European Union: Why voters are so disenchanted

Economic unease contributed to the low voter turnout for the recent European Parliament elections.

Another European Parliament election, another record low turnout, said Adriana Cerretelli in Italy’s Il Sole 24 Ore. We’ve been electing representatives to the European Union’s legislative body about every five years since 1979, and the turnout has been steadily declining. Across the 27 nations that now make up the EU, voter sentiment ranges “from apathy to outright hostility.” For the most recent elections, which ended last weekend, turnout was just 43 percent. The results didn’t change much: The center-right European People’s Party will still have the largest share of seats, followed by the European Socialists. But there were some gains by far-right parties, including a few that are explicitly opposed to the EU. The bad attitude is puzzling, given that the union has brought so many benefits to each member country, including the euro currency, “the fight against inflation and megadeficits, passport-free travel, safety standards, and environmental protections.” Apparently all the voters see is a cold and intrusive bureaucracy.

Voters have good reason to be disillusioned, said Vicente Navarro in Spain’s Publico. The EU has hurt their wallets. In the 15 countries that made up the union before 2004, when it began taking in Eastern European members, unemployment has been growing steadily since the 1980s. At the same time, working conditions have deteriorated. Worst of all, “social inequality” has grown enormously—that is, the income gap has widened. All of these economic ills are the “direct result of policies implemented by EU institutions, in particular the European Commission” and the European Central Bank. The EU directs economic policy to benefit capital investors, not to create jobs. So it’s no wonder many working-class people don’t vote, while “a certain fringe” of them supports far-right parties in the mistaken belief “that nationalist and anti-immigration policies will compensate for the scarcity of secure employment within the EU.”

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