Between May 22 and 25, elections to the 751 seats of the European Parliament will be held in the 28 member states of the European Union. The 2009 Lisbon Treaty provides that the European Parliament shall also elect the president of the European Commission.
The elections have purposely been moved from early June (as has been the practice so far) to May in order to make it possible for the new parliament to elect the new commission president, thus making the choice of the president more representative of the electors’ expectations.
Based on this, European political groups have declared their nominees for the presidency or are in the process of doing so. The two largest groups, the European People’s Party (EPP) and the Progressive Alliance of European Socialists and Democrats (S&D) have already made their choice. The EPP has declared Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg as its candidate while the S&D have opted for Martin Schulz of Germany.
The results of these elections are difficult to predict as the EU electorate is passing through a strong phase of distrust concerning the EU and its institutions. The eurozone crisis, and especially the austerity measures imposed on the hardest-hit countries, has alienated a large section of the electorate and made popular the anti-European parties of right and left.
This mood of pessimism will most likely be apparent in the countries with struggling economies. Distrust about the European Union appears to be at an all-time high everywhere in all member states, including successful Germany.
President José Manuel Barroso said: “We are seeing, in fact, a rise of extremism from the extreme right and from the extreme left.” It is estimated by some polling experts that the extremists could take from 16 to 25 per cent of the parliamentary seats. If these estimates are correct, the May election could see the doubling of the seats of the far right and the far left in the European Parliament at the expense of the moderate parties.
The electorate is continually confused and thus unable to reflect suitably before making its proper choices
The reliable PollWatch predictions are 26.9 per cent for the EPP, 28.9 per cent for the S&D, and the rest (44.2 per cent) for the other smaller groupings. Other polls show the EPP and S&D at the same level. This is a far cry from the 2009 elections when EPP gained 36 per cent of the vote as against 25 per cent for the S&D.
There are serious political, economic and social issues facing Europe today, such as the continuing eurozone crisis, the fall in the standard of living of large sectors of the European populations, austerity versus budget deficits, Eurosceptism, free movement of people and migration, irregular migration, the status of refugees, racism, the rise of religious extremism especially in the Muslim countries, the never-ending confrontations in the Middle East, the resort to terrorism by extremists, mounting tensions between east and west, China’s increasing and influential role in the global economy, Russia’s new belligerency, and others.
These scenarios are continually changing with new concerns gaining prominence within a short period of time and overtaking others of equal importance with such force and speed that the electorate is continually confused and thus unable to reflect suitably before making its proper choices.
As a result, other issues of equal importance are being overlooked. In Europe a very strong movement is forming that is trying to promote abortion at all costs. The Estrela Report that aims to make abortion legal within the EU and to expand the culture of abortion even in schools, has been defeated three times in the European Parliament, the last time by a handful of votes. With the composition of the new parliament as projected by the latest polls, this initiative could see the light of day shortly after May 2014.
Portuguese MEP Edite Estrela, the promoter of the report, is not one to give up easily. She has been an MEP since 2004 and will certainly be re-elected the next time round. She is popular and an uncompromising militant in favour of women’s rights, which she associates with the right of a woman to decide what to do with her own body – i.e. whether to abort or not.
If, as projected, the composition of the new parliament is made up of a majority that favours gender equality issues (the guise under which the Estrela Report is being presented by its promoters) she will, this time, get her way.
These same groups of radical activists in the European Parliament are intent on pushing the gender ideology, the pink agenda, euthanasia, etc., which include measures that could further transform our lives. The far right, with a greater voice in the European Parliament, will pursue their own agenda that will further divide society and force elected governments to become hostage to protectionist lobbies.
In Malta we are lost in continuous petty party posturings that are alienating voters from concentrating on these far-reaching topics. These issues are rarely aired or discussed, while those who are in duty bound to raise them have been forced into silence lest they be branded as tradionalists and regressives.