The Eurosceptics are coming – but then what?

The European election results are in.

The centre parties’ command of the European Parliament has been squeezed and the radicals have grabbed ground. Now comes the next question: How much will they change policy in Brussels?

For those benefitting from the current political consensus – including researchers and technology developers, who have enjoyed a big run-up in funding over the past decade – the answer can only be guesswork at present. 

By and large, research and innovation issues got almost no mention from any of the campaigners – centre or fringe – over the past month of campaigning; but any funding area that the radicals view as an EU game could become a target for them once they take their seats.  

Yet, if their record in the past Parliament can be a guide, the impact of the radical parties may be blunted by disputes among themselves. 

In the past, the then-smaller number of UK Independence Party (UKIP), French Front National (FN), and other radical members of the European Parliament developed a reputation for talking plenty, but not doing the hard homework of attending boring committee meetings and compromising on issues that are needed for legislation to pass. 

If that pattern continues, goes one now-common view in Brussels, the better-organised centrist parties may still dominate legislation.

The election returns

In the election results released Sunday night, the real movers and shakers were France’s anti-immigrant FN, Britain’s UKIP and Denmark’s Danish People’s Party (DPP). 

In France, the FN won around 25 per cent of the vote – an 18 per cent gain from 2009. 

Manuel Valls, France’s prime minister, described the result as "a very grave moment for France and Europe".

“This result is more than a new warning: a shock, a political earthquake," he added.

Martin Schulz, the former Socialist president of the European Parliament, said of the FN victory: "It's a bad day for the European Union, when a party with a racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic programme gets 25% of the vote."

In Britain, the UKIP party came top with nearly 30 per cent of the vote, up 12 per cent on five years ago. UKIP leader Nigel Farage, commenting on what this means for the EU, said: "The inevitability of European integration ends tonight."

The DPP, which ran on strengthened border controls and curbing social benefits to other EU citizens living in Denmark, won nearly 27 per cent of the vote. 

The far right Jobbik party in Hungary made gains on 2009 results. Italy’s Five Star Movement (M5S), fronted by Beppe Grillo, also did well (22 per cent). Greece’s radical-left Syriza party polled at around 28 per cent. 

The Netherland’s Freedom party, whose leader Geert Wilders made a public exhibit of cutting up the European flag last week, did less well than anticipated, his party finishing fourth in the country’s race. 

Notwithstanding all the post-election noise, however, the fact remains that  the mainstream parties still managed to hold on to their positions as the biggest voting blocs in the Parliament. 

The centre-right party group, the European People’s Party, is still the biggest force with 214 seats. “The EPP is the winner and loser of the election,” said Doru Frantescu, co-founder of Votewatch Europe, referring to the loss of nearly 60 seats from the previous term. 

The party is followed by: the moderate Social Democrats 189 seats (almost 25 per cent), the Liberals with 66 (9.32 per cent) and the Greens 52 (7.32 per cent). The Green party, notably, did not suffer in the way that some projected it would. 

But can they pass a law? 

A subject of much debate is the ease of making deals in the new Parliament. For instance, would a major legislative package like Horizon 2020, the EU’s main research budget approved late last year, have been able to pass through this new Parliament? Won’t the Eurosceptic parties obstruct progress across a host of important policy questions? 

In reality, some argue, it may be possible to press ahead with business-as-usual in the European Parliament.

The three main groups of the Parliament have all lost seats, but they will maintain their position of dominance as the top three parties in the legislature.

Owing to their size, the Eurosceptic faction will not be able to control the Parliament and some even hope that the presence of those who wish to dismantle the Union might force the remaining MEPs to become more united.

Data from the transparency organisation VoteWatch shows that far-right MEPs in the past had less impact on EU legislation because they showed up less often for roll-call votes and wound up most often in the losing corner when coalitions were built to reach a majority.

Further, it’s not certain whether the new band of Eurosceptics will find a way to work together. For instance, in 2007, 23 far-right and nationalist MEPs formed a group called ‘Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty’. After only a few months, they disbanded following insulting comments made by Alessandra Mussolini, an Italian MEP, about Romanians. 

Once settled in parliament, France’s FN will hope to build a pan-EU nationalist group known as the European Alliance for Freedom. The extreme-right parties are confident they will get the seats to form their new group. But UKIP, which presently heads an alliance in the Parliament called the Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD), has said it will not join such a movement. 

Thus, the various radical fractions may find themselves in a tug-of-war in the new Parliament for far-right recruits; and current EFD members might even jump ship to join FN’s new group. 

Were they to succeed in allying, they could expect greater influence: they would benefit significantly from additional funds, speaking rights and a monthly allowance to hire staff.

The criteria for forming a group is a minimum of 25 representatives from seven EU countries. French FN on its own could deliver a significant part of the needed seats. And smaller parties from other countries have been approached, which would easily lock up the threshold of seven countries.

A critical question is whether, the radical right members will muster the unity to grab one of the key seats in the Parliament: a committee chair, which controls legislative scheduling. The criteria here is more stringent, with groups needing 40 to 50 seats, and even more for the influential committees. 

Innovation: the non-issue of the campaign 

Research and innovation were the topics that dared not speak their name during the campaign. 

The manifestos released by the main party groupings were exceptionally cautious. Any policy vision was limited to the “blink and you’ll miss it” variety.

The main candidates running for the office of the Commission President often paid weak lip service to SMEs and universities, but did often speak about the digital economy and renewable energy. 

The liberal candidate, Guy Verhofstadt (Alde), touted his four-point “digital fast forward” plan when he called on the EU to re-balance a situation where it spends €277 billion on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and only €1 billion on the roll-out of broadband.

The Greens’ Ska Keller was also consistent on green technologies. But the two front-runners, Martin Shulz (S&D) and Jean-Claude Juncker (EPP), spoke little about any innovation-related issues.

Given that both the S&D and EPP parties have to find broad approval by so many constituent members across all countries, perhaps it’s little wonder that they shirked any controversial areas and used such restrained language throughout the campaign. 

Speaking out

Despite the party leaders’ silence, however, out on the hustings individual MEPs seeking re-election sometimes did speak out. 

For instance, with the EPP largely silent on climate change, a reflection of the division among its members over emissions reduction targets for 2030, Alejo Vidal-Quadras, Spanish vice-president of the European parliament and member of the EPP, didn’t feel the same restriction.

An enthusiastic supporter of the decarbonisation agenda, he told Science|Business that “it is essential to focus on making fusion feasible as well as addressing renewables' shortcomings, especially in the transport sector, in which I see great potential for advanced biofuels.” 

Another example: While the S&D manifesto doesn’t say much on how the new Parliament can help SMEs, Lidia Geringer de Oedenberg, a Polish MEP seeking re-election, said Europe needs to “vigorously” cut costs for starting businesses.

“Since 2007, actions by the EU have reduced the time and cost involved in starting a business from 12 days to five days and from €485 to €372,” she said. “The aim is to bring that down to three days and €100, but only three member states have fully complied. This target needs to be more vigorously enforced.”

At the national level, it was hard to discern any policy relating to research and innovation. Denmark, arguably, was the one exception. 

The debate in Denmark referred to patenting, mainly because on the same day as the European elections, the Danes voted on whether or not to join the EU’s Unified Patent Court (UPC). If voted, all litigation concerning the infringement or validity of patents in Denmark would no longer be decided by Danish courts. 

The Liberal Alliance (Ny Alliance), the semi-communist Red-Green Alliance (Enhedslisten – De Rød-Grønne) and the right-wing nationalist Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti), campaigned to block an agreement on the UPC but a majority of 33.7 per cent of Danes approved it yesterday (25 May). 

Ireland, too, will vote in a future referendum on the UPC but this was not discussed during the campaign. 

How did the EU’s public standing fare? 

Turnout for the elections was around 43.09 per cent - a fraction up on five years ago (43 per cent). 

The number of people going to the booths on European election night has fallen consistently since the first election, in 1979, so the result was heralded by many last night as a significant reversal. 

Despite being greeted enthusiastically in public, privately there’ll be much disappointment at this limp figure with Brussels having poured a lot of energy and money into advertising the election. 

Turnout went up compared to last election in 2009 in Germany, France, Netherlands, the UK, Greece, Sweden, Finland, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia.Turnout went down in Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovenia.

Turnout in Slovakia reportedly fell to a record low of around 13 per cent. In the EU’s newest member, Croatia, only 23.4 per cent went to the booths. 

A poll for Czech TV after the country's EU election closed Saturday found that 48 per cent of Czechs thought the vote was "useless" and "will not change anything".