Voters have rebelled before – will the EU listen this time

EU leaders gathered in Brussels yesterday, two days after voters returned the highest number of anti-EU and extremist parties to the European Parliament in the assembly's history.

The informal dinner, intended to be an opening salvo in the process of electing the European Commission president, was overshadowed by the "political earthquake" that had unfolded, in the words of French prime minister Manuel Valls.

Proof of the seismic effect these elections may have on the direction of European politics was evidenced by French president François Hollande’s address to the nation on Monday night, in which he called on the EU to “scale back” its power.

That France, one of the founding countries of the European Union and a long-standing advocate of European integration, was criticising the EU's unwieldiness, indicated how Marine Le Pen's National Front party has succeeded in challenging and defining its mainstream political policy .

David Cameron, arriving in Brussels yesterday evening, struck a strident note. The EU had become "too big, too bossy, too interfering", he declared.

"It should be national states wherever possible; Europe only when necessary."

That the British prime minister, under huge pressure politically since Ukip’s record performance last weekend, was directing his comments to his public at home, as much as to his European partners, was evident.

But his words were not just political posturing.

Cameron’s assertion that the EU cannot just “shrug off these results and carry on as before” will resonate with the tens of millions who voted against mainstream political parties last weekend.

Clear message Hollande similarly asserted that the vote "must be confronted," while Taoiseach Enda Kenny said in Ireland it had sent a clear message to EU leaders, and that Ireland needed to see commitments made on bank debt followed through.

Whether the EU will heed the message that many of its voters delivered remains to be seen.

Speaking earlier in Brussels Nigel Farage, never one to miss a political opportunity, threw down an early gauntlet as he and his colleagues prepare to take their seats in Strasbourg.

“There is a big, dissident voice now in the European Parliament. And yet, I have just sat in a meeting where you would think nothing had happened at all, it was business as usual,” he said.

But how exactly the EU can adapt and renew itself remains unclear. For Cameron, renewal will be fundamentally about repatriating powers and scaling back on EU legislation as he prepares the ground for a possible in-out referendum in 2017.

But the relatively nebulous concept of ‘Euroscepticism’, and the wide diversity of anti- EU groups and candidates that were winners in this election, makes it difficult to identify clearly where change is needed.

New blocs Ultimately, when the immediate domestic political ramifications of the elections subside, the EU is likely to slip back into familiar ways, although the new parliament blocs will make it more difficult to pass legislation.

Despite its new-found powers since the Lisbon Treaty, the European Parliament is still limited in its ability to influence the EU’s structure and policies.

The EU has faced democratic opposition from citizens before – the French and Dutch rejection of the European constitution in 2005 and Ireland’s rejection of the Nice and Lisbon treaties.

Many would argue that, rather than accept these affronts, the EU should instead rework and repackage its original plans, by rerunning the referendums in Ireland and reconfiguring many elements of the European constitution in the Lisbon Treaty.

The fact that the EU looks set to embark on weeks of inter-institutional wrangling over the election of the next European Commission president will do little to improve the EU’s standing in the public eye.

These elections may yet become just another chapter in its long and complex history.