Nationalism and unity plays out in the EU

Ka Leers writes: When voters in both the Netherlands and France rejected a new EU constitution by referendum in 2005, governments across Europe were aghast. How could these voters come out in such numbers against the European Union, the machine that had so obviously ensured peace and prosperity for more than 50 years?

“Voters operate on the premise that they are the boss, not politicians,” says Hans Anker, a successful Dutch pollster who used to work with the famous American voter researcher Stan Greenberg. Anker was asked by the Dutch government to find out what the heck had happened.Extensive research and focus groups involving great numbers of Dutch voters after the referendum showed why many voters simply took it as an opportunity to slap the sitting government on the wrist. They felt that EU expansion – at the time the Union was on its way to adding 10 new member states – was being carried out without their permission.

Most voters in the referendum didn’t vote against the EU constitution itself, Anker found. Rather, they voted as they did because they felt that the European Union’s ever-expanding power was a train that kept moving forward – a locomotive commandeered by an elite that never asked them whether they approved of its chosen direction. “Nobody ever asked me anything; now I’ll show them.” That was the gist.

It appears that the refugee crisis is now driving this sentiment back to the fore, perhaps more than any other topic ever did – including the EU’s shock expansion in 2005. Wherever government leaders go against the grain and welcome refugees, as Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel did, massive swings in the polls are seen. In countries such as Switzerland and Poland, political parties that take an explicit stance against refugees have scored landslide electoral wins. In Germany itself, the Alternative for Germany – until quite recently fading in the polls – is now back with a vengeance, picking up additional voters with each passing poll. This is scaring even Merkel into taking a step back. She now supports building refugee centers on Germany’s southern borders in an effort to stop the influx, a proposition she vehemently opposed just a couple weeks back.

The attack on Paris and its connection to refugee movement complicated the issue.