by Glyn Ford
If the results of last week’s European elections in Britain were almost exactly as bleak as forecast, the results across the rest of the European Union were, for the left, little better. The only glimmer of good cheer came from Athens, where PASOK went up to nine seats, reflecting its lead over New Democracy in Greece, and Ireland, where the financial crisis and resultant re-evaluation of the merits of both regulation and the Lisbon Treaty saw the Irish Labour Party gain seats. Meanwhile Declan Ganley, sugar daddy of the transnational Libertas Party and the man who funded the “No” campaign, failed to win a seat.
In Germany, the SPD’s 20.8 per cent was its worst ever performance. In France, the Socialist Party’s 14 seats constitute its worst performance since elections to the European Parliament began in 1979. In Spain, José Luis Rodrígues Zapatero’s PSOE and in Italy the Partito Democratico both got barely a third of the seats.
In Hungary, the ruling Socialists returned only four out of 22 seats – a result almost exactly paralleling that in Britain – with its own version of UKIP and the BNP, the first a nasty xenophobic little party, picking up seats and the second, Jobbick, a violently anti-Roma and anti-Semitic party, winning a seat, too. Perhaps Europe’s voters have simply fallen out of love with social democracy.
The far right had mixed fortunes. In Romania, the Greater Romanian Party continues to be represented, even if it lost seats. In Austria, the two extreme parties split 18 per cent between them in the wake of Jörg Haider’s death as a result of dangerous driving last year. In France, the Front National elected Jean Marie Le Pen and his two putative successors, his daughter Marianne and his deputy Bruno Gollnisch. It’s not a recipe for harmonious relations, nor is it clear that they have the numbers willing to gather together to form an official “fascist” group.
The main winners were the centre-right parties in government – whether Germany, Italy or France – plus the pro-Europeans in “old” Europe, such as the Greens and Liberals in Germany and the Greens in France. Prospective Tory allies in their new, sceptical right-wing grouping in Poland and the Czech Republic did poorly, while Scandinavian turnout rose significantly.
As for the Communist left, it was a disappointing showing. France’s Trotskyists are back, this time in the guise of the new Anti-Capitalist Party, but largely at the expense of the now virtually defunct French Communist Party. In Italy, the Communists have disappeared entirely.
Even the promised surge forward of Die Linke (The Left) – the union of the old East German Communist Party with Oskar Lafontaine’s left-wing WASG party – was more of a stumble forward as their new resolutely anti-European stance saw them outstripped by the Greens and the Liberals.
The numbers indicate that the only game in town in the new European Parliament is a grand coalition between Christian Democrats and Socialists. Martin Schultz, the German Socialist Group leader in the Parliament, was on track to continue to run the Group for the next two and a half years before seamlessly moving over to preside over the Parliament in exchange for support for José Manuel Barroso’s continuation as President of the Commission.
