Reporting on local politics is not central to the mission of our Agency, but certain extraordinary cases with a European dimension may call for an exception to be made. On 25 September, the former Prime Minister of France, Manuel Valls, announced that he was to run for mayor in a major Spanish city: Barcelona; which is, moreover, the capital of a region that has been the talk of the EU in recent times, Catalonia. Particular attention will be paid to the municipal elections to be held there on 26 May of next year, to coincide with the European elections.
Countless comments have already been committed to print and the airwaves concerning this matter, usually concerning the career and personality of this unexpected candidate, his true motivation, his chances of success, his knowledge of the local area, his ability to unify and the possible impact of such an election on future relations between Catalonia and the Spanish State. This column will instead look at the legal possibility and political legitimacy of such a bold and original undertaking.
Contrary to what you might read on social media, it is not the fact that he has joint nationality, both French and Spanish, that has allowed Valls to put himself forward legitimately in Barcelona. True enough, he was born there – to a Catalonian father and a mother of Swiss-Italian origin – but it was in Paris that he attended school, before national service at Fontainebleau. He did not take French nationality by naturalisation until he was 20 years old, in 1982. That was when his political career launched in France, leading to local, parliamentary and ministerial positions.
In standing on the other side of the Pyrenees, Valls is not giving up his French nationality: he does not have to – something he owes to both the Maastricht Treaty instituting citizenship of the Union and the generosity of Spanish legislation. To quote from the former, “every citizen of the Union residing in a Member State of which he is not a national shall have the right to vote and to stand as a candidate at municipal elections in the Member State in which he resides, under the same conditions as nationals of that State” (art. 22 sub-paragraph 1 TFEU). The exercise of this right was clarified in Directive 94/80/EC of the Council dated 19 December 1994; however, it gives the member states some flexibility to allow them to reserve the position of chief executive of a local authority to their own nationals. In other words, a European who is not a national (or a “mobile EU citizen”) cannot be elected mayor just anywhere in the EU.
The Commission has published three reports on the transposition and implementation of the directive: in 2002, 2012 and earlier this year (COM(2018) 44 final dated 25.1.2018): although some data are missing, the document is illuminating.
In the EU, ten pays stand out due to the large numbers of “mobile citizens” on their soil, either relative to their total population (Luxembourg, Cyprus, Ireland, Belgium and Austria), or in absolute figures (Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Italy). Furthermore, to make it easier to exercise the right to vote and to stand at municipal level, 14 member states automatically include their “Europeans” on the electoral register, so that these people do not have to specifically apply. And Germany is the only one of the group of ten that also falls into the latter category! In other words, the more non-national Europeans there are in the country, the greater the red tape for them to be able to vote. The average rate of applications to vote is not more than 20% of the population in question: not brilliant, as results go.
As for the mobile EU citizens who (1) stand and (2) are elected, there is a manifest lack of reliable data. In absolute figures, Spain seems to be the candidacy champion; in percentages of elected representatives, as Madrid is unable to produce statistics, Malta (22%) and Sweden (20%) come top.
More than half of all member states have not made use of the option provided for by the directive to reserve the senior executive positions of a municipality to their own nationals; Spain is in this progressive club, but so too are lukewarm Europeanists such as Denmark, Slovakia and even the UK! In Germany and Austria, the situation may vary from one Land to the next. Bulgaria and Greece are the most restrictive; to them we must add six countries, including staunchly pro-European Belgian, which reserve the position of mayor for its own nationals, with France extending its “veto” to include deputy mayors as well. This means that a French national who goes to live in Spain may aspire to mayoral office, but the other way round is impossible; a Czech could accede to the position in Slovakia, but not vice versa. A clear majority of European citizens consider that senior municipal positions should not be for nationals only; on this subject at least, an effort at convergence between all member states would not be a luxury.
If we add in to all this the differences between the authorities’ efforts to encourage mobile Europeans to vote, the duration of municipal office, or the way in which the mayor is appointed, you end up with a complex, multi-coloured landscape, which does not promote equality in the exercise of European citizenship at local level. According to latest data available, the European municipal system is not even aware of itself and, even more disturbingly, Europeans’ awareness of their rights at this level seems to be shrinking, not growing.
Having resigned all his offices in France, for obvious reasons of incompatibility, Valls, on a list backed by Ciudadanos but hoping to cast a wider net, will enter the municipal Council of Barcelona. In fairly pro-independence country (marked again by a few bust-ups earlier this week), everything will depend on the weight of his programme (in favour of keeping Catalonia in the Kingdom of Spain) and the alliances he can form, as the mayor has to be adopted by a majority of the Council. If he achieves his goal, he will not, however, be the first French mayor in Spain: in 2007, one Claude George Edgar Doppia was elected, under the banner of the People’s Party, head of the village of Rollán (400 souls) in the province of Salamanca; but three years ago, the town hall was handed over to a Socialist “native”. The arrival of the former Prime Minister to the helm of the Catalonian Metropolis, of course, would have an entirely different political dimension.
Manuel Valls has been accused of “betraying France” by his rival from the “France insoumise” party in Evry, one of the manifestations of French Euroscepticism. And while we’re at it, why not bring down the weight of public condemnation on his head for going over to the enemy? It’s almost beyond belief: what do the citizens get out of such excessive language? After the case of non-nationals on European lists, there is no shame in seeing them in senior office in our cities. Particularly as Valls, who parachuted in without a parachute, has everything to lose. But maybe he will be the first in a series of political superstars who have decided, as they are permitted to do under European law, to pursue their careers elsewhere in the EU. Maybe our children will see public careers zigzagging across the European map, just as professional careers have done for many years, as normal and even invigorating. Maybe it will do more than brochures or electronic portals to help the mobile citizens of the EU to become aware of their personal opportunity to make a difference in public life at local level. In the long run, the Valls affair may serve as inspiration for other, similar procedures that, taken together, can teach us much and will add a bit more consistency to one of the most valuable aspects of European citizenship.
Renaud Denuit