending more time with family.

(This raises a question I've heard hinted at by a few people - are prime ministers the only talent pool that is suitable to draw Commission Presidents from? I'm not so sure, but with such a small, barren window of opportunity for the PES to pick a candidate, it's hard to imagine them successfully establishing anyone from outside that pool).

The European Greens have also opened up their nomination process for their leading candidates. This call for candidates closes on Sunday, so if there are any Greens who'd like to give it a shot, they'll have to apply soon! Nominees will need at least 4 member parties supporting them to be successful in their bid for leadership positions. It's not clear if the Greens see these leadership positions as potential Commissioners in the event of a coalition, or if they are intended as parliamentary leaders.

I haven't found anything on the European People's Party's selection process so far, but EPP MEP Gay Mitchell (Dublin) has called for the EPP to nominate a candidate this year. Mitchell also proposed former Irish Taoiseach and EU Ambassador John Bruton for the job.

Axing the Upper House? Ireland votes on the Abolition of the Seanad

Voters are heading to the polls today in Ireland to vote on the abolition of the Seanad (or Senate), the upper house of the bicameral Oireachtas (parliament). It's accepted that the house has largely failed to demonstrate its relevance to Ireland today: there is little to report of changes brought about by the house, and it is not known for standing up to the government. With supporters of abolition claiming that getting rid of the Seanad would save €20 million and cut the number of politicians, it's a message that chimes with a lot of people.

The Seanad is a strange creature. It has limited powers and by and large can only delay Bills (see the Referendum Commission's website for more detail). It is elected by "vocational panels", with the aim of representing different strands of society (this was inspired by Catholic thought about society in the 1930s). However the vocational panels were never really properly set up, and 43 out of 60 of the members of the Seanad are in practice elected by local councillors. 6 Senators are elected by graduates of Trinity College and the National University of Ireland, and 11 are appointed by the Taoiseach (prime minister) to help ensure a government majority.

Claims of "jobs for the boys" and general ineffectiveness have plagued the house, with abolitionists pointing out that it didn't stand up to the government during the financial boom years. This seems a strange argument to me. The strong parliamentary whip system and the weakness of opposition on economic policy from the political parties in both the Dáil and the Seanad is more to blame than the simple institution itself. In any case the idea of an upper house should not be to build into the constitution an institution measured solely by the dissent it generates (a belated show of resistance popping up this week) or to copy the democratic mandate of the lower house, but to bring in more expert voices on specialist areas to add their knowledge and experience to the legislative process. The pros and cons of setting up a upper house that can bring in expert and minority voices into the debate, and the alternative of relying on bringing experts before Oireachtas committees is the central question. That all attempts to reform the Seanad to make it more effective have been scuppered makes a constructive alternative Seanad seem fantasy.

But when it comes down to it, I'm more in favour of keeping the Seanad than abolishing it. Getting rid of the Senate doesn't dilute the dominance of the executive in the Irish political system, or tackle the issue of the over-powerful whips. It won't save much money in the grand scheme of things either. On the other hand I can see the valuable contribution that an upper house can bring. The House of Lords in the UK has many, many flaws - you can't get much more "jobs for the boys" that the Lords! - but its active members have actually done well in generating reports and in the job of legislative scrutiny. A mix of direct elections and selection from vocational panels may be a way of strengthening the Seanad's legitimacy and expertise while keeping it in balance with the Dáil.

Frankly, I'm just being idealistic about bicameralism and what I'd like to see happening. When people go to vote today, they'll be voting against the background of decades of failed reform and ineffectiveness, and it's a tough ask for people to back vague reform. It's sad that the opportunity to refer the Seanad to the Constitutional Convention and then have a referendum was missed.


[There's also a second referendum on today, which more usefully would create a Court of Appeal to help ease the workload of the Supreme Court].

Austrian Elections: The Grand Coalition lives on

As the results of the Austrian elections came in yesterday, it was clear that the Social Democrat-led Grand Coalition will live on, if a little battered. The result will come as a relief to the Party of European Socialists, and Werner Faymann who can look forward to continue to lead the Austrian government after having failed to unseat Merkel last week.

Grand Coalitions are practically an Austrian tradition, with the majority of governments consisting of the centre-left SPOe and centre-right OeVP carving up power and ministerial posts between them. (This was a reaction to the turbulent politics of the Inter-War period, when Austria was very ideologically divided). So a Grand Coalition is not really a surprising result.

More notably, the far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) has increased its share of the votes to 21.4%, in an election with asylum as a hot topic. This increase of 3.9% should be since in the context of the other far right party, BZOe, (set up by Joerg Haider splitting away from the FPOe) losing 7.1% of their vote, dropping to 3.6% (the BZOe have tried to become more liberal/libertarian recently). The new Liberal party, NEOS, did slightly better than the BZOe, while the Greens also increased their vote marginally. The biggest winner of the election is probably the businessman Frank Stronach who set up a political party ("Team Stronach") as his personal political vehicle, winning 5.8%. Team Stronach are an economically liberal, Eurosceptic party, though it's not focused on the immigration issue in the same way that the Freedom Party is.

The 4% threshold to enter parliament means that apart from the BZOe, all of these parties will get in. Despite the centre-left lead coalition, the right has grown in Austria, with various strains of populism doing well. Having continuous Grand Coalitions probably doesn't help: without a clearer contest in the centre ground, the political space in opposition is left more open to populist parties.

In the end this election brought even more of what the German election last week brought: continuity.

Bundestagswahl 2013 - Merkel stays in control

The big headline - that Merkel remains in prime position after the German federal elections - isn't a big surprise, for Germany or for Europe. The shape of the next governing coalition and the impact on German and European politics, however, it a more complicated matter. As a parliamentary election, the German media have been calling the election too close to call, despite Merkel's CDU (and sister party CSU) having a 17% gap from its nearest rival, the centre-left SPD. Still, the Christian Democrats are within a few seats of an overall majority by themselves, so they are clearly in the driving seat for the next parliamentary period.

The SPD have improved on their electoral performance since the last elections, but it was nowhere near enough to challenge the CDU, with the Christian Democrats also increasing their share of the vote (and by an even greater amount than the SPD). The Christian Democrats have done extremely well, particularly given the leftwards drift of German politics. Over the last parliamentary term, there has been Fukashima (which tarnished the image of the nuclear industry and caused Merkel to U-Turn on the issue by promising the phasing out of nuclear power), the end of conscription (something the opposition wanted, and which shocked CDU traditionalists), and a sharp increase in the inequality gap in Germany.

But for each of these issues, Merkel has moved into the territory of her centre-left opponents, and essentially prevented them from making political capital out of these issues. The CDU has even gone into the election supporting a minimum wage! When Merkel has come to embody prudent management (despite passing remarkably little of her programme over the last two governments), the opposition has to offer change to get in. And if Merkel steals their policies for change...?

The Left Party and the Greens have lost votes in this election. While the Left Party had been in decline throughout the last few years, the Greens had been riding high, having even taken the senior coalition partner position in the Baden-Wuerttemberg Land government. Controversy over their tax policies has played badly in the media despite their best efforts to explain them, and has been a factor in losing support.

The biggest losers though are the junior coalition partners of the current government: the market liberal FDP. They have not met the 5% hurdle necessary in order to get into the Bundestag. CDU voters have not given their second vote to the FDP to make a right-wing coalition possible. On the other hand, the Eurosceptic party, Alternativ fuer Deutschland, has done quite well, and might just make it into the Bundestag.


Coalitions and Political Courses

All this means that a centre-left government is not going to form. The SPD have not done well enough, and the Greens have lost support, making the opposition coalition-in-waiting without a majority. If they add in the Left Party, they could forma majority, but the Left Party, with its East German Communist roots, is still not trusted on the federal level by the centre-left parties. Peer Steinbrueck, the SPD candidate for Chancellor, has ruled a coalition with the Left Party out, confirming that the CDU will lead the next government.

Therefore the CDU/CSU will probably form a Grand Coalition with the SPD (without the SPD candidate for Chancellor serving in the government, but that's not such a big problem for the SPD). There is the possibility of a CDU/CSU coalition with the Green party, as the Greens have gone into coalition with the CDU in Hamburg before, and the SPD are wary of Grand Coalitions since their experience in the first Merkel government, with Steinbrueck sounding negative about the idea. I still think that a Grand Coalition is the more likely outcome, however.

So what will be the effect on German and European politics? On the Eurozone, the opposition were in favour of Eurobonds and more radical action, so this option may find more favour with the next German government, though strong conditions would no doubt be attached. Within the next coalition, this could cause problems with the Christian Democrats' right wing, and the (relative) success of the Eurosceptic AfD might encourage more backbench rebellions from the CDU/CSU's right. (Notably, the AfD has claimed to be the inheritors of the FDP's political space).

That said, the good performance of the AfD probably won't have the same impact on the German political scene as UKIP have had in Britain. First of all, the AfD have only gained around 5% of the vote, and secondly, the CDU/CSU have increased their share of the vote by more than that - and specifically for the reason of Merkel's leadership, which includes the Eurocrisis. Finally, small parties tend to have a tough time in Germany. Though the Greens have done very well in becoming established, the rise and fall of the Pirate Party, and the more obvious collapse for the FDP, shows for the CDU as a Volkspartei (broad-church type party), that they can wait small parties out.

Continuity will be the watchword in German politics. The coalitions may chance, but Merkel remains in control. she dominates the political scene, and has set the pace of European politics. Freed by this win the speed of EU institutional reform may speed up, but I don't expect much divergence from the Merkel plan.

Merkelpolitik remains.

European Parliament passes resolution on Hungary's Constitution

The European Parliament passed a resolution yesterday calling on Hungary to reform its constitution to bring it into line with EU values and norms. The resolution was passed by an EPP-S&D-Greens-United Left coalition, so it notably gained support from the European People's Party, which the ruling Fidesz party in Hungary is a part of.

The resolution is very detailed, outlining the background of the recent changes and the Parliament's objections to them in the areas of judicial independence, the media, the extensive use of cardinal laws (laws that need a 2/3s majority in the Hungarian parliament to pass, and therefore would be highly entrenched), changes to the data protection authority, the change in the electoral law, and the treatment of minorities.

The Parliament also called for a rethink of the EU's Fundamental Right Agency's role, suggesting that is could be used to monitor Member States' compliance with Article 2 TEU (which sets out the values of the EU), and that there could be a "Copenhagen Commission" to monitor compliance with these values and the Copenhagen Criteria before and after accession to the EU. (I've posted some similar thoughts previously). The resolution leaves open the possibility that it might try to trigger an Article 7 sanction against Hungary, tasking the Parliament's Conference of Presidents (the EP President and the leaders of the political groups) with considering the move.

Mostly the resolution echos the Council of Europe's Venice Commission's opinion on Hungary's constitution (PDF). This Commission provides legal advice to the Council of Europe's Member States on how their constitutions and constitutional reforms can comply with European human rights standards. I recommend reading the opinion, which is more detailed but also clearer then the resolution in its analysis of the Hungarian constitution.

The Parliament's resolution isn't binding on Hungary, but it does show that the Parliament is moving (slowly) towards using Article 7 TEU to suspend Hungary's voting rights in the EU. That the Commission is introducing a score-card and the Parliament is calling for a better institutional mechanism for monitoring and enforcing fundamental rights within the EU shows that patience is running out. Taking an Article 7 action would break the taboo over using the "nuclear option" - while the situation in Hungary has been a concern for a while, it has highlighted the need for the proper mechanisms and the political will to properly defend the Union's values.


Here are a few extracts from the resolution:

"8. Considers that while the use of two-third majority laws is common in other Member States and has been a feature of the Hungarian constitutional and legal order since 1989, the extensive use of cardinal laws to set forth very specific and detailed rules undermines the principles of democracy and the rule of law, as it has enabled the current government, which enjoys the support of a qualified majority, to set in stone political choices with the consequence of making it more difficult for any new future government having only a simple majority in the parliament to respond to social changes, and thus of potentially diminishing the importance of new elections; considers that such use should be re-evaluated, in order to ensure that future governments and parliamentary majorities are allowed to legislate in a meaningful and comprehensive manner.

[...]

19. [The Parliament i]s also extremely concerned about those provisions of the Fourth Amendment which repeal 20 years of constitutional jurisprudence, containing an entire system of founding principles and constitutional requirements, including any potential case law affecting the application of EU law and of European human rights law; notes that the Court already used its previous decisions as a source of interpretation; is concerned, however, at the fact that other courts may not be able to base their decisions upon the previous case law of the Constitutional Court.

[...]

30. Considers that the premature termination of the term of office of the Supreme Court’s President violates the guarantee of security of tenure, which is a key element of the independence of the judiciary.

[...]

38. Recalls that the redrawing of electoral districts, the adoption of the Act on the election of members of parliament of Hungary and the electoral procedural law considerably change the legal and institutional framework for the next elections due in 2014, and therefore regrets that these laws were adopted unilaterally by the ruling parties, with no broad consultation of the opposition.

[...]

46. Deplores the fact that the creation of the state-owned Hungarian News Agency (MTI) as the single news provider for public service broadcasters, while all major private broadcasters are expected to have their own news service, has meant it has a virtual monopoly on the market, as most of its news items are freely available; recalls the recommendation of the Council of Europe to eliminate the obligation on public broadcasters to use the national news agency, as it constitutes an unreasonable and unfair restriction on the plurality of news provision.

[...]

53. Notes with concern repeated changes to the legal order restricting the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, for instance by seeking to exclude same-sex couples and their children, as well as other varied family structures, from the definition of 'family' in the Fundamental Law; stresses that this runs counter to recent European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence and fuels a climate of intolerance vis-à-vis LGBT people."