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European Elections: Abstention and Shift to the Right

© Peter Weber

Due to political disaffection and distraction by the Kosovo conflict only 49 % of European voters found the way to the ballot box in the recent elections to the EU-Parliament held between June 10th and 13th. In most countries the voters used the occasion to chastise the Socialist parties in power. The biggest block in the Strasbourg parliament is now the European Popular Party which surpassed for the first time the Party of European Socialists. Good results obtained even the Liberals and especially the Green Parties, while the Communists suffered a major set-back. The next president of the EU-Commission, Romano Prodi, who is preparing to form the new European executive, must now consider the proposals of the Socialist national governments as well as the requests of the Popular majority block in the EU-Parliament. In September the new Commission must face a confidence vote in Strasbourg.

Weak deputies and distracted voters

For the first time since its first election in 1979 the EU's Parliament in Strasbourg has some really important and incisive prerogatives, but European voters didn't notice or just didn't care. The most significant date of the EU-elections held in fifteen countries between June 10th and 13th is indeed the high abstention of voters, who were obviously distracted by the Kosovo events. Over all only 49 % of voters found the way to the ballot box, the lowest turnout ever. Some nations did even much worse, like the British voters (24,0 %): not even one in four who found this election important enough. The Dutch (29,9 %) and the Fins (30,1 %) were not much better. In Germany (45,2 %) and France (47,0 %), the two countries that formed at least for three decades the axis and heart of the Union, the poll fell for the first time under 50 %. Only five nations reached a turnout over 51 %: Spain (64,3 %), Greece (70,1 %), Italy (70,8 %), Luxembourg (85,8 %) and Belgium with an outstanding 90,2 % due to the fact that here the EU-elections were held contemporarily with general political elections.

Over the last two decades the Parliament in Strasbourg had often given the impression of a club for elderly parliamentarians without any ambition and real power. National parties used to candidate their old iron to Strasbourg, as a reward for life-long true partisanship or just to get rid of them, and they considered the EU elections mainly as a test for their national policies. Between the mighty Commission as the EU's executive organ and the legislative Council of Ministers the Parliament in Strasbourg had for many years only a few prerogatives, often it was only "heard" and then the other institutions still did as they had decided before. When voters noticed this situation, they started to consider the EU-Parliament just a high cost without any use and outcome, and this perception is surely another cause for the huge abstention in this elections.

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