The European elections are coming up – and I can’t see through it

Opinion

What do “the cloud” and the EU Parliament have in common? Exactly. Everyone has heard of it, but no one understands it.

Now I deal with foreign policy every day, I have delved into the absurd US electoral system, I know why saffron is a political issue in India, why Mandela’s party is threatened with an electoral slap in the face in South Africa and why no one is in charge in Haiti. But what the soon-to-be 720 MPs in Brussels (and somehow also in Strasbourg) are doing? (Almost) no idea.

I don’t mean this disrespectfully, but if even a professional know-it-all like me despairs at the European confusion – how is the “average voter” doing? Of course, we at star We are making a great effort to answer the big questions about the European elections as clearly as possible. But with each of these W-questions, at least my overloaded brain plays a round of “Stumped – Hunted”. The same H-answer every time: Huh?

The Parliament for Europe – a huge, opaque bureaucratic monster

Whenever I talk to people about the European elections, they dismiss it after a few sentences. “Nobody understands it anyway,” they say, as if resignation were the dominant European culture. I too caught myself literally pushing the grey A4 envelope away from me for weeks. European elections have the charm of a tax return.

Of course, every European should feel obliged to at least superficially inform themselves about the men and women who want to set the tone on the continent. If that were the case, there would be no protest voters. Because with 35 electable parties in Germany alone, everyone should overcome their political gag reflex. The problem: Too many people are not only at a loss, whom they should choose, but for What they even vote there. For MPs? Parties? Groups? And what do they actually do over there? How does that affect me? After all, Europe is invisible to the vast majority of Europeans, apart from the euro, open borders and a few slackline-loving Erasmus students.

However, there is no second chance for a first impression. And at first glance, the EU is this huge, completely opaque, money-eating bureaucratic monster. And unfortunately, at second glance too.

Democracy should be neither complicated nor boring

Not that I want to get the wrong impression: I am not against Europe. Quite the opposite. I am for a common European army, for a common sea rescue service and against wannabe patriotic idiosyncrasies. According to Wahlomat, I am practically on the verge of putting on a blue hoodie, getting the lyrics of “Ode to Joy” tattooed on my collarbone (only to realise afterwards that the European anthem doesn’t have any lyrics) and counting twelve yellow stars to go to sleep.

So how can it be that the question of whether a man in his late 70s or early 80s is sitting in the White House an ocean away concerns me more than the real danger that my own continent is massively tumbling to the right? One reason: the EU is not just complicated, it is worse. It is boring. And dealing with something that does not release any endorphins is usually a good thing. In other words: democracy should be neither so complicated nor so boring.

Not that I haven’t tried to close the educational gap, or rather the educational crater. Whenever a much more patient colleague tries to explain the significance of June 9th to me, I look back and feel sorry for my mother and all the times I explained her printer to her. Speaking of which. For this text, I asked her what she thought the EU Parliament was doing. “Well, they’re looking after Europe.” That would have been clear.

PS: Go vote, dear reader. It’s important – even if you don’t quite understand it.