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Background
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Since 1979, the European Parliament has been directly elected every five
years. Between 10-13 June 2004, twenty-five
countries sent 732 new members to the European Parliament.
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Key
Issues
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"Europeanness" of the EP
election campaign 2004
The European elections in 2004 were fought largely on national issues
(see EurActiv,
7 June 2004) and resulted in the lowest turnout in the history of the
European elections, suggesting an increasing distance between the EU
institutions and the citizens.
In many Member States, the ruling parties suffered substantial losses
and the European elections have mainly served to teach national governments
a lesson (see EurActiv,
14 June 2004).
Voter turnout in European elections 2004
Voter turnout in European elections 2004 has followed the downward trend
experienced since 1979. This represents a participation figure of 45.5 per
cent for the EU as a whole, with a participation
47.1 per cent per cent in the EU-15 and of 26.4 per cent of eligible voters
in the new Member States.
The figures suggest that the EP elections have triggered significantly
less interest in the new Member States than in the EU-25. Participation was
the lowest in Slovakia
with 16.96 per cent. The voter turnout was highest in Malta
with 82 per cent.
The strikingly low levels of interest in the Central and Eastern
European new members appears to demonstrate that the information campaigns
put into place prior to the referenda on EU accession was insufficient and
needs to be followed up. This raises the question as to whether turnout
figures could put these countries into a weak negotiating position in
future negotiations on the new EU budget.
Voter turnout 1979 and 2004 in the EU-15
|
Country
|
1979
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1984
|
1989
|
1994 (95: SE, AT, FI)
|
1999
|
2004
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Trend
|
|
Austria
|
|
|
|
67.7
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49.4
|
41.8
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Downward
|
|
Belgium
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91.4
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92.2
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90.7
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90.7
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91.0
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90.8
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Downward (mandatory voting)
|
|
Denmark
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47.8
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52.2
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47.4
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52.9
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50.5
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47.8
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Downward
|
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Finland
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|
|
|
57.6
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31.4
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41.1
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Upward
|
|
France
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60.7
|
56.7
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48.8
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52.7
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46.8
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43.1
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Downward
|
|
Germany
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65.7
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56.8
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62.3
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60.0
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45.2
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43
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Downward
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Greece
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78.6
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77.2
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80.1
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80.4
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75.3
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62.8
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Downward (mandatory voting)
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|
Ireland
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63.6
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47.6
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68.3
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44.0
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50.2
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59.7
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Upward
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Italy
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84.9
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83.4
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81.4
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74.8
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70.8
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73.1
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Upward
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|
Luxembourg
|
88.9
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87.0
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96.2
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88.5
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87.3
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90
|
Upward (mandatory voting)
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|
Netherlands
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58.1
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50.6
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47.5
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35.6
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30.0
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39.1
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Upward
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Portugal
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|
72.4
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51.2
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35.5
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40
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38.7
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Downward
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Spain
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|
68.9
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54.7
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59.1
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63
|
45.9
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Downward
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Sweden
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|
|
|
41.6
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38.8
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37.2
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Downward
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United Kingdom
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32.2
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31.8
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36.6
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36.4
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24.0
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38.9
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Upward
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|
*
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*
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*
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*
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*
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*
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*
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*
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Cyprus
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|
|
|
|
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71.19
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|
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Czech
Republic
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|
|
|
|
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27.9
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|
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Estonia
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|
|
|
|
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26.89
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|
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Hungary
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|
|
|
|
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38.47
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|
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Latvia
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|
|
|
|
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41.23
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|
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Lithuania
|
|
|
|
|
|
48.2
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|
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Malta
|
|
|
|
|
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82.4
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|
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Poland
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|
|
|
|
|
20.4
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|
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Slovakia
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|
|
|
|
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16.7
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|
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Slovenia
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|
|
|
|
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28.3
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Division of power in the EP (2004-2009)
Prior the first plenary meeting of the European Parliament on 20 July,
negotiations will be ongoing to decide on the make-up of the political
groups in the newly elected Parliament. European parliamentary rules set
that new groups must have at least 19 members from five different member
states. The Parliament elections website has compiled a provisional table indicating the distribution of seats for each of the
national parties within the EP political groups, as they stand now.
The centre-right EPP-ED will remain the most powerful group in the
2004-2009 European Parliament, taking 276 out of the 732 MEPs - on the
basis of the current affiliations to the EPP-ED political group. The German
CDU/CSU delegation is the strongest party in this group with 49 seats. Mr.
Pöttering therefore is likely to be elected as next President of the
Parliament. The EPP-ED group is the only one with members from all 25
Member States.
The social-democrats (PES) will get 200 seats in the next Parliament.
The French (31) and Spanish (25) socialists have overtaken the German
delegation.
The liberal ELDR group does slightly worse than expected in the
forecasts. The UK Liberal Democrats are the biggest delegation (12) in this
group. However, with 67 seats, the group keeps its key position between the
two big blocs. Graham Watson, the leader of the liberal democrats
political group in the European Parliament, wants to set up a new
pro-European centrist group, "involving the liberals, the UDF of
François Bayrou, Romano Prodi's troops in Italy
and quite possibly others. This group would create a dynamic of its own as
a third pole between the socialists and the right-wing" (See interview with ELDR leader Graham Watson).
The Greens/EFA group has done better than expected. They ended up in
fourth place with 42 new MEPs. The German Greens will be the leading
delegation in this group. No Green was chosen in the new Member States.
Only in Latvia,
one EFA was elected.
The leftist GUE group will have 39 MEPs with the German PDS (7) as the
biggest delegation. Together the left bloc of PES, Greens/EFA and GUE will
have 279 members.
The Union of Europe of the Nations (UEN) will take 27 seats with the
Italian Alleanza Nazionale
as the biggest delegation.
In theory, the eurosceptics of Mr Bonde's EDD
group will not have enough members to create a new group (5 Member
States and 19 MEPs). With only
15 seats (UKIP: 12) they will probably 'go shopping' and hope for support
of the Austrian Martin list (3) and the Europa Transparant
MEPs of van Buitenen (2).
One of the open questions is whether the extreme right parties will be
able to form a new parliamentary group. If the rightist parties can
overcome their differences, they could form a group with 36 MEPs.
Here is a table indicating surveys carried out in each country, the
websites where official results will be posted and others with list of MEP
candidates:
Outgoing
European Parliament President Pat Cox said:
"Regrettably, Europe is too absent from European elections in east and
west."
Commenting
on the low turnout in the new member states, John Palmer, director of European
Policy Centre, said to EurActiv: "These elections have not
been about anything, nothing about which direction Europe is
going. And this has especially affected turn out in the new Members States
where the voters are tired of elections, having recently gone through
referenda on the accession to the EU."
Sebastian
Kurpas, researcher at the Centre for
European Policy Studies (CEPS), said to EurActiv: "Even if
participation has gone up in a number of old EU Member States, it is hard
to see it as a greater engagement in European politics. Rather the
election has been used by voters to 'present the bill' to ruling
governments. In the UK the
theme was the Iraq war, in
Germany the
economic performance of the Schröder government, in Italy on the
figure of Silvio Berlusconi." To Mr Kurpas
it seems that it is largely national themes dominating the debate and the
participation varies according to the strength of these. The very low
participation the new Members States can be seen as a sort of 'post
accession blues' says Mr Kurpas."It is not
clear what is all about to voters, So it has been
a bit difficult to motivate them."
"There
is a lack of awareness of what Europe is and
does. It is too far removed from the ordinary citizen. Not European, but
national elections were on the agenda of the election campaigns," Marek Hannibal, spokesperson from the EPP-ED
group for the Czech
Republic said on
the low turnout in the Central and Eastern European new Member States.
President
of the Young European Federalists (JEF-Europe) Jon Worth
underlined this point. "The clear message from these elections is
that the European Union is presently not meeting its citizens’ needs. The
European elections have proven to be too abstract, too distant. No one
knows what will change after voting one way or another in the European
elections. That simply has to change." JEF-Europe would grant more
power to the European Parliament. As a first step, it would give it powers
to elect the President of the European Commission.
John Hontelez, head of the largest federation of environmental
organisations in Europe, said
'these elections show that Member States' governments and the European
Commission have failed to increase the EU's credibility with its citizens.
Only four out of ten voters gave their vote to parties supporting the EU.
The others were just not motivated, or actively supported parties critical
or dismissive of the EU'. He continued, 'For many citizens, the EU is not
recognised as the body that works for a better quality of life and for a
safe and prosperous future for our children. The work of the EU
institutions on sustainable development, protection of public health and
environmental protection was not publicised enough
in the election campaigns'.
"The
low turn out at the European elections shows that a new form of dialogue
between the European Union and its citizens has to be established,"
said Christoph Leitl,
President of EUROCHAMBRES. He continued: "Europe has not
got its message through to its citizens". Mr Leitl
warned against ignoring the low voter turnout and the big success of the
eurosceptic parties: "Europe can
only be built via a bottom-up approach. We will fail if we do not succeed
to enthuse people for the European idea.
Therefore, information and communication about the benefits of the
European Union for each citizen must play a bigger part in the way
European institutions go about their business."
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