The report on the European elections is a Trojan horse for supporters of a federal EU

The plenary of the European Parliament (EP) adopted a report on the evaluation of the European elections. Despite the importance of the topic, the draftsman created a left-wing document that was essentially narrowed down to institutional proposals, making it a collection of proposals underpinning the institutional system of a federal Europe.

After the European elections, self-reflection is important, that is, looking at how to improve the quality of EP elections. Instead, the report formulates a federalist proclamation, erroneously and deliberately concluding from participatory data that institutional reforms need to be adopted. The real aim of the rapporteur is to take another step towards building a federal Europe.

The text refers to a multicultural society and calls for a gender perspective. Hiding behind democratic principles, under the guise of uniform electoral rules, it would place election supervision under a European Electoral Authority, centralizing democratic processes. He marks those who take a position contrary to his ideas as populist and nationalist. It envisages centralization in its institutional proposals, encouraging the introduction of a transnational list and a  ‘Spitzenkandidaten process’, which would in fact serve to undermine the representation of small and medium-sized Member States. It would shrink the Council of the European Union, composed of representatives of the governments of Member States, into a second chamber of the European Parliament, thus weakening the advocacy capacity of national governments. Meanwhile, it would strengthen the European Commission with a view to giving it a role similar to that of national governments.

In their unilateral resolutions in 2020, the EU institutions stated that they would discuss the situation of the European Union (EU) in the context of the Conference on the Future of Europe, leaving it to the conference to determine what issues need to be discussed for the future of the EU. On the other hand, in advance of this, the report intends to predetermine — without any substantive discussion, impact assessment, or reflection — self-serving institutional proposals that change the delicate EU institutional balance. This is how the Member States are to be excluded from the debate, forgetting that this led to the fall of the Constitutional Treaty in the 2000s.

We are convinced that citizens are not concerned with divisive debates on institutional issues but with real results, especially in terms of competitiveness, the Union’s role in the world, and the management of the epidemic. Issues such as migration, the new dimensions of economic cooperation in the 21st century, the settlement of EU-UK relations, and the protection of European jobs — issues that actually matter to citizens need to be discussed.

After all, it is not the Member States for the Union, but the Union for the Member States.