Election campaigns for the European Parliament are run on national issues in practically all EU member states. Efforts are regularly made to change this with meagre success.
Good souls within the European Parliament itself have tried to change matters by suggesting such outlandish solutions as creating hybrid constituencies that cover regions from different countries. For the most these have thankfully remained in abeyance.
Another wheeze was to present a Europe-wide leader for each of the political groups in the Parliament. It is still being played out. To make it generate interest, the proposal was for the campaign leader of the group that would elect most MEPs to become president of the European Commission. Member states have ignored this ploy which, anyway, failed to fire Europe wide fervour. Most voters did not even know there was a “leader” for the political group of their choice.
Malta is no exception to the rule that EP election campaigns hinge on national issues, even if, sometimes, these are similar to issues that play out nationally elsewhere, like, to a certain extent, immigration. To be sure, most matters that are discussed at the EP hardly make waves in member states unless it is when set European policies get to be applied nationally and generate negative impacts.
A recent instance was the farmers’ revolt over the consequences of Green Deal decisions, European free trade agreements and limitations on chemical pesticides, all matters settled in Brussels and Strasbourg. In Malta, we had the blowback against the “new” ETS charges on maritime fuel, which had been in the European pipeline for quite some time but were largely ignored here.
The truth is that European policymaking and legislation drafted in Brussels and their related issues are experienced by citizens and voters as distant from their day-to-day experience and, to them, are mostly unintelligible. Voters can hardly be blamed for this, although, for fairness’ sake, neither can decision-makers and legislators at the centre of the EU. Necessarily, their concerns and the legislative texts they churn out in tandem with the Council must reflect the wider European context. This can only be done by referring to data that is abstracted from multiple realities.
So the landscape for the European Parliament elections ensures that no meaningful debates take place nationally on European issues. That is bound to happen... is already happening in Malta, as the two main parties seek to mobilise their hardcore voters in order to counter abstentionism. Meanwhile, splinter formations concentrate on single issue concerns.
Indeed, the way preliminary skirmishing has developed as the campaign mode sets in indicates that not only will local issues again predominate but that the campaign will turn on personal “beauty” contests between the main leaders of both sides.
The EU is fast morphing into a military entity
To be expected as well is the usual nasty mudslinging underpinned by social media trolls from both sides of the PN/MLP divide. European issues will increasingly be demoted to the background or tribalised as local polemics take over.
Does this really matter? It would if Europe-wide policies and decisions affecting the status and future of Malta happen to be pending. It would if they are due for some kind of resolution during the coming five years covering the mandate of the next European Parliament and Commission.
Nationally, there would be a need for such issues to be addressed singly and as a whole, so that citizens can understand what the coming European agenda really is and how it will affect them. Surely there is no better opportunity for this than during EP election campaigns.
It so happens that a wide range of issues are approaching that will have a significant impact on Malta. The Maltese electorate needs to be made aware of them. Expressed in European terms like “common security and defence policy”, “qualified majority voting” and “harmful tax competition”, they might sound innocuous. Their impact on the island’s economic and social development could be fundamental.
In reaction to trends that have been developing within and from outside Europe, indeed globally, the EU is fast morphing into a military entity. Already, Malta is being drawn into activities that are compromising its status of neutrality. This is happening incrementally, almost by stealth. Little to no debate of any sort is being held about the process. During the next mandate, it is likely that the military component of the EU will continue to grow politically, institutionally and financially. We need to debate this.
Meanwhile, as efforts to widen EU membership proceed, two consequences are likely to follow. Firstly, the Union’s centre of interest will shift eastwards, even more than it has in past years. Mediterranean affairs will continue to lose priority. Secondly, and more importantly, the pressures will increase to adopt decisions on the basis of qualified majority voting. The need for unanimity in decision-making will be severely restricted, if not proscribed. For a small territory like Malta, it is the only safeguard that could help maintain some autonomy over vital decisions.
How to proceed? This too we need to debate.
And, then, what can be seen as a special case of the qualified majority issue is the tax competition matrix. Rightly or wrongly, Malta has been faulted for applying a tax regime that undercuts other countries’ and effectively serves to frame a tax haven. Our tax structure is certainly a basis on which the expansion of the financial and gaming sectors has been predicated. Eliminate it, as tax harmonisation would do, and quite a chunk of our economy will come under threat.
Even if one is sceptical – like I am – about the whole approach that Malta has been following in financial services, the results obtained cannot just be junked. The tax harmonisation that is on the European agenda for the coming five years threatens to do so. We need to debate this.
Other European issues coming up (like new sourcing of EU funds) also need to be discussed. The three I have mentioned are, however, what need to be tackled first and foremost. The campaign for the elections to the European Parliament is the best (only) occasion to do so for people to at least become aware of them. Yet, they are being ignored.
Playing out the campaign as a partisan, parochial ding dong and not allowing European issues of great significance to these islands to be discussed and decided by the people, as is likely to happen, would be a very grave mistake.
Alfred SantAlfred Sant is a former prime minister and now Labour member of the European Parliament.