European issues v domestic austerity in Portugal

The European elections are being painted by some as a referendum on the centre-right government’s three years in office.

Portugal’s socialists, led by António José Seguro, are painting the European elections as a referendum on the centre-right government’s three years in office, during which it has introduced painful austerity measures and far-ranging structural reforms.

By contrast, the governing coalition, which is running a joint platform as Aliança Portugal, is trying to focus the arguments more on European issues, from completing the digital single market to pushing for a free-trade deal with the United States. Although campaigning will formally kick off only on 1 May, the latest polls seem to show that both strategies are working.

A poll published on 17 April gave 40.9% of votes to the Partido Socialista, whose list is headed by Francisco Assis, an MEP from 2004 to 2009 who challenged Seguro for the party leadership in 2011. Based on that return, the socialists would have around ten MEPs in the next Parliament, three more than in 2009.

But the poll also indicates that Aliança Portugal may not do as badly as the government’s own ratings would suggest. Local elections in 2013 proved disastrous for the governing coalition, led by Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho. Then, the government’s share of the vote plummeted from around 40% to the mid-20s and it lost dozens of mayors and more than 100 councillors.

According to the poll, the coalition between the Partido Social Democrata and the Centro Democrático e Social-Partido Popular would achieve 33.2% of votes, sending eight MEPs to Brussels, only two fewer than in 2009.

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In that scenario, four centre-right MEPs from the current parliamentary term would also return, including Paulo Rangel, who heads the Aliança Portugal list. Others re-elected from the class of 2009-14 would be Elisa Ferreira, a socialist MEP who led the European Parliament’s work on one of the main elements of banking union, and Ana Gomes, another socialist who is particularly active on foreign affairs issues. The poll put participation at 42% of the electorate, meaning that its predictions could prove dramatically wrong if more of the electorate turns out to vote.

The Portuguese socialists have sought to keep their distance from Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament and the centre-left’s candidate for the presidency of the European Commission, since they are strongly in favour of introducing eurobonds – whereas Schulz has said he accepts that they will not be introduced in the foreseeable future.

Aliança Portugal is hoping that improving economic data in Portugal will cast the government’s actions, which included cutting public-sector salaries and jobs, privatising hospitals and raising taxes, in a more positive light. Portugal will return to growth in 2014, according to forecasts from the European Commission.

Politicians on the left, such as Marisa Matias, a far-left MEP who is standing for re-election, have accused José Manuel Barroso, the Portuguese president of the Commission, and Passos Coelho of bowing to Germany’s economic dictats. Rangel retorted that Passos Coelho “trampled” all over Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, in negotiations on the EU’s planned banking union – a description that many European Union officials would find hard to accept.