WORLD VIEW/Paul Gillespie: This week we have seen further evidence of a major trend in European politics - a sharp shift to the right in the Dutch general elections, bolstered by the emergence of a radical right-wing populist party, the Pim Fortuyn List, which captured 26 out of 150 seats.
It follows comparable results in Austrian, Italian, Danish, Portuguese and French elections recently, and may be followed in the forthcoming parliamentary elections in France and Germany. Ireland has been unusual for the last five years in being governed from the centre-right.
Similar preoccupations have surfaced in many of these contests, concerning immigration, crime, insecurity and the erosion of public services under budgetary pressures driven by the Stability and Growth Pact introduced to stabilise the euro.
A common casualty has been centre-left social democratic parties, leading one commentator, John Palmer, to argue that they now need to refocus on the supranational level, where the most important economic decisions are made.
This would compensate for the diminishing political space available at national level because of the effects of globalisation and European integration. He argues that the left needs to break ranks with the liberal economic consensus underlying Third Way policies and rethink its approach to societal interests.
If common problems produce similar political outcomes in Europe that would seem to confirm the existence of a common transnational political space. But one of the most distinctive features of this series of elections is that the relationship between domestic and European policies concerning the issues at stake tends to be systematically denied.
As the EU commissioner responsible for communications, Antonio Vitorino, puts it, "European issues don't figure in national elections. They are seen as foreign policy issues - and as intrusive, interfering too much. They are not seen as EU issues but translated into domestic ones."
He says this is related to another characteristic of EU governments, that they tend to blame Brussels for unpopular decisions and claim national credit for popular ones, even though they are part and parcel of the decision-making process.
And the media tend to accept these accounts, even though they know they are half-truths. As a result "it is extremely difficult to launch a European debate".
Dr Vitorino was speaking at a meeting organised by the Portuguese union of journalists in Lisbon last weekend to discuss how the media relate to European integration. Journalists from EU member-states discussed how to create a greater awareness of these issues within the media, whether a pan-European public opinion is feasible and how it might be created.
Contrasting views were expressed. Thomas Darnstädt of Der Spiegel argued that "opinion-building and party functions are up to now organised only on a national level. So are the mass media. That's why the most important thing we need is a European public, a European political discussion on all issues that concern European matters. That is much more important than the achievement of European police forces or a European prosecution office."
Dennis Abbott, editor of the Brussels-based European Voice weekly, published by the Economist Group, said: "I don't believe that the construction of Europe is a priority as such for any British newspaper. Indeed, I doubt it's a priority for most of the newspapers in the 15 member-states.
"Although the more 'serious' newspapers have Brussels correspondents, they tend to see the EU through a national prism."
Given such realities, in addition to those arising from language and cultural barriers, progress towards creating a European public sphere which could allow for transnational learning and mutual persuasion is difficult to foresee.
The existing transnational media cater for the political and business elite, largely in the English language. The Financial Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Economist and the Wall Street Journal predominate in this marketplace, defined by one researcher as the top 4 per cent of people in terms of income and executive activity. The Euronews television service, launched in 1993 by a consortium of 18 European public service broadcasters and the European Parliament, reaches an estimated 90 million households, predominantly in the largest EU member-states, although actual viewership figures are more uncertain. It is available in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish, but has yet to become a major agenda-setter.
Dr Vitorino made a plea for success stories about Europe in the daily lives of citizens to be communicated by the national media, giving the euro as a good example. He defended the European Commission's objectives of raising awareness, improving perceptions and promoting participation through its communications policy. But to become more effective it needs feedback from governments and the public, which are inhibited by the systematic, if spurious, differentiation that exists between domestic and foreign affairs.
Many of the journalists present felt it will not be possible to create a transnational public opinion with top-down methods initiated by the Commission. That would be unacceptably dirigiste. But the Commission should be ready to respond to initiatives taken from within civil society, including by the media, in the tradition of public service of which it is institutionally a part. An editorial deficit is part of the wider democratic deficit, best addressed by extending political accountability and debate beyond national frontiers and markets.
We need new ways of imagining and describing this to match the already extensive process of internationalisation already achieved. Just as it is a mistake to conceive of national public opinion as homogenous rather than plural, the same applies to the emerging European one. It consists of many overlapping discussions, debates and arguments, between politicians, companies and trade unions, NGOs, interest groups and media.
This reflects the pattern of multi-level government emerging in Europe, arising from new institutions and multiple identities, which is gradually creating a new form of internationalism. Even though most public discussion of the common issues arising from recent elections in Europe is conducted in national media, they are porous, with many cross-cutting points of contact.
The new right-wing populist movements and associated Eurosceptics reject these emerging realities and urge a return to national sovereignty. But that is unrealistic and would cede the ground to unaccountable corporate interests and cripple efforts to extend democratic control.