If one trend is emerging from the early results and exit polls of the European Parliament elections, it is that ruling political parties are in for an uncomfortable night. Voters are deserting them in droves and transferring their support either to mainstream opposition parties or to protest groups and extremists.

Put another way, voters have used the elections as a chance to state their feelings about current conditions in their respective countries. There has been nothing particularly “European” about the way they have cast their ballots.

This is especially striking in Ireland and Latvia, which - together with Hungary - are the European Union countries most seriously affected by the global financial crisis.  In Ireland, the ruling Fianna Fáil party and its Greens coalition partner have taken an absolute drubbing in local elections held simultaneously with the European vote. In Dublin, a leftist Sinn Féin candidate known for her hostile attitude to European integration looks likely to win one of Ireland’s 12 European Parliament seats.

In Latvia, which has eight seats, all but one of the ruling coalition’s five parties have been punished by voters for presiding over an economy that looks set to contract by a mind-boggling 20 per cent this year.  Meanwhile, a party representing the country’s large Russian-speaking minority has done well.

We saw a similar protest vote last Thursday in the Netherlands, where Geert Wilders and his anti-Islamic Party for Freedom scooped up four of the 25 Dutch seats in the EU legislature.

Still, we need to keep things in perspective.  Experts predicted before the election that anti-EU candidates and extreme nationalists would win about 50 seats in the 736-seat parliament.  That is the figure to keep in mind.  If it rises significantly higher than 50, then this will have been a grim night for European democracy.  If it is around 50, it will look bad, but it will mostly be a kick in the teeth for governments that have held power while the economic crisis has been at its height.

“No European Parliament-related term has made it under the top 100 Twitter trend terms of the last week” says Julien Frisch on the Watching Europe blog, referring to the micro-blogging site used by some MEPs to drum up interest in the elections. Susan Boyle was second. (Joshua Chaffin’s take on the Parliament’s web presence in Saturday’s FT is worth a read)

As turnout continues to be the dominant theme, is the problem that European elections are not separated enough from national ones, ask the Young European Federalists?

Not much news until late on Sunday - bloggers seem to be holding their fire until the results later tonight. For those who can’t wait until then, The European citizen has a take on what we know so far.

A few links for those pondering the European elections:

Still confused about which party best represents your views? Answer a few questions here and it will match them up against the relevant political grouping in the Parliament.

Alternatively, here’s a more comprehensive round-up of each party’s manifesto, though with no mention of Libertas.

For those still confusing the European Council and the Council of Europe, Nosemonkey also has a few pointers on all things Brussels.

Finally, with turnout expected to reach record lows, MEP Richard Corbett asks: is it Parliament’s fault, or is the press to blame?

Well, that’s a good start, isn’t it?  The Netherlands was the first of the European Union’s 27 countries to release exit polls on how its citizens voted in the European Parliament elections.  And guess what?  The Party For Freedom (PVV), a right-wing anti-immigration party led by the anti-Islamic populist Geert Wilders, is expected to finish second with more than 15 per cent of the vote and at least four of the 25 Dutch seats in the EU legislature.

In truth, people outside the Netherlands shouldn’t be surprised by the PVV’s success.  Wilders has been riding high in Dutch opinion polls for quite some time.  Back in March, one survey even suggested that his party would become the biggest party in the Dutch parliament if an immediate election were held.

Over the past 10 years, the Dutch people have become increasingly doubtful about the direction in which the EU appears to be going.  Four years ago the Dutch overwhelmingly voted No in a referendum on the EU’s planned constitutional treaty.  Last April, a poll carried out by the market research group TNS NIPO showed that 60 per cent of the Dutch thought the EU institutions were a waste of public money.  

But the distinctively Dutch version of “euroscepticism” also reflects the way that Islam and immigration have surged to the front of political debate in a country that celebrates tolerance and cultural diversity, but sees them as under threat from immigrants who despise such ideals.  The spectacular political career of Pim Fortuyn, cut short when he was assassinated in the Dutch 2002 general election campaign, formed part of this picture.  So did the murder of Theo van Gogh, the film-maker killed by a radical Islamist of Dutch-Moroccan nationality in 2004.

There was a lot of popular dissatisfaction for Wilders to exploit in this European Parliament election campaign, and he did so fairly successfully.  But one should remember that the Dutch turnout was low - about 40 per cent - and the great majority of Dutch voters did not cast ballots for Wilders or other extremists.  So this is not a catastrophe for democracy.  It is, however, an embarrassment and a warning signal.

As surely as night follows day, a low turnout in this week’s European Parliament elections will be followed by the usual hand-wringing about the European Union’s “democratic deficit”.  How much longer can the EU continue as a project controlled by elites and disregarded by the masses, whose only role seems to be to wreak occasional havoc by rejecting EU treaties in referendums?  How can European political and economic integration flourish without an integrated European public opinion? Continue reading "How To Get a Better Informed European Public"

European elections

Unemployment and economic insecurity will be uppermost in people’s minds when voters in 27 countries start going to the polls on Thursday to elect a new European parliament in the biggest multi-national election in history.

According to a poll for the legislature last month by TNS Opinion, a market researcher, unemployment was the top concern for 57 per cent of voters, followed by economic growth at 45 per cent, insecurity at 32 per cent and the future of pensions at 31 per cent.

Continue reading Jobs main concern as Europe votes

Quentin Peel, international affairs editor, is troubled by a eurosceptic Netherlands as Europe prepares to vote. Continue reading "FT video: Why the Dutch love Europe less"