A European vote?

Next month's European Parliament elections will test how much faith EU citizens have in this important European institution as well as the effect of the global economic crisis on voting patterns. European elections are certainly not as important as national elections, but they do matter. Today the European Parliament has a say in many areas that affect our daily lives.

Although the drafting of laws within the EU is the responsibility of the European Commission, the European Parliament has the power to amend or reject a large part of EU legislation through a system known as co-decision with the Council of Ministers (ministers from the member states). In this last legislature, for example, the European Parliament played a major role in shaping key directives and regulations on chemicals authorisation (Reach), the services directive, climate change, mobile phone tariffs, controlling pesticides and immigration rules.

However, the European Parliament is seen by many as a far away institution which has no say in how member states are governed, and voter turnout has not been high in these elections. In fact, the turnout has decreased in every poll - from 63 per cent in 1979 to a mere 46 per cent in the 2004 election.

One would have thought that as the European Parliament was given additional powers over the years, as a result of various new EU treaties - it will get even more powers if the Lisbon Treaty is approved - voter participation would have increased. In reality the opposite has happened, which brings up the question whether Europe's citizens are feeling increasingly detached from certain EU institutions and whether people really understand what the European Parliament does.

Another reason why voter turnout is low is because there are no real winners of losers in European elections. No one party ever achieves an overall majority of seats - there are simply different blocs of MEP groupings, large and small, and legislation is passed through a system consensus and horse-trading.

In reality many voters consider these elections to be a way of expressing their support or disapproval of their national government. In June's election the global economic crisis will no doubt be the main issue on voters' minds. According to Gallop worries about employment and the economy are voters' main concerns, especially in countries greatly affected by the recession.

Each country, of course, has its own set of particular circumstances and the vote will be influenced by the domestic situation in each member state. In Italy, for example, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is riding high in the opinion polls and the ruling centre-right parties are expected to do well. In Britain, the unpopularity of Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government will probably lead to a humiliating result for Labour. In France, the result will be an important litmus test for Nicolas Sarkozy's presidency, two years after he took office. In Germany the election will test the national mood ahead of September's national election.

Needless to say, it might help to make these elections more interesting and perhaps create a higher voter turnout if political parties campaigned more on European issues rather than domestic ones. To his credit, Nicolas Sarkozy in France has campaigned on a European platform, arguing that France cannot succeed without Europe. Closer to home, the Nationalist Party is also running a campaign on EU issues, focusing on the PN MEPs voting record and on Labour's past performance on the EU. Labour, on the other hand, is focusing on domestic issues such as the water and electricity rates, which although has nothing to do with the EU, is understandable from a strategic point of view.

It would also help if there was a particular European issue, or set of issues, that voters could identify with when voting. For example, since the European Parliament has to approve the nomination of the new European Commission President, wouldn't it make more sense for the political parties to declare before the election which candidate they are backing, in order to give voters a say in the selection?

Despite the economic crisis, political scientists and analysts are predicting that the composition of the European Parliament will not be radically altered. The centre-right European People's Party is expected to remain the largest group in Parliament, with a reduced majority, even though the UK Conservatives are leaving this bloc and forming a new group together with the Czech Conservatives.

The Socialists are expected to remain the second largest group in the legislature. If this prediction is correct it will mean that voters will not have turned to the left as a result of this economic crisis - even though one might have expected a shift away from pro-market political parties. However, the exceptionally bad economic climate could well lead to a move by some voters towards various far right and far left fringe parties, which are eurosceptic in nature, and which might complicate matters further in the European Parliament.