Daily Times

Raising corporate taxes and wages, cutting carbon emissions, handling African migrants and standing up to Russia, China and the United States all got an airing in Europe’s “presidential debate” on Wednesday.

But though lead candidates from six pan-EU party groups running in next week’s elections to the European Parliament gave polished and concise answers, their debate lacked the rising voices of nationalists who want to tear today’s European Union down — and, by all appearances, much of an actual audience.

Broadcasters in big member states relegated the 90 minutes of polite and only occasionally heated confrontation from the EU assembly’s Brussels chamber to little watched or online channels and social media interactions were in the tens of thousands — a fraction of the 427 million who can vote from May 23 to 26.

As its French, German and Finnish presenters struggled to communicate in English, there was no shortage of commentary online comparing the production unfavourably with the much mocked annual Eurovision Song Contest, also broadcast this week.

And if the EU’s harsh critics like Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini or Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage took some stick from the podium, the closest the debate came to giving voice to eurosceptics who expect to gain seats was from Jan Zahradil, a Czech from a group led by Britain and Poland’s ruling parties.

The title of “Presidential Debate” reflected a push by the European Parliament to have national leaders choose a candidate from a winning party to succeed Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the executive European Commission next month. But leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are reluctant to have their choice so restricted.