European elections. The voters take their revenge

The European elections were marked by apathy and anger. This article offers an overview; the next four look at particular regions and countries

THEY were called the European elections, but that is something of a misnomer. When voters across the European Union went to the polls between June 10th and June 13th, their task was to elect a new European Parliament, which they did. But those who actually turned out mostly took the opportunity to cast a protest vote against their governments and, to a lesser extent, against the EU in general.

In 23 of the 25 EU member countries, the largest party in the national government saw its share of the vote slump, often spectacularly. Anti-incumbency was, indeed, the main pan-European trend. Incumbents suffered whether they were on the centre-left, like Germany's Social Democrats and Britain's Labour Party, or on the right, like Italy's Forza Italia and France's UMP. The only two governing parties to escape the trend - the Spanish Socialists and Greece's centre-right New Democracy party - both won general elections this spring, and are still in their honeymoons.

Although most votes may have been cast on national lines, they have European consequences. The election confirms that the centre-right will continue to be the largest group in the European Parliament, followed by the Socialists. Because the European elections are, in effect, the composite outcome of 25 national elections, it is hard to argue that Europe's voters as a whole have a made an ideological choice for the centre-right. Nonetheless, Hans-Gert Pottering, leader of the European People's Party - the parliament's centre-right group - is demanding that the results be taken into account in the political choices made by heads of European governments. In particular, Mr Pottering wants European leaders to choose a centre-right politician as the new head of the European Commission at their summit, which began as we went to press.

The four biggest political groups in the parliament will be the European People's Party, the Socialists, a new Liberal and centrist group and the Greens. All four groups are likely to be led by committed federalists. And if, as many expect, the Socialists elect Martin Schulz, a German MEP, as the new leader of their parliamentary group, three of the four will have German leaders. This reflects the fact that, after a reallocation of seats to reflect population size, the Germans now make up the largest national block in the parliament, with 99 out of 732 MEPs.

Although parties traditionally committed to closer European integration will be the largest in the parliament, the other pan-European trend in the elections was a rising vote for Eurosceptic parties. The biggest breakthrough was in Britain, where the UK Independence Party took 12 seats and 16% of the vote. In Sweden a new Eurosceptic party, the Junelist, took 14.4% of the vote, and three seats. In Austria and the Netherlands new political parties campaigning against corruption in Brussels also won seats.

Yet the media picture of a Eurosceptic tide across Europe needs to be qualified. Some prominent Eurosceptics did badly. Jens-Peter Bonde, a Danish MEP who is leader of the main Eurosceptic group in parliament, saw his party reduced from three seats to just one (Mr Bonde himself). And the souverainistes in France, who have been bashing away at transfers of sovereignty to the EU for many years, saw their vote slump. In 1999 they got 13% of the vote; this time, they were down to about 8.5%. In Poland, the populist anti-European Selfdefence party, which some had tipped to top the polls, in fact came in fourth - although another Eurosceptic party, the League of Polish Families, came second.

Yet though there were setbacks for some Eurosceptics, the awkward squad, broadly defined, will be much bigger in the new parliament. A narrow definition of Eurosceptic parties would give them around 10% of all MEPs. But a broader definition of Euro-awkwards, including those who oppose the new EU constitution or whose main rallying-point is a campaign against EU corruption, yields a much larger group. Professor Richard Rose, a consultant to IDEA, a Swedish think-tank, reckons that, on this definition, as many as 200 of the 732 new MEPs will be “Euro-awkwards”. Inevitably, they are an ideological rag-bag, which will make it hard for them to co-operate politically. They include such groups as British Tories, who see the EU as a source of socialist regulation, and Sweden's Greens, who fear that it is a tool of ruthless global capitalism. There are far-rightists and unreconstructed Communists, as well as nationalists and populists of all political persuasions.

The presence of these Euro-awkwards, who are spread among so many countries, will make an already unwieldy European Parliament much harder to manage. But it should also make it rowdier and more interesting. That is, however, if anyone is inclined to pay attention at all. For perhaps the most noticeable trend in the European elections was a widespread lack of interest in voting.

Across the EU people are far more likely to vote in national elections than in European elections. This “Euro-gap”, according to Professor Rose, now stands at an average of 21.9 percentage points in the 15 old EU countries and at 29.1 in the ten new members. Average voter turnout across the EU fell, for the sixth election running, to just over 45%.

The ten new arrivals to the Union, who were admitted only in May and who might be expected to be flushed with enthusiasm for their common European home, were in fact the most apathetic voters. However, even in nine of the 15 older EU member countries, voter turnout was down. In France on election night just over 7.6m people turned on their televisions to watch the election-results special. By contrast 13.5m tuned in for the England-France football match in the European championships: testimony, if ever there was, to the fundamental good sense of most of the European electorate.

The European elections were marked by apathy and anger. This, and four related articles, provide an analysis.

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