European Elections:
As seen by ERIS associates in Spain and Germany
The ERIS Occasional papers provide more in-depth analysis and consideration of important questions for Trade Unions and their supporters, than the ERIS Briefings offer.
The papers are written by ERIS associates from across Europe and will have local insights we might otherwise miss.
The Editorial Board for these papers is Basil Bye, Rob Martin and John Merritt and we are responsible for any omissions, errors and mistakes.
Quo Vadis Spain? (Which way for Spain?)
By Oscar Areanas CCOO International Officer Bilbao.
This year we have had three major electoral processes in Spain. The first was undoubtedly one of the most crucial in the recent history of Spanish democracy. At stake was not only the conformation of the Spanish government, but, above all, to see what the sum of the rights would be and what role Vox would have in the Spanish political landscape. The second and third processes went hand in hand a little less than a month after the general elections. Something like a “super Sunday” in which local elections coincided, in some regions and the elections to the European parliament. This was perhaps lived with less tension than was undoubtedly the first one.
In fact, that Sunday, April 28, when we had worked so hard, I went down from Bilbao to Madrid for a meeting I had the next day. I arrived with the polls barely closed and to my surprise, a kind of tranquillity reigned in Madrid. The night was cool but not cold, so on the way to my hotel I was looking at the terraces of bars and restaurants to see… a lot of people staring at their phones.
It was easy to understand from one of the conversations that almost everyone was aware of the first and predicted results that were published. Something with this intensity I had not seen before.
It really wasn’t that surprising. Participation was one of the keys in these elections. The leftist parties were aware of this, especially given that traditionally in Spain the electorate of the left punished with abstention. Consequently, their appeals were intended to make the ‘suspicious electorate’ aware of the importance of going to vote against the real threat of a government occupied by “the three rights”.
The result was finally a participation of almost 76%, about six points more than in the previous general elections. And that would be reflected in the results. During a moment of counting, it almost seemed possible that the sum of PSOE and Unidas Podemos could be enough to win it for the left, with some external support, with everyone thinking in the Basque PNV.
Finally, it was seen that there was a complicated result, with the two formations needing 11 seats for the majority, which made an easy equation impossible. So much so that three months later Spain continues with a barely functioning government and the ghost of new general elections which flies above political current affairs.
In any case, I still remember the sigh that many leftist people gave with those results. The pre-election (as we discussed in a previous article) and the tone of the campaign had made us fear the worst. And the worst was, without any doubt, that Vox would have had the key to a government of PP and Ciudadanos. The numbers finally did not enable this to happen, due to the collapse of the PP. It was left with 66 seats, in the worst result in its history. However, notice for observers, as the popular saying goes: in this context of division the sum of the ‘three right wing parties’ remained at the threshold of 11 million votes. It had not disappeared. It had not weakened. It had simply fragmented. And in any analysis that is done, this must be taken into account. With a record participation, the sum of votes of PSOE and Unidas Podemos had not taken so much distance with that faithful base of around 10-11 million votes.
From there, we have had three months of negotiations, of rumours, of parliamentary debates, but it is not yet clear what will happen after this summer. We can hear again those who ask if a coalition government is possible? we must look at “the Portuguese way” they say. Or what is the same, a government of the PSOE supported on a programmatic agreement with Unidas Podemos. This is an option that could work with PNV and ERC, for example. But right now there are no certainties. The only certainty, at least for the author of this article, is that a new electoral process would not favour the left.
On the other hand, local and European elections held a month later cast more shadows and other notices that should be taken into account. Without going any further, Manuela Carmena has lost the mayor’s office in Madrid, in favor of a PP that needed the support of Ciudadanos and Vox. Other Regions (Murcia) and important municipalities (Zaragoza) have suffered the same fate or are still awaiting government formation.
The European elections also left us shadows entered. The PSOE had the victory with 20 seats, followed by the PP with 12 seats (losing 4). Ciudadanos, however, rose from 2 to 7, while Unidas Podemos got the same 6 … and Vox, be aware, got into the European Parliament with 3 seats.
This leaves us, as I said, a panorama with many shadows. Although the good news is that the emergence of the Vox ultra-right party has not enabled them to be a key to government, and this is not a little thing, the truth is that we live in a period of uncertainties where the balance can settle on one side or the other.
Spain needs a leftist government. A government that resumes dialogue with Catalonia, that is firm in reversing the reforms that the right made with the excuse of the crisis and looking towards a European future where the social pillar is precisely that, a pillar. We will see.
Finally we have to talk a bit about Euskadi. The results of the general elections in our country gave us good news, one at least, confirmed later in the municipal elections. Not a single representative of Ciudadanos or Vox, are among the Basque representatives in the Congress, nor in the Basque municipalities. People have expressed in Euskadi a very clear idea: we do not want a right wing politicians that threaten our society, nor that looks more at the past than at the future. This does not mean that there is no need to do other analyzes, but these will surely make more sense after the next regional elections.
Indeed, on that “super Sunday” we had no elections in Euskadi for the Basque parliament. They will be next year, so that must be. But given the rush and activity of the Basque Government and some public entities, we all sense the proximity of early elections in the air. It will also depend on what happens with the central government, but the safest thing to say is that we’ll have elections in Euskadi before the end of this 2019.
A 2019 in which it is difficult to know where we are going, or where we are going to be…?
July 2019
The European EU Elections in Germany
By Stefan Pfeifer. SPD Economic Advisor for North Rheine Westphalia
From 23 to 26 May, the 28 member states of the EU elected a new European Parliament. Voter turnout at this European election was at its highest level in three decades. Around 62 percent of eligible voters in Germany made use of their right to vote – that was the best turnout since June 1989 and an increase of 14% since 2014. At that time the Berlin Wall was still standing and only the West Germans were able to vote.
In summary this year the CDU/CSU Union were joint first with almost 29 per cent. The Greens came second with 20.5 per cent, then the SPD at around 16 per cent, the AfD on 11 per cent, The Left (De Linke) and FDP on 5.5 per cent each.
The fact that the Greens would do well in the European elections had already become clear before the election. Where does the rise of the Greens come from, who have won just 8.9 per cent in the 2017 federal election and are the smallest opposition faction in the Bundestag (German Parliament)?
What the SPD and CDU / CSU stand for, is not clear to many.
The Greens benefit very much from the weakness of the CDU/CSU and SPD parties and take the role of the “alternative to the grand coalition” in Germany. Worrying for SPD and CDU / CSU (Union) is that 47 per cent of Germans say they no longer know what the Union really stands for. And even 22 per cent of their own followers are confused here.
The situation for the SPD is even more dramatic: 62 per cent of Germans no longer know what they stand for, and that includes 35 per cent of their own followers. Also 39 per cent of SPD voters say their party has abandoned social democratic principles.
For the Greens, on the other hand, it is absolutely clear what they stand for: environmental and climate protection, a clear pro-Europe course, a liberal refugee policy. 96 per cent of Green voters say the party represents the values that matter to them. The Union and the SPD can only dream of such values. And they should really fear something else: amongst all Germans, 57 percent say the Greens represent values that are personally important to them – many of these are Germans who have not voted so far for the Greens.
The Green votes so far have come mainly from the better educated and – this is likely to be the deciding factor – from the younger better educated. The word “younger” can be seen here in relatively, with the borderline running at “mid 40”. For all electoral groups below this, the Greens are clearly the strongest force. And the rule is that the younger the voters are, the more they vote Green.
SPD suffering in all age groups, especially the young.
The CDU/CSU Union is clearly number one among the over-60s, with the 45- to 59-year-olds delivering a head-to-head race with the Greens. And on the whole, the Union is, so to speak, the opposite of the Greens: the younger the voters, the less successful the CDU/CSU Union is.
The SPD has lost significantly in all age groups. For the very young, the Party is even only in the single digits – just before the satirical party “The Party”. Looking to the future, the SPD has every reason to be nervous.
Environmental protection important – also for CDU/CSUUnion and SPD followers.
The picture becomes even clearer when people ask which topics are important for their voting decision. At the top of the list is 48 per cent for environmental and climate protection, which has become significantly more important since the European elections five years ago. This is followed by social security (43 per cent), peacekeeping (35 per cent) and immigration (25 per cent).
For the most important of these topics, environmental and climate protection, the Greens are clearly the most competent party. 56 per cent of Germans trust them to find the right solutions here. And environmental protection is no longer a purely green topic today. It is also high on the list of priorities among supporters of the Union. But only 14 per cent of Germans believe that the CDU/CSU Union is also competent here.
Why can’t the social SPD score points?
The second most important issue for voters was social security, as mentioned above. This is a classic SPD theme and in fact the party here was also considered to be particularly competent. Why does not this pay off in the European elections then in votes?
A decisive explanation for this is the change in the perception of competences. In the 2014 European elections, 41 per cent said the SPD was doing very well. In the current European elections, this had fallen to just 29 per cent. So the classic SPD theme is important, but many voters – as the surveys show – increasingly see the competence for this also in other parties – such as Left, Greens and AfD. Not just “The Left” party benefits from the weakness of the SPD but the Greens do too. All in all, even in the European elections, it is not enough to have a majority of the green-red-red as it existed until 2013.
The extreme right stagnates.
The right-wing nationalist “Alternative for Deutschland” (AfD) won 4% more at the last European election than five years ago. But they lost almost 2% compared to the 2017 general election in Germany. The AfD-result was weaker than many feared. But despite all the scandals, the AfD is establishing itself as the strongest party in several regions of Eastern Germany. It thus has an increasingly stable position and real potential to improve.
Conclusion:
The old republic was a national party democracy. For over 70 years, the CDU/CSU Union and the SPD formed its main pillars. Today, however, they no longer function as cross-border and cross-regional parties. This ends what the old peoples’ parties were still able to do, namely, to integrate the whole country. For this, the Greens and the AfD create two “half people’s parties” that can claim the People’s Party status one in the West or the other in the East. Like the entire continent, Germany is deeply divided; but not along “Labour” and “Capital” as the determining line of conflict. Now the conflict lines are different: ecological-post-materialist, (primarily in the West), versus economic-materialistic, (primarily in the East); young versus old, (across the whole country); and finally, cosmopolitan-progressive versus national(istic) -reactionary, often accompanied with the contrast of city and country.
With this new kind of polarization, the Federal Republic is leaving its middle-class culture. Today we see a new need to think radically – the once broad center of the popular parties is emptying, because society is polarizing again.
That is why the “grand coalition” of the CDU / CSU and SPD in the Federal Government is unpopular in Germany. Neither the CDU/CSU Union nor the SPD seem to be able to re-integrate the huge centrifugal forces in the long-standing grand coalition. The old center is shrinking. As the centrifugal forces increase, the old parties themselves become losers. Every national or regional election these days seem to accelerate this polarization. That may be the key reason why the “grand coalition” could come to an end in the foreseeable future. Already after the elections in East Germany in the autumn the time could have come, but at the latest with the mid-term balance of the SPD in November.
The resignation of party and faction leader Andrea Nahles, who has been very committed to the coalition, is just a sign. No one person in the SPD is any longer able to embody a dramatically divergent party like the SPD. The current internal party conflicts show this: on the one hand, the Young Socialists (Jusos) with Kevin Kühnert at the top, pleading for a clear ecological, left-internationalist course; on the other hand, the “SPD right”, which under the slogan “Germany does not need a second Left Party”, is against a more leftward course.
In the past the “only way out” was the integration of the different lines in the Party. With the dual leadership of Schröder / Lafontaine and the slogan “Innovation and Justice”, the SPD succeeded in attracting modernizers and traditionalists, thus achieving 40.9 per cent in 1998. But recently, with the departure of Lafontaine, the labour market reforms (Hartz IV) and the founding of The Left party, things have changed. All party leaders, who have since tried to integrate alone, have sooner or later, failed. Therefore, the SPD is now trying to absorb the massive divisions in society by the embodiment of young and old, woman and man, present-materialistic and forward-looking post-materialist stances. Another chance to increase their own much too small range, does not seem to be in sight at the moment.
July 2019