Page 20 - Bloomberg Businessweek - November 19, 2018

Bloomberg Businessweek The Year Ahead 2019 Politics
Brexit

▷ In fits and starts, the U�K� is leaving the European Union—just in
time for parliamentary elections that could decide the bloc’s fate

The European political fabric changes for good at The EU Parliament’s task is to
11 p.m. London time on March 29, 2019, when the act as a check on the European
U.K. is scheduled to leave the European Union Commission, the bloc’s unelected
after 46 years of membership. The date is a neat executive arm, whose president and
fit: It comes just two months before every adult commissioners it must approve.
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citizen of the bloc’s remaining 27 countries gets This includes voting on laws the
to vote for members of the European Parliament, commission proposes. Each mem-
and by Brexit day campaigns will be in full swing. ber state has a number of seats
EU elections have often revealed more about apportioned by population, from 96
the direction of domestic politics than the senti- for Germany to six each for Cyprus,
ments of European voters at large. In many coun- Luxembourg, and Malta. Elections
tries, the twice-a-decade votes have evolved into will take place from May 23 to 26, and
a protest, a reaction to who’s in charge at home while individual countries have some
rather than a referendum on how the bloc is freedom over how the election is orga-
managed. But 2019 will be different—because nized, some form of proportional represen-
in many countries the role of the EU now dom- tation is mandatory.
inates domestic politics, too, whether because Candidates are generally chosen by and rep-
of the bloc’s role in managing the refugee crisis, resent national parties; those parties often come
controlling government spending, or demand- together to form pan-EU caucuses. Since direct
ing more respect for democracy. elections were introduced in 1979, the pillars of the
Nationalist groups are on the rise in Germany, two mainstream pro-EU alliances—the center-right
have won political victories in Italy and Austria, European People’s Party and the center-left
and are in power in Hungary and Poland. Other Socialists—have together held a majority. The
nations, from France to Sweden, Spain to Finland, EPP is dominated by German Chancellor Angela
flirt with their own movements that pledge to rip Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. Merkel’s
up the established order. “The world is fractur- decision not to run for another term as chancellor
ing, new disorders are appearing, and Europe in 2021 after losses in recent state elections robs the
is tipping almost everywhere toward extremes mainstream of its most powerful leader at a cru-
and again is giving way to nationalism,” French cial moment and highlights the difficulties for the
President Emmanuel Macron said in an Oct. 16 center parties. Many of the CDU’s traditional voters
televised address. “Those who do not see what have gone either to the Greens on the left or the PHOTOGRAPH BY PIPPA DRUMMOND FOR
is going on around us are sleepwalking.” Next Alternative for Germany on the far right. BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK
year’s vote is shaping up to deliver a verdict on While EU Parliament elections are notoriously
the whole 60-year European experiment. difficult to predict, the successes recorded by