Six months before 400 million citizens will be called to the polls to renew the 720 seats that will make up the new European Parliament, popular support for the European project resists despite the multiple shocks that their countries have faced during the current cycle. electoral, from the departure of a member state from the club to a pandemic that paralyzed the world or the return of war to the continent with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with its well-known economic consequences.
The event will take place between June 6 and 9, the date chosen by countries like Spain, where it is tradition to vote on Sunday, and will be crucial to set the political course of the continent in a year in which up to 30 countries from all over the world – the United States, Mexico and India, among others – will go to the polls. The elections will define the political majority of the European Chamber, an institution that in a few years has gone from being directed by social democrats and popular people almost alone, to a more fragmented scenario that opened the door to pacts with liberals and environmentalists, but that in 2024 It will enter into open competition with ultra-conservative and extreme right-wing parties. The European Parliament has not yet published its internal electoral projections, made based on national polls, but the latest data indicate that in 2024 there would be between 40 and 50 more seats than today on the right of the European People's Party.
For now, the EU is content with taking the temperature of public opinion and, according to the Eurobarometer to be published today, despite the current complicated geopolitical environment, 72% of Europeans consider that their country has benefited from the belonging to the club, a percentage five points higher than five years ago and up to 18 points higher compared to the situation in 2013. In Spain, up to 78% believe this.
If what is valued is not so much the benefits obtained as a country but membership in the club itself, the percentages of support for the EU are somewhat more mitigated. 62% consider it to be a good thing, at the same level as five years ago. The figure improved during the Covid pandemic, when the EU launched a joint vaccine plan and agreed on a macro investment plan to alleviate its economic consequences, reaching 65% at the beginning of 2022, coinciding with the start of the war in Ukraine. , moment from which support for the EU began to decline until reaching the same level that was detected at the gates of the previous European elections.
“These are encouraging levels of support. We also see greater interest than five years ago in holding the elections,” highlighted yesterday the Director General of Communication of the European Parliament, Jaume Duch. That 70% of Europeans think that the EU has an impact on their daily lives, a higher figure than at the beginning of the legislature, “means that citizens are aware that the decisions made in Brussels and Strasbourg matter, whether they agree.” agree or not with them,” Duch highlighted in the presentation of the latest Eurobarometer. “Perhaps due to the accumulation of crises and the need to coordinate their actions, the visibility of the EU and its Parliament has increased over the last five years.”
During the current legislature, the European Parliament has approved 236 laws, but there are 150 still in the process of negotiation, for example the new directive on gender violence, the law on artificial intelligence or the new European Migration Pact called to renew the current European legislation on asylum, which was blown up with the wave of refugees in 2015. Tomorrow, the Spanish presidency of the Council will sit down to negotiate with the MEPs the regulations of the pact, which contain solidarity measures for the distribution of immigrants in the event of a crisis, but Above all, they aim to increase the return of rejected asylum seekers, and tighten border control and the processing of protection requests.
Although, according to the Eurobarometer, immigration is not the main area in which Europeans expect the European Parliament to act (they say its priority should be the fight against social exclusion), some recent elections indicate that, at a time of economic insecurity like the current one (38% of Europeans say that their living situation has worsened), can be a determining factor and give wings to far-right parties, which is why European governments and institutions have set themselves the goal of reaching the meeting with the polls of 2024 with the homework done.
