Look at the state of European politics today and a collage of pandemonium emerges. France has been stuck with a caretaker government for two months following legislative elections which no party won decisively. In Germany the hard right came top in one set of state elections on September 1st; its federal chancellor, Olaf Scholz, seems destined for defeat in a nationwide ballot this time next year. The less said about Hungary and its strongman prime minister, Viktor Orban, the better. Coalitions formed by parties with little in common keep governments with tenuous majorities in power, from Spain to the Netherlands. And then there is Belgium, a country where politicians ritually haggle for a year or more before forming a government (current count: 88 days). Part of the charm of democracy is that it is messy, but Europe has elevated the chaos to high art.
Even amid the voter-induced tumult, in a rainy corner of northern Europe a bit of the continent’s government machine keeps churning. A new roster of 27 European commissioners is currently being assembled in Brussels, with new assignments expected to be doled out in coming days. From migration policy to trade, regulating big tech, bolstering European defence, monitoring national finances, devising green rules and much more besides, few facets of life in the bloc are beyond the scope of the European Union’s executive behemoth. The technocratic approach it favours skirts questions around democratic accountability. But it has been so effective that the leave-it-to-the-experts method of governing has caught on beyond Brussels. When politicians fail to form national governments, outside “experts” are sometimes called upon instead. The temptations of technocracy are like a siren call for those who just want to get things done, voters be damned.
The march of the European technocrats is in large part down to the drift of “competences”—to use a bit of Brussels patois—from its 27 member states towards the EU. Once a coal-and-steel trading club, it has morphed into a government in all but name. Often that is no bad thing: it would be absurd for two dozen midsized neighbouring countries to each have their own decarbonisation targets, for example. As Europe has battled a slew of crises, from covid-19 to the war in Ukraine, the mandarins of Brussels have amassed more influence. A growing swathe of the EU budget is doled out to countries that meet conditions set out by Eurocrats, whether it be reforming courts or labour laws. In theory, if not in practice, the bloc’s rules constrain national governments’ natural desire to run bottomless budget deficits, for example.
Another hefty dose of nagging is in the works. On September 9th Mario Draghi, a former boss of the European Central Bank, is expected to unveil a report on how to revive the bloc’s sclerotic economy. Rumoured to come in at 400 pages, it is already being treated as an oracular blueprint for what governments must do to remain in the EU’s good graces. No doubt Mr Draghi’s report—whose edicts will be inserted into the working briefs of incoming commissioners—will be full of good sense. But who decides if that is so? Politicians need to worry about how their policies will play at the ballot box. As the EU’s latest technocrat-in-chief, that is of no concern to Mr Draghi. Tough luck for any voters who think he is misguided on the future of industrial policy, say.
The timing of the report, prepared largely before but released just after European elections in which its recommendations did not feature, is unfortunate. It will lend credence to claims that the EU is unaccountable to voters. This point is often exaggerated. A 720-strong European Parliament keeps tabs on commissioners, and will audition each aspirant to the post in coming weeks (Ursula von der Leyen, who has headed the commission since 2019, was approved by the parliament for a second term in July). National governments have plenty of say in how the EU institutions use their powers, not least deciding who leads them. But those who claim Brussels is a fountain of red tape beyond scrutiny also have a point. Often the regulations affecting Europeans are the work of a 32,000-strong bureaucracy that need not fret over what public opinion makes of their latest initiative.
And technocracy has gained a foothold at national level, too. European politics has become messier. Gone are the days of two big parties duking out elections with one clear winner. Now there are up to a dozen including greens, liberals and nationalists as well. The compromise required to form alliances is all the more elusive, even more so if parties of the hard right are seen as beyond the pale when it comes to forming coalitions, as they often are. In the ensuing deadlock, settling for an uncontentious expert is often the only obvious solution after months of stasis. Mr Draghi was roped in as Italian prime minister in 2021, the fourth technocrat in the job since the 1990s. The newish Dutch prime minister was until recently a civil servant in its justice ministry, elevated to the top job when squabbling politicians failed to find a figurehead leader acceptable to all. Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, was in recent days said to be considering an unknown mutual-insurance administrator to serve as prime minister. Qui?
The expert will see you now
A little technocratic interlude while politicians get their act together may be no bad thing. But the point of politics is to make decisions. In practice that means someone balancing the advice of experts with electoral realities. As Jean-Claude Juncker, a former commission boss, memorably put it, politicians the world over know what needs to be done, just not how to get re-elected having done it. Democracies stay vibrant by kicking out the current lot, leaving space for new blood who might listen to a different type of expert. Technocrats will always have their place in well-functioning polities, but it should be in the background.
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© 2024, The Economist Newspaper Ltd. All rights reserved. From The Economist, published under licence. The original content can be found on www.economist.com
