Emanuel Barroso has been re-elected President of the European Commission. How strange! Why has the politician, who bears the largest individual responsibility for the steady decline in the efficiency and popular approval of European policies, been endorsed by all EU governments and obtained 382 votes of the 718 MEPs who participated in the election? This is 13 more than needed to attain the majority required under the Lisbon Treaty. Apparently 5 came from Portuguese and 16 votes from Spanish Socialist MEPs.

It has been said that national governments appointed a weak Commission president in order to pursue their own interests. But are they serving the interests of citizens? Centre right parties have voted for Barroso, because he belongs to their family. One may also understand why right wing Eurosceptics gave him support: it is the best way to weaken Europe. But what about social democrats? They promised Social Europe and helped to elect a neoliberal hardliner. In fact, they were split. Most abstained, some opposed and “Iberian solidarity” voted in favor of president Barroso.

Have socialist MEPs betrayed their voters? Maybe. The Party of European Socialist (PES) had presented a common program for a Social Europe before the elections, but it did not specify with whom it intended to implement it. Does it now wish to realise it with the help of those who have always pushed in the opposite direction?

A party program has a function. It says what the representatives elected on the party’s ticket intend to do together. For voters, electing a party is an insurance that their candidate will get support from colleagues sharing the platform. Parties guarantee the efficiency of democracy.

If voters on Europe’s left liked the PES program of Social Europe, they should have cast their ballot for the PES. But unfortunately, they were not told who would implement the program. Social democrats failed to present a candidate as a personal alternative to the neoliberal Emanuel Barroso. If they had one message, it was that their program did not matter, because they did not wish to implement it themselves. European social democrats have lost their credibility. They agreed on an objective, but disagreed on the means. They had a program, but no leader. What is the point of the menu if you have no cook?

A voter seeking to oppose Barroso would have done better by voting Green or for the extreme left. These parties said they would and in fact they did reject the Commission President’s re-election. But such a voter would not have gotten the Social Europe of the PES, because the Greens want an ecological Europe and the extreme left does not want Europe.

So, what should citizens do? If I live in France, my socialist MEP promises he will opt for a new direction of Europe and will vote against Barroso. This is clear and coherent, but he is alone. In Germany my local MEP may say one thing and his party leader something else and in Parliament they abstain. Hence, I have no reason to vote for them. If I live in Portugal or Spain, my socialist MEP agrees with Social Europe, yet he will vote for a neoliberal Commission president because he is Portuguese or because the Spanish Prime Minister wants to have an easy EU-presidency next year.

My representatives surrender to nationalism and do not vote for the Social Europe I want. The defense of my interests as a European citizen has been sacrificed for the narrow partial interest of a national government under the cover-up of national identity feelings.

This lack of coherence leaves citizens powerless. There is no way how European citizens can ensure that they get the Europe they demand, because the lack of party solidarity prevents the appropriate supply. Without solidarity between all European social democrats, each national group is just a tiny minority in a very large Parliament and no one really makes a difference – except, of course, national governments. No wonder European citizens feel disempowered and many start to question whether they were not better off on their own.

The EP vote for Barroso reveals the structural dilemma of European integration. There is a clash of two kinds of integration logic, one based on political values, people’s interests and democratic competition between parties; the other on communitarian feelings of belonging and nationalism. These two logics have been present in the process of European integration from the beginning, but their tension is increasing as the European Union has deepened its common concerns and broadened the number of member states. The lack of coherence is now increasingly undermining the credibility of the European project. It could ultimately lead to the demise of the European Union.

More than any other party, European social democrats are caught in the conflict between defending the interests of citizens at the European level and the desire to use the power of national governments as their instrument. This does no longer work.

Citizens must have a genuine right to choose the policies that affect them all together jointly. This is the core idea of democracy. Taking democracy seriously requires that political parties develop the solidarity and coherence that is a necessary condition for implementing policies in the interest of voters. Unless European social democrats learn this simple lesson, they will become a species under threat of distinction. And with them, the European Union will disappear.

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