Jitters among candidates as polls predict Eurosceptic gains in EP

Date: 10/06/04

THE first elections in the newly enlarged EU make the Union's leaders nervous, as a feared low turnout and growing disenchantment with Europe risk bringing into being a more Eurosceptic European Parliament than ever before.

As voting began today (10 June), Eurosceptics were poised for a significant breakthrough across swathes of northern and central Europe.

They are set to make record gains in the elections, possibly winning enough seats to hold the balance between the centre-right and centre-left in Parliament.

This could make them the assembly's kingmakers, as they would hold the key to the election of the Parliament's new chairman and of the future European Commission president.

The elections held across the 25 member states will be the world's biggest transnational poll.

Over four days, 350 million voters will be asked to elect 732 representatives to the Parliament.

But MEPs are bracing themselves for results which may call into question their very legitimacy.

It seems many punters are keener on watching soccer stars Zinedine Zidane or David Beckham play in the Euro 2004 championship than voting to send MEPs to the Brussels and Strasbourg assembly.

Not even a field of candidates boasting former prime ministers, Oscar and Nobel prize-winners, a brace of astronauts, several TV personalities, a catwalk queen and a former porn star seems enough to stir Europe's voters from their lethargy.

A low turnout is expected to increase the Eurosceptic contingent.

Jens-Peter Bonde, the veteran Danish MEP and one of only seven members from the 1979 intake seeking re-election, said his Group of Europe of Democracies and Diversities (EDD) was likely to double its seats to 36.

"We are talking about more than doubling the Eurosceptic influence in the Parliament. There will be a completely new political landscape if the opinion polls are right," he declared.

Bonde's EDD is Parliament's only outwardly EU-critical group, but the Eurosceptics come in many guises.

They include the far right, nationalists, many Greens and some of Europe's most enduring conservative parties, including those in the UK.

Surveys in Poland, the largest of the EU's ten new members, predict that three Eurosceptic and nationalist parties will return half of the country's 54 MEPs.

The largest of those, the anti-EU Self-Defence party, which has campaigned against the European constitution, is alone expected to win 12 seats.

Its leader, populist Andrzej Lepper, is best known for comparing the EU's eastern expansion with the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939.

Boosted by the high profile endorsement of film star Joan Collins and former chat show host Robert Kilroy-Silk, the UK Independence Party (UKIP) - which wants to take Britain out of the EU - may win more than 10% of the vote and double its contingent of three MEPs.

But these are just part of a new wave of anti-EU feeling sweeping Europe.

Public concerns about the planned European constitution and dismay in some new member states at the perceived unequal terms of their accession, have spawned similar-minded groups in virtually every member state, except Germany.

In the Czech Republic, the Civic Democratic Party led by President Vaclav Klaus, expected to sit with the European People's Party (EPP-ED), is running at 33% and likely to emerge with a fistful of the country's 24 seats.

Klaus recently said his country would "cease to exist as an independent and sovereign entity" inside the EU.

Sweden, Ireland and even the usually Europhile Netherlands are likely to send more Eurosceptic or nationalist MEPs then ever before.

Denmark's June Movement, of Jens-Peter Bonde, is running at 8.7% in the polls while the Danish People's Union, which advocates outright secession from the EU, is at 7% and is almost guaranteed a seat.

And Ireland is likely to elect its first Sinn Fein MEP on a campaign to halt the EU's military ambitions.

Analysts say it will take time to work out the politics of the new Parliament, but no one doubts there will be many more sceptics than before.

"The unknown is how many of the centre-right will be blatantly Eurosceptic," says UK Socialist MEP Claude Moraes. "But we know that numbers will increase and that they will be politically emboldened."

Polls predict another low participation across Europe, although it is still hoped turnout could creep over the psychologically important 50% mark.

A recent Gallup poll commissioned by the European Parliament says interest in voting has risen in recent weeks to 52%.

Somewhat ironically, participation is expected to be lowest in new member states, with just 20% of Czechs, 26% of Estonians and 27% of Slovaks saying they will vote.

Experts predict the centre-right will again emerge as the biggest group, with 285 deputies, followed by the Socialists with 217 and the Liberals with 73.

But calculations are complicated by the new countries' entry and the anticipated realignment of political groups after the elections.

• The Netherlands and UK vote today (10 June); Ireland votes tomorrow, Latvia and Malta on Saturday and the other countries on Sunday. The Czech Republic has two days of voting - Friday and Saturday.

No results are scheduled to be announced until after the last polling station closes on Sunday.

Preview of the June 2004 European Parliament Elections. European Union-wide apathy among voters looks set to benefit the Eurosceptic parties. Article forms part of a European Voice 'European Election Special'.