Just a month ago, the Eurobarometer prepared by the European Commission placed health and the economy as the main issues that Spaniards expect to see in the party programs for the European elections on June 9, whose campaign begins tonight. Agricultural policy and climate change follow in that ranking, and behind them are concerns about migration and asylum policies and defense and security, the latter issue being among the three issues that most concern Europeans in general. And the survey also detects an unusual increase in participation ahead of these elections: seven out of ten believe they will go to vote (10% more than in 2019). Perhaps it took a pandemic and a war for the citizens of the Twenty-Seven to see the value of being part of the EU club. The international context, of growing instability, is one of the elements that eight out of ten cite to underline the importance of the June event. There is interest, but also ignorance about what is at stake in the new legislature, in which Spain, as the fourth EU country in population and GDP, has a lot to say.
“Spain is at risk of continuing to enjoy the advantages that being part of the EU has given us in the last 45 years, at a time when the internal political situation is much more complicated, with an open war in European territory and with a position on the part of from China and Russia that in some way threatens our democratic system and our system of freedoms –underlines the Director General of Communication and spokesperson for the European Parliament, Jaume Duch–. And also knowing that in the coming years we will have to contribute to ensuring that the EU has sufficient autonomy to continue defending its citizens in this much more complex world.”
As Duch points out, the world situation has modified the course that the EU had set, which in the current legislative cycle placed the green agenda and the digital agenda as priorities. They will not be left aside, but there will be a new approach to economic security and strategic autonomy, emphasizes Raquel García, European Affairs researcher at the Elcano Royal Institute. “In the new legislature, competitiveness policies, strengthening the internal market, and the green and digital transition of our economies will be key. And in all these decisions, aimed at protecting the economic interests of the EU, it will be necessary to consider a more volatile international context, in which the Union is dependent on supply chains, look for allies, and what to do with the relationship with China and with the United States,” he emphasizes.
Duch emphasizes the importance of strategic autonomy: “In the coming years and with a certain haste, the EU has to be much less dependent on third countries on issues that have to do with its own defense, its security, its access to energy. and to basic products, from minerals to sophisticated items such as chips that a very important part of European industry needs,” he emphasizes.
Another fundamental issue that is on the table, and with consequences, is the enlargement of the EU, to the Western Balkans and to the former Soviet republics of Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. “What remains to be done is enormous and that is why these elections are so important because we are talking about issues that are not technical like those of 15 or 20 years ago, we are not talking about roaming but about how to organize ourselves to continue defending this system of peace, democracy and prosperity that some want to jeopardize,” emphasizes the Parliament spokesperson.
That’s how it is. The political orientation of the EU is decided by the European Council, which is made up of the heads of State and Government, and senior positions are also negotiated there, or the distribution of portfolios of the college of commissioners, recalls Raquel García. But the composition of the European Parliament, the only institution decided directly by citizens’ votes, will determine legislation, on an equal footing with the EU Council, in which ministers from member states participate.
A rise of the extreme right, with intransigent positions on matters such as immigration or environmental policy, to give two examples, would have a direct influence on the new European laws. “That is why it is important to go to vote, so that Parliament can continue to be an institution that seeks constructive solutions,” says Duch. There has been a useful response to major crises and the EU has consolidated, to the point that many of those extreme parties that previously defended leaving the Union no longer do so because they see that people are no longer in it.” .
In Spain, 77% applaud membership in the EU. Eurosceptics have little future here.
