The first European Parliament elections in the enlarged EU were marked by voter apathy and punishment of national ruling parties.
The turnout fell even lower than the 1999 elections. Just 45.5% of voters filled out ballots, with low participation rates in many of the 10 new Member States where an average of 26.4 % of people bothered to exercise their electoral options. The lowest turnout was in Slovakia, where fewer than 17% cast their votes.
The overall balance of the 732-member parliament is little changed, with the centre-right European People’s Party remaining the biggest bloc, followed by the Socialists.
Eurosceptics parties
Anti-EU parties gained ground in the UK, Sweden, Denmark, Holland and the new member states Poland and the Czech Republic.
The UK Independence Party (UKIP) won a breakthrough 12 seats and have vowed to withdraw from the EU.
In Poland, the Catholic, anti-EU League of Polish Families has 10 seats and strongly opposes a ’Federal Republic of Europe’. The Self-Defence of Poland party has 7 MEPs and challenges Poland’s terms of EU accession and the "Brussels system".
France: Movement for France led Philippe de Villiers, which rejects both the euro and France’s EU membership has retained its 2 seats.
A new Eurosceptic group in Sweden the June Movement will be sending 3 MEPs to Brussels.
The new anti-EU parties may group around Jens-Peter Bonde, whose political "Europe of Democracies and Diversities" has been the main focus for Eurosceptic MEPs. This group may grow from 18 to around 40 Parliamentarians.
New parties on an ’anti-corruption’ ticket
Paul van Buitenen, the Dutch "whistle-blower" gained two seats for Transparent Europe.
The Austrian former Socialist MEP Hans Peter Martin won two seats for his personal list. He had infamously exposed manipulation of the generous MEP expense system of his colleagues in the 1999-2004 Parliament.
The balance of power
At stake is the balance of power in the European Parliament. Currently, the centre-right group European People’s Party (PPE) is leading with 276 seats, the Socialists with 200 while the liberals have 67. However, there are 66 MEPs that are not yet in the standard political groups, but many of these may be part of the Eurosceptic groupings.
Hungarian voters elected the first Roma MEP, Mrs Livia Jaroka who says she will represent all of Europe’s 12 million Roma.
The next few weeks will see frantic negotiations as the parties define their alliances and partnerships at the Parliament and form definitive political group.
The first official political group week will be held on 5 July 2004. The next big issues to decide will be the allocation of key seats in the Committees.
The second Parliament session in July, beginning 20 July 2004, will be a Plenary session. The graphics provided by the European Parliament on the results of the election specifically state that this picture may by updated by the composition of the groups at the 20 July session.
EU governments to take stock
Election results for ruling parties or coalitions in the UK, France, Denmark, Cyprus, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Italy, Poland, Estonia, the Netherlands, Slovakia and the Czech republic ranged from a second place position to disastrous. Only Spain was out of step, where the Socialist government increased their percentage of votes.
The results of these elections present a major challenge to EU leaders meeting in Brussels on 17 June 2004 for the Summit. The governments are expected to sign off on a new Constitutional Treaty and agree on a President for the European Commission.
More than half the EU’s 25 member-states have planned to hold referenda on the constitution and the future of Europe.
