In the run-up to the European elections a new party, Volt, has been getting increasing attention. In contrast to most recently formed parties in EU member states, this is not a Eurosceptic, nativist party but rather a force that aspires to be resolutely progressive. According to its manifesto, Volt seeks to implement ‘stronger non-discrimination and gender equality laws’, ‘increase legal pathways for migration into Europe’ and ‘lead the way’ in reducing ‘immediate and future effects of climate change’.
Although at first glance this could be mistaken for a Green or Liberal Democratic platform, their central issue is Volt’s commitment to pan-European politics. Founded in Germany in March 2018, Volt is now represented in eight countries across the EU, with the same party structure and policy agenda. Although their projected vote share remains small according to most polls, Volt’s efforts to revitalise European democracy have been widely praised in the media, from the Economist to Politico. But Volt’s approach does the opposite: by combining populist and technocratic rhetoric to propagate a peculiarly post-ideological form of politics, Volt could further undermine the EU’s fragile democracy.
In fact, Volt deploys a similar logic to the one that has governed the process of EU integration from the start. Convinced of the EU’s need to bring peace and prosperity at its inception, its founding fathers didn’t feel the need to engage citizens in the process; so the union’s contours were drawn in intergovernmental conferences, and coloured in by visionary civil servants.
After 60 years, what started as the pooling of coal and steel led us into a full-fledged political and economic union built on shaky democratic foundations. The few times ordinary citizens were consulted, it was to decide whether they wanted to be part of the union or not; they rarely got the chance to shape it. It is this top-down functionalist logic that has allowed nationalist movements across the EU to fuel euroscepticism. Volt, with its plans to ‘fix’ an EU that ‘needs’ new institutions such as a ‘federal cabinet of ministers’ and a ‘European finance minister’, is continuing this tradition.
Volt falls into the category of techno-populists that combine an anti-establishment appeal with a technocratic approach to politics as ‘problem solving’
Volt’s party programme and discourse is both populist and anti-democratic, despite their commitment to fighting these evils. The party plans to ‘find solutions’ to ‘shape the Europe we all need’. But at the heart of all politics is the acknowledgement that there is no such thing as a solution that serves all needs equally. Every policy generates winners and losers (expanding Erasmus means less money to spend on railway connections). The source of legitimacy and goal of politics is discussion on the distribution of power to decide which interests should be prioritised over others. By disregarding this, Volt falls into the category of techno-populists that combine an anti-establishment appeal with a technocratic approach to politics as ‘problem solving.’ (1)
In Volt’s manifesto, the ‘people-powered’ movement criticises ‘the fruitless old way of doing politics’: Volt is neither left nor right but claims that it can ‘fix’ Europe. This post-ideological approach gives us no way of knowing their priorities. Surely we all benefit from ‘boosting growth and standards of living’. But when Volt’s legislators have to choose between their two manifesto points — to ‘make it easy for the entrepreneur to set up a business’ and to ‘protect the dignity and safety of workers, especially in new sectors’ — which side will the party be on?
Ideology, however demonised these last years, is still key if citizens are to trust political parties to make decisions that align with their values, and extrapolate their preferences onto complex policy questions.
Read also Frédéric Lordon, “How to save the EU from itself”, Le Monde diplomatique, March 2019.
Techno-populist parties like Volt wrongly presume they have access to some kind of pre-established political truth. Naturally, all parties champion their political agenda but they leave space for opposition. But Volt suggests that there is no legitimate alternative; their manifesto is a collection of academic research, full of references to ‘best-practices’ and an appeal to the expertise of ‘the best minds and businesses in the field’. Volt and its supporters would do well to remember that any expert solution is inherently political.
It is the struggle between competing political interests that has also been lacking at the European level. The coming European elections need to be a forum for discussion about the values the EU stands for, and which interest we want to promote: big corporations and financial markets, or citizens and workers. (2) Up until now that political discussion has hardly taken place. As a result of endless referendums, being ‘in’ or ‘out’ has dominated the political discourse. For the union to serve its citizen in today’s complex world, we need Europe-wide discussions in which we argue over our interests and values until we reach an agreement on what we stand for. That means more of what Volt calls the ‘fruitless old way of doing politics’.
