FOLLOWING THE EUROPEAN UNION

Uh-oh, clicked submit. Hold on, still working on that table! ;-)

there. done. (AIAC -- "as if anybody cares" )

thanks for the work, looks better this way!

thanks ;-)

Thoughts on those Dutch results continued in the Dutch politics thread ...

I see the Party for the Animals got 0.5% of the vote. Was that the hamster?

No man! 3,2% they got this time! Three point two percent!

<shakes head>

Posted 6/13/2004 4:30 PM Updated 6/13/2004 4:49 PM

[] Anti-EU parties gain in first Parliament elections
BRUSSELS (AP) — The parties of French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder suffered losses to opposition parties in European Parliament elections Sunday that also saw a surge in support for so-called Euro-skeptic parties.
Voters in 25 countries took part in the first European Union election since the bloc's historic eastward expansion in May.
The election determines the make-up of the 732-member EU parliament, not that of national governments. But voters use the election as a report card for their countries' leaders.
Germans showed their discontent with the Social Democratic party of Schroeder, whose popularity has faded nationwide amid persistent economic stagnation, a jobless rate of more than 10% and a year-old drive to trim social programs.
The Social Democrats scored just 21.6%, according to early projections by German television ARD, compared with 30.7% in the last European election five years ago.
The main opposition Christian Democrats and their Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, polled 45.3% — down slightly from 48.7% in 1999, ARD said.
"This was a really difficult campaign, and it is a truly bitter result," said Franz Muentefering, the Social Democrats' chairman. "Clearly, and that was the decisive point for many people in this election, we don't yet have the degree of trust that we need from people in the contents of our policies."
Germany — with 99 seats — holds the largest bloc in the parliament.
In France, Chirac's Union for the Popular Movement, with about 16.5% of the vote, finished a far second behind the Socialist Party, which garnered 30% of ballots cast, according to Sofres polling firm.
Elsewhere, the voting was a victory for anti-EU and Euro-skeptic parties, even among some of the 10 nations that only joined this year.
In Austria, a renegade who uncovered abuses of the EU's generous perks system at the parliament, emerged as the big winner with 14% of the vote.
Hans Peter Martin, an independent EU lawmaker, has been condemned by his parliament colleagues for using "uncivilized" methods to uncover the lavish system of allowances at the assembly.
In Malta — voting for the first time in the union — the governing Nationalist Party, which had aggressively backed entry to the EU, conceded that the opposition Labor party would win the majority of the Mediterranean island nation's five seats.
Reflecting his optimism, former EU bureaucrat Paul Van Buitenen, a whistleblower who helped bring to light mismanagement of EU funds at the EU executive five years ago, secured two seats for his critical Europe Transparent party in the Netherlands, Dutch preliminary results showed.
But in Denmark, Euro-skeptics suffered a reversal. Social Democrats, staunch supporters of tighter European Union integration, emerged as the winners.
The Popular Movement against the European Union got no seats for the first time since 1979, and other parties cold on the EU lost seats, as did Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen's Liberal Party.
The Greek conservatives were one of the only ruling parties to emerge unscathed after Premier Costas Caramanlis scored a significant win, polls showed.
The issues at stake ranged from the continent's role in Iraq to the EU's difficult attempts to negotiate a constitution. Another important question was the bid by predominantly Muslim Turkey to join the 25-member group.
Preliminary results showed a slight rise in voter turnout over last European Parliament elections five years ago. Average EU turnout is expected to rise to around 52% from a record low of 49.8 last time around.
Turnout in Britain rose to around 38%, up from 24% last time around, while in the Netherlands turnout rose to about 39% from 30%.
But in France, the absention rate reached 57%, the highest since the first European parliament election in 1979, according to CSA.
The big question was how many seats anti-EU parties would get in the new assembly. Polls prior to elections in Britain on Thursday showed the UK Independence Party, which advocates Britain leaving the EU, could garner up to 20% of the vote, siphoning votes from the mainstream parties.
Meanwhile France's far-right party, Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front could double its presence to 10 seats. While in Belgium, the far-right Flemish Block could gain three of Belgium's 24 seats.
Austria's Freedom Party, notorious for the anti-immigrant sentiments voiced by some of its leaders, was dealt a defeat, according to exit polls. The rightist party of Joerg Haider lost four of its five seats, polls showed.
EU officials fear pushing through needed EU legislation could get tougher with the increase of anti-EU parties, which already had their own group in the last parliament.
Some 14,670 candidates vied for 732 five-year seats in the parliament, which has EU budget approval and influence over legislation on trade, environment and consumer affairs.
The European Parliament, based in both Strasbourg, France, and Brussels, was created to provide a democratic balance to the EU's powerful unelected commission and has steadily gained legislative powers since the first elections in 1979.

Well, I can't find the source of the above quote, however the headline seems to be a one-eyed view (as proved in the article itself), since early results from elections to the European Union parliament show gains for opposition parties across Europe - which has little to nothing to do with anti-Europeism but with national affairs, anti-Iraq sentiments ... .

A smorgasboard (sp?) of results, really. As would be expected. Anti-candidates or anti-politicians did do pretty well. But as Walter already hinted, that doesnt directly translate to anti-European, with some Eurosceptic parties losing and some winning. A groundswell of rebellion-minded populism, that perhaps. And support for 'small candidates', but then those do well when elections are perceived as not so important, which these ones (right or wrong) are. Still, even on that again - turnout actually rose, for probably the first time since the 80s I would presume. Huh. And its no lower than that for the US Presidential elections tends to be.

Well, sitting six hours in the ballot room yesterday was quite frustrating without 'work' - therefor, counting the votes was done within minutes (althought we had 27 different parties on the list).

In Germany, turnout was down then, I gather? ;-)

Latest reports say that 3/4 of the SPD followers stayed at home [not to notice in my district: only strong catholic-conservative citizens, voting for the CDU live here].

The German turnout was even below the EU-average, btw.

A sampling from the European Press begs a question inspired by the Topic Title of this particular thread: Indeed, is it doomed, and if so, what is to follow the European Union? The Continent's latest excersize in its nascent version of the "Grand Experiment" has yielded unexpected, not exactly salutory results, it would appear.

Interestingly, the situation re the main political groups in the EU parliament hasn't changed (much)



besides: no-one knows, how the 68 "others" will work/go on ('what do lawmakers do in a parliament, they are against at?').

When you read those media resources, timber kindly gave the links for, you'll notice, that (nearly) always the oposition parties gained the most: only in France the Socialists (because there is a conservative government and president), otherwise the conservatives (and Liberal-Democrats in the UK).

More than 60% of the relevant laws are made in Brussels/Strasbourg, a fact, which seemed to be totally neglected by about 60% of EU-citizens :wink:



PS: It may be of interest to remember previous figures from the national parliaments ... :
Accession Treaty Ratifications // Results of Referenda

I need Walter to translate this for me into English; "Flucht nach vorn"

"take the bull by the horns" would be the most appropriate.

(Hell, what are you all reading today? The 5th translation for English speaking A2K'ers today :wink: )

Hate to admit it, but it was a post to me on Abuzz. Thanks for the translation, Walter. You are a jewel on A2K.

Shame on you! :wink:

Hmmmm ....

Well, first off lemme correct myself. Earlier I said that turnout had actually gone up in the EU again, compared to last time. Well, it did in Holland, but not in Europe as a whole. I was still lazily going on au's news item, which said that "Average EU turnout is expected to rise to around 52% from a record low of 49.8 last time around." But the results are in now, and turnout actually dropped to 44,2%, a new low. And it was by far the lowest in some of the new member states.

OK, now for whether this suggests the end of Europe as we know it, as Timber playfully suggests. Well, perhaps a comparison with the US is in order <grins>.

Couldnt find state-by-state turnout percentages for 2002 on the FEC site, so les' take your 1998 parliamentary elections. (We dont have a president, so 2000 would be an unfair comparison).

Overall turnout EU: 44% (of voting-age population).
Overall turnout US: 36% (of voting-age population). (2000: 51%).

Countries in EU with turnout below 30%:
Slovakia, Poland, Estonia, Czech Republic and Slovenia
States in US with turnout below 30%:
Arizona, Mississippi, New Jersey, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia.

OK, different indicator. Share of the vote of non- or anti-establishment candidates.

Rough estimation, cause I hafta recalculate a percentage on the basis of the number of seats gained (luckily, we have proportional representation).

"Established" parties (Christian-Democrats/Conservatives, Socialdemocrats, Liberals, Greens): 80%
Other parties/candidates (Communists, Nationalists, Far Right, Anti-Europe, Independents): 20%.

So, err, how much did Perot get in '92? :wink:

Nah, seriously - much in the results of these elections sucks. Some scary advances for the far-right. Some flippant anti-Europe votes (UK). Both partly offset by some losses for both those kinds of parties elsewhere, but only partially. And looow turnout. But err, despite the papers going "the sky is falling! the sky is falling!", I dont think we need to ponder "what is to follow the European Union?" quite yet :wink:

Well, re right-wing: a good news from Italy, where Forza Italia (Silvio Berlusconi's party) lost four seats - ´getting just 21 percent of the vote in the European Parliament election, eight points less than its score in the 2001 general election. [sorry: :wink: ]