Lowest-ever turnout and an upturn for the Eurosceptics

Date: 17/06/04

By Martin Banks

THE European Parliament was this week recovering from the shock of an election with a historically low 45.5% turnout and a sizeable influx of newly elected Eurosceptic MEPs.

Anti-EU parties had their best-ever European election results, while a lacklustre campaign has produced a fragmented Parliament.

The new assembly, which meets for the first time on 20 July, will be dominated by the centre-right European People's Party-European Democrats (EPP-ED) but with a reduced majority.

Hans-Gert Pöttering, EPP-ED leader, declared himself satisfied with the results in spite of the fact that his group, which previously held 297 seats, finished with 283 seats.

For the Socialists, the results are only marginally less gloomy. They remain the next largest grouping with 199 seats against 232 seats in the last Parliament.

The Liberals are again the assembly's third biggest force, slightly increasing their number of MEPs to 67, which makes it a pivotal force in the new legislature.

Liberal group leader, Graham Watson, commented: “We will continue to have clout out of proportion to our numbers.”

The Greens were the only party to run a cross-border campaign but failed to get a single candidate elected in the new member states. They fared less well than in the last elections in 1999, down from 37 MEPs to 34, leaving co-leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit to reflect on a campaign many agree was fought on national, not European, issues.

The result, he says, is a “politically fragmented” Parliament, chosen by less than half of the EU's voters.

However, these figures are provisional, as they are based on the composition of political groups as decided after the 1999 elections. But scores of MEPs seek to settle down in formations that better reflect their ideas. Some 25 EPP-ED members, including ten from European Commission President Romano Prodi's Olive Tree coalition and 11 from France's UDF party, are set to leave the group.

They plan to either join the Liberals, along with newcomers from Poland and the Baltic states, creating a powerful group of up to 100 members or, in the event of failing to reach agreement with the Liberals, create a group of their own.

But all eyes this week have been on the mix of Eurosceptic groups, anti-fraud crusaders and central European populists who, between them, won around 100 seats.

They could be a formidable presence, if they can join forces in one political group, which would give them access to money, staff and key posts.

The success of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in Britain (they got 12 deputies) was mirrored in other parts of the continent. More than half of Poland's 54 MEPs are passionate Eurosceptics. The Catholic, anti-EU League of Polish Families won ten seats, while the Self-Defence party, which also opposes Poland's terms of EU accession and the “Brussels system”, had seven members elected.

In France, the souverainistes held on to three seats for their Movement for France, which rejects both the euro and France's EU membership.

In the Netherlands, Paul van Buitenen, the whistleblower who helped bring down the European Commission in 1999, won two seats for his new Europa Transparent movement.

In Austria, there was success for Hans-Peter Martin, the controversial Socialist MEP who has highlighted his colleagues' alleged expense fiddling. He won two seats for his personal list.

And in Sweden, a new-born Eurosceptic group, the June List, captured three seats. On the far right, Austria's Freedom Party lost four of its five seats, but France's National Front won seven seats.

The horse-trading is now under way between Parliament's various political factions with many expecting eurosceptic deputies to find a home in the Europe of Democracies and Diversities group (EDD), led by Dane Jens-Peter Bonde, an MEP since 1979.

Nigel Farage, one of three re-elected UKIP members, was in Brussels yesterday (16 June) to discuss forming a bloc with other Eurosceptic parties. Over coming days, he will liaise with leaders of parties from the Czech Republic, Poland, Denmark and the Netherlands. “The aim and ambition is to form a bloc of up to 60. We can put something together that packs a punch,” he said. Despite their criticism of “waste” in Brussels, UKIP's deputies will claim expenses and allowances.

Article considers the results of the European Parliament elections, 10-13 June 2004.