The economic crisis is increasing pitting the people against the State in some countries

To be memorable elections generally need narratives. The recent US Presidential election had it in spades but the last three decades of European elections have, in my view, thrown up stories of their own

In European Parliamentary terms, 1979 was the first direct election, 1984 the high tide of federalist hope (or probably Orwellian nightmare for eurosceptics), 1989 was the fall of Communism election, ’99 the first time I voted and 2004 the EU enlargement one. The question is what will the 2009 European election be remembered as?

My feeling is that it could be the “recession election”. As economies collapse and unemployment heads upwards a wave of uncertainty is spreading across the continent. It is putting a strain on societies – witness the demonstrations from Paris to Riga with the Hungarian and Latvian governments having to go cap in hand to the IMF.

In an article this week (”Euroscepticism is yesterday’s creed“) the FT’s Gideon Rachman argued that some of the EU main achievements – the free movement of goods, people, services and capital – are under threat from the new sinews of economic nationalism stirring in Europe and amongst its governments.

As he put it: “Protectionism and nationalism are close cousins. The principles of consultation, co-operation and open borders within the EU have helped to repress the old, nationalist demons.”

What’s wrong with the European Union and how to fix it

Given the fear, uncertainty and humiliation it is possible that people will be pushed into the ballot box to vote out the people they hold responsible – namely MEPs belonging to the parties of sitting governments. They may also be tempted to vote for extremist parties and it would be interesting to see how such MEPs would affect the European body politic. The European mantra could be “United in adversity and acrimony” rather than the EU’s perhaps more prim official logo “United in diversity”.

In an illuminating talk at the European Parliament some months ago on his latest book, “What’s wrong with the European Union and how to fix it”, Professor Simon Hix of London’s LSE said he believed that European elections tend to turn into “mid-term referenda on sitting governments.”

There’s nothing necessarily wrong or unnatural about that – except that they centre on national issues with governments invariably telling voters and the press that the results doesn’t matter. In parallel to this the political opposition – for obvious reasons – stress its national character and importance – to the detriment of European issues.

Perhaps in a sense this doesn’t matter, “all politics is local” and from a professional point of view if people vote in large numbers then that will be welcome. Our role in the Communication directorate is to get the message out that the elections are occurring in June and that people have the choice to make their voice heard. If they don’t then, well, they shouldn’t complain…or did we go too far in saying that on our website recently? A Spanish national newspaper and quite a few of their readers apparently thought so, but that story is for another blog post…