Brussels, 16/05/2014 (Agence Europe) - Meeting in Brussels on 15 May for the first major debate of the European elections, did the candidates for the Presidency of the European Commission inspire the citizens to turn out to vote between 22 and 25 May?
This, in any case, was the aim of the candidates of the European People's Party, Luxembourg's Jean-Claude Juncker, the Party of European Socialists, German Martin Schulz, the Liberals, Guy Verhofstadt of Belgium, the European Greens, German Ska Keller, and, lastly, the European United Left, Greece's Alexis Tsipras, who was taking part in the exercise for the first time, in a debate which lasted an hour and a half.
The exercise was unprecedented due to the decision of the main political parties to adopt a “top of list” system with one individual to be the future president of the European Commission. It has also been described as landmark, as 49 television channels decided to transmit the presidential debate, as did 43 online media and 9 radio stations, allowing European citizens to form an idea of the man or woman who may, from this autumn onwards, take certain initiatives on their behalf.
By the end of the meeting, however, just 63,000 tweets had been made on the debate's official account, #TellEurope, which indicates that the exercise, which was also shunned by certain major national television channels, was somewhat wide of its mark.
It did, however, have the merit of showing the candidates all in agreement on one point: “the future President of the European Commissioners is among us now”, said Schulz (our translation throughout) “It is highly likely that it will be one of us and that seems to me entirely as it should be”, Keller added. This was a shot across the bows of the heads of state and government, who are suspected of wishing to overturn the results of the ballot and put other individuals, more likely to be consensual but who have not campaigned, at the helm of the Commission.
If they do not play by the rules, in other words, if they prevent the candidate of the winning party from starting negotiations and, logically, from being appointed to the head of the Commission if a majority makes this possible, “it should not come as a surprise when people stop turning out to vote”, said Tsipras. “That would be a slap in the face the democracy”, added Juncker.
As regards the substance, the candidates were asked about a range of sensitive dossiers: economy, unemployment and the eurozone, independence movements in Europe, immigration and the crisis in Ukraine. They had to reply within the very strict format imposed upon them - answers limited to one minute, which ultimately gave the impression of a catalogue of issues allowing neither any depth, nor any real confrontation between them, except perhaps on the traditional question of austerity and the regime imposed on Greece.
The rejection of austerity, a criticism of the remedies applied to Greece and debt alleviation is the substance of the programme supported by Tsipras, who accused Verhofstadt of preaching “old” recipes which led to the crisis, “to the bubble”, as he put it, whilst the former Belgian prime minister called on the EU to boost “integration on the key markets: banks, capital, energy, telecoms”. “We have to make use of all possible leverage for new growth”, he said (see other article).
On indebtedness, the EPP and the ALDE highlighted their similarity of opinion, but stressed the need for strategic investments - as long as this is on the basis of healthy public finances. We “need budgetary discipline" and “not to get further into debt”, Verhofstadt repeated. When asked about the banks, the candidates ended up talking more specifically about Greece, and things got slightly heated. Tsipras argued that “the major issue with the crisis in Greece is a financial issue, but the remedy made things worse”. “Greece? It is not down to the banks but to poor national policies! ” the leader of the Liberals retorted. “I worked night and day to keep Greece in the eurozone”, said Juncker, who does not accept the criticism that the Europeans have not shown enough solidarity.
This exchange was followed by a question on whether or not countries should remain in the EU, with some candidates, such as Keller, calling for “more Europe to get us out of crisis”. Her fellow countryman Schulz argued that “maybe we don't need more Europe, but a different Europe, which puts their interests first”. Verhofstadt reiterated the danger he sees in leaving the eurozone, referring to a “disaster if we returned to the national currencies, with pensioners losing all their savings”.
The Five then turned their attention to Ukraine and the message to be sent out to Vladimir Putin (see other article) and also discussed the Catalan and Scottish independence movements. The EU should not have to get involved in this issue, Juncker and Verhofstadt believe, kicking this particular ball into touch, as the EU may one day have to take position on their accession as new independent countries. Only Keller had a clear message. “As Commission President, I would be happy to welcome them to the EU”, she said, arguing that the “people have the right to decide on their own future”.
After immigration and the recent shipwrecks in the Mediterranean, a subject which allowed Keller and Verhofstadt to call for “legal channels of migration to be opened up” and Juncker to implore the states “not to cut their development aid budgets”, the candidates were asked, in the final part of the debate, about dossiers which have no major link to each other, specifically the religious symbols of the EU, the democratic deficit and corruption.
Unsurprisingly, the EPP candidate, who is a proponent of European anti-discrimination legislation, felt it was more reasonable to leave the subject of religious symbols to subsidiarity alone, as Europe “already has enough to do! ”. Verhofstadt does not share this view.
On corruption, a discussion which moved on to the Brussels-based lobbies, Juncker said that each commissioner should publish a list of meetings with lobbyists ahead of each proposal, without preventing interest groups from doing their job. Keller took the most radical view, going so far as to recommend that lobbying be banned altogether.
No candidate was ultimately able to say what they were really thinking, as the debate had more in common with a list of the main points of their respective programmes. For those who watched on the internet and Twitter, however, it was not a tough choice to make. According to a survey carried out by the TellEurope site, Tsipras came across as the most convincing (50% of votes), a long way ahead of Verhofstadt (33%), Keller (10%), Schulz (5%) and Juncker, who came in far behind the rest of the field with just 3% of favourable votes. A small but important detail is that the Conservatives of the ECR party and the Eurosceptics were not represented on Thursday evening, as these groups chose not to adopt a candidate. (SP)