Europeans must find way to fire EU elites when they screw up

Much of the European commentariat’s theatrical horror at the re-election of Donald Trump smacks of a comfortable smugness that such a dread outcome cannot befall their beloved European Union. In one sense, they are correct: Ursula von der Leyen and her College of Commissioners can’t be turfed out in a European vote. The EU project can sail on in haughty ignorance of a discontented demos. Problem is, those supposedly stable centrist democracies that underpin and finance the EU are increasingly beleaguered. In Italy, Georgia Meloni is thriving as a right-wing nationalist prime minister, the French prime minister is governing only with the tacit support of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, and in Germany the right-wing AfD is polling ahead of the ruling Social Democrats. The peasants and their pitchforks are not yet done with Europe, and their anger is increasingly aimed at the dictates handed down from Brussels.

As appalling as Trump’s decisive victory may appear to most Europeans, they should at least acknowledge that American democracy allows its citizens to change leaders and policies at the very pinnacle of power, something denied Europeans. American presidential elections are a valuable form of steam release for a disgruntled electorate. Absent this steam release, an imperious supra-national government can find itself facing actual rebellion in the form of rude populists or manure-spreading farmers. The founders of the European project placed great faith in the capacity of highly educated elites to craft policies beneficial to ordinary Europeans, and to their credit, they succeeded. However, these elites never contemplated a moment when they should lose power, certainly not at the hands of those less powerful and educated as themselves. In the absence of European elections for the Commission, they don’t have to.  You would think that the example of Brexit, when the EU’s second largest power and strongest military elected to walk out on the entire project might have reinvigorated subsidiarity in Brussels and pushed policy power down where it could enjoy direct democratic legitimacy. Instead, Brexit hardened the Eurocrats against what they saw as retrograde populism, something that should never inform their high-minded policies.

In times of economic prosperity, Brussels could get away with hoarding its power, but times are no longer good in Europe. The German engine of the European Union is stagnating, struggling with the loss of cheap Russian energy and the decline of its lucrative Chinese market.  Volkswagen is caught in a vice of declining sales and green mandates forcing it to abandon its core competence in internal combustion engines. Mass layoffs and plant closures to eliminate excess manufacturing capacity are the only paths toward profitability for Europe’s largest car maker.

Things are not much better in France, which cannot tame its excessive deficits without imposing large reductions in social welfare benefits. The Macron-led technocratic revolution which was supposed to revive the country has now been reduced to a painful programme of austerity demanded by the EU.  In a true federal state, the central government could provide the funds needed to ease industrial transitions and soften the impact of budget cuts. But the EU is not that state. It cannot tax and spend on behalf of the union, and it cannot respond to a direct democratic mandate to change its policies. It would rather deal with populist moments by restricting online speech and withholding funds from leaders like Viktor Orbán who challenge its authority.

There are several factors that are likely to make the problem of a democratically insensitive Brussels elite worse over the coming years. The first is looming deindustrialisation. Europe is no longer a favourable place for investments that create mass employment. Until 2022, cheap Russian energy allowed Europe to remain competitive despite its high labour costs and declining productivity. That competitive advantage is now gone, as Europe must bid for gas on world markets. The Green New Deal imposes destructive mandates on European industry, ensuring that factories that might have employed Europeans will now be built in countries powered by dirty coal-fired power plants. Workers in Wolfsburg or Ludwigshafen may lose their jobs and certainly any expectation that their children will enjoy secure, highly compensated industrial jobs. Complaining to one of Germany’s 96 Euro-MPs is useless, as these representatives owe their comfy jobs to their position on party lists, and not to any service provided to their constituents. The pain of deindustrialisation will not filter up to the notice of commission functionaries, which nearly guarantees a coming populist explosion.

The second factor is the dealignment of the traditional centre-left parties from their natural constituents. In France, the Socialists have lost the working class to Marine Le Pen. In Germany, the right-wing AfD and the left-wing populist BSW command together a greater following among workers than the Social Democrats. Italy has long since defenestrated its traditional centrist parties and is now led by a coalition of once-fringe right-wing parties. Sweden’s Social Democrats have been eclipsed by anti-migrant conservatives. In many cases, centrist parties were torn between their constituents and their obligations to Brussels’ rules on migration, deficit spending, and environmental regulation. In choosing Brussels, they drove their former constituents toward new parties that shared their complaints, and who have now crippled the once dominant centrist parties. 

In the US, there was no dealignment of the two party system, but rather the hostile takeover of one party by angry populists, who have now made their chosen candidate head of state for a second time.  Europeans may sneer at this result, but rewarding angry populists with power disciplines them with the responsibilities of governing. Screw up, and they lose power. Quarantining them instead amplifies their criticism of government policy, and confirms their status as the tribunes of voters ignored by the major parties.

The third and perhaps most important factor is the delamination of governing elites from their social context. Robert Henderson points to the passion among American elites for what he terms “luxury beliefs” that do not resonate with ordinary citizens struggling to pay for food and housing. Trump made hay of the Democrats obsession with white guilt, gender pronouns, and open borders. While none of these views would be challenged at a Manhattan dinner party, many swing state voters were either mystified or offended by them. No DC tax lawyer or political consultant ever lost work to an illegal migrant, but plenty of American construction workers did.

And those workers recognized that their concerns simply did not count for much under Biden: parents at the tony Sidwell Friends School in Northwest DC had a better chance of influencing US migration policy than a bricklayer’s union in Dubuque. Likewise do Dutch farmers suffer the consequences of the net zero policies applauded in the salons of Ixelles. Delamination is the failure of governing elites to consider the concerns of their fellow citizens, and is often exacerbated by administrative bureaucracies that shield those wielding power from those who suffer it. The European Union is by design the foremost example of an elite-insulating bureaucracy outside of actual authoritarian regimes.  The imposition of inflexible net zero mandates and an inability to manage migration are elite failures that alienated many European citizens from the Brussels elites. 

Tackling these “three Ds” before a populist reaction derails the European project altogether might require Europe to take some pages from the populist playbook. Delay or outright abolition of net zero mandates would give European industry space to breathe. Aggressive tariffs aimed at the efforts of Chinese state-supported companies (i.e., all of them) to conquer European markets can level the competitive field. Party dealignment will remain a fact in multi-party systems, but can be better managed by inviting the rough populists into governing coalitions. Quarantining them may soothe elite feelings, but also tells a big chunk of the electorate (over 20 per cent in Germany) that they are deplorable. Or garbage, in Joe Biden’s words, and how did that work out for the Democrats?  Rectifying elite delamination could begin by establishing discreet constituencies for each EuroMP, who would be directly elected and answerable to his or her voters. Removing the tyranny of national party lists from candidate selection would reorient EuroMPs toward constituent representation. Ideally, EuroMPs would gain the right to amend commission proposals comprehensively, which could give their constituents some real purchase over decisions made in Brussels. 

Europeans may take comfort in their assumption that Trump is a completely American phenomenon. But he is simply the agent of dissatisfaction with governing elites who have screwed things up, not in principle much different from Georgia Meloni. In a healthy democratic polity, these elites lose power to more responsive replacements. Until the EU finds a way to fire its elites when they screw up, it will suffer from a potentially toxic populism boiling away down there at the national level.  If Euro-grandees are not prepared to reform their beloved project, they may find Marine Le Pen or Viktor Orbán doing it for them.