Election fever on the march across Europe as June looms

Date: 05/02/04

POLITICAL parties across the EU are buzzing with election fever as they finalize their lists of candidates for the historic European elections of 10-13 June - the first to involve 25 member states.

An array of past and present prime ministers will be on the voting lists - among them two current premiers, Belgium's Guy Verhofstadt and Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg.

The assembly's composition is braced for a major face-lift: according to Parliament insiders, some two-thirds of the present crop of 626 MEPs will go, with 162 new faces coming in from the ten acceding countries.

The electoral lists are taking shape in most countries apart from France, Spain, Austria and Portugal. So what will the future Parliament look like? European Voice has been checking the lists to see who's likely to make an impression.

Germany: Current top Christian Democrat (CDU) MEPs Hans-Gert Pöttering, Elmar Brok, Werner Langen and Alfred Gomolka are set to lead the lists in their respective Länder (regions).

Sitting MEPs dominate Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's Social-Democrat Party list - of the first 30 on the list, 26 are current deputies, led by Martin Schulz.

The German Liberals (FDP), led by Brussels lobbyist Silvana Koch-Mehrin, will struggle to make a breakthrough. The Greens' list will be led by Rebecca Harms and veteran MEP Daniel Cohn-Bendit.

United Kingdom: Electoral lists have been drawn up, with a significant number of sitting MEPs at the top. Eurosceptics are better placed than Europhiles, with Geoffrey Van Orden, Roger Helmer, Neil Parish, Philip Bushill-Matthews, Timothy Kirkhope and Jonathan Evans heading their respective constituency lists.

Labour lists place Richard Howitt, Philip Whitehead, Gary Titley, Glyn Ford, Michael Cashman and Glenys Kinnock in pole positions. Top Liberal candidates are Andrew Duff, Liz Lynne, Graham Watson, Chris Davies and Sarah Ludford.

France: Only the Greens and the far-right National Front (FN) have announced their candidates so far. FN leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, who challenged Jacques Chirac in the last presidential election, has ensured that his daughter and likely heir, Marine, heads the list in Ile-de-France, the region surrounding Paris.

Belgium: Verhofstadt leads the Liberal Party (VLD) list. Insiders say the 51-year-old prime minister is playing his "last card" in a bid to boost his chances of becoming the next president of the European Commission. Annemie Neyts, Europe minister and a former MEP, is second on the list.

The francophone Liberals are likely to be led by current Deputy Prime Minister Louis Michel, with ex-home affairs minister Antoine Duquesne second.

Elio di Rupo, president of the francophone Socialists, and current European Commissioner Philippe Busquin, are set to top their panel, with former prime minister Jean-Luc Dehaene likely to lead the Flemish Christian Democrat (CD&V) contingent. Isabelle Durant, a former deputy prime minister, will contest the election for the Greens/ European Free Alliance.

Luxembourg: Jean-Claude Juncker looks set to top the Christian Social Party list. However, Juncker will also head his party's list in the national elections, due to be held on the same day (13 June), so is unlikely to take a seat in the European Parliament. He is the current favourite to succeed Romano Prodi as Commission president when his term ends on 1 November.

Denmark: Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, premier in 1993-2001, tops the Social Democrats' list. The Conservative People's Party's 18-strong list contains only one present MEP, Christian Rovsing. The EU-critical June Movement will be led by Jens-Peter Bonde, an MEP since 1979 and leader of the Parliament's Europe of Democracies and Diversities group.

Finland: All seven Christian Democrat candidates are newcomers and only one from 16 Socialist candidates is currently an MEP. Seven out of ten Social Democrat candidates are also new and only three from 12 Liberal candidates are MEPs. Pekka Haavisto, a former environment minister, looks set to be on the Greens' list.

The Netherlands: It's all change for Dutch MEPs, with only five of the 30 Christian Democrat candidates and one-third of the 13 socialists being members of the present legislature. Among 50 Liberals, four are currently in Parliament.

Poland: Ex-foreign minister Bronislaw Geremek is widely tipped to be a candidate for the centre-left Freedom Union party.

Italy: The Greens say Alfonso Pecoraro Scania, ex-agriculture minister, is likely to be on their list.

Hungary: Top Socialist candidates are Laszlo Kovack, present foreign minister, and former premier Gyula Horn. The mayor of Budapest, Gabor Demsky, is expected to be the number-one candidate for the Alliance of Free Democrats.

Slovenia: Alojz Peterle, the country's first post-independence premier in 1990-92 and a current observer in the EPP-ED group, will be a candidate.

Estonia: Mart Laar, centre-right premier in 1992-94 and 1999-2002, and also an observer, contests the elections.

Latvia: Former premier Andris Berzins (2000-02) is expected to stand for the centre-right Latvian Way Party.

Article considers who is likely to make an impression in the European Parliament of 2004-2009.