Unlike other European countries, the rate of participation in this European election in Finland was higher than in 1999, even if largely below the rate of participation in national elections.
Rejection and passivity
1 October 2004, by ,The results of the European elections in France partly confirm those of the regional elections in a context of a remarkable rate of abstention.
The LCR-LO campaign
1 October 2004The alliance adopted last autumn between our two organizations concerned the regional and European elections of 2004, where we put forward a series of concrete measures including: an emergency social programme based around mobilizations breaking with capitalist logic; increases in wages and social subsistence; a ban on layoffs; redistribution of wealth; lifting of banking, industrial or commercial secrets; defence of public services.
Between rage and impotence
1 October 2004, byAs was the case in other EU countries, Germany’s European parliamentary elections were marked by a growing discontent - primarily with the policies of the federal government. If most commentators see it as a protest vote, it is nonetheless increasingly difficult to define it politically because it takes the most varied forms.
All passion spent
1 October 2004, byAs in most European countries, the campaign in Greece for the elections on June 13 did not excite great passions, unlike the parliamentary elections of March 7, which saw PASOK (the Greek Socialist Party) clearly beaten by the right in the form of the New Democracy party (ND) of Kostas Karamanlis.
Government punished
1 October 2004Since 1990 Hungary’s political landscape has been marked by a perfect balance. At each election the governing parties are punished and have to give way to the opposition. The specificity of the European election of 2004 is that it did not lead to a change of government.
Breakthrough for Sinn Fein
1 October 2004Sinn Fein was the big winner at the European elections in the Republic of Ireland. The party practically doubled its score, going from 6.3% in 1999 to 11.4% in 2004. As a Sinn Fein European MP was also elected in the north of Ireland with 26.1% of the vote, the organization became the first European political party to have deputies elected from two different member states.
Setback for Berlusconi, hope for left
1 October 2004, byThe European Parliamentary elections in Italy were a defeat for the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. They also marked a setback, albeit a minor one, for European Commission president Romano Prodi’s plans to unite the centre-left and a success for Rifondazione comunista (the Party of Communist Refoundation, PRC).
Chauvinism triumphs
1 October 2004Representing more than a third of Latvia’s inhabitants, the Russian-speaking minority (less than half have Latvian nationality and civic rights) polarizes political life in Latvia. Fighting for civic rights, its political party, the PCTVL, made a remarkable breakthrough at the 2002 parliamentary elections. It won a seat in the European parliament at these European elections.
Setback for social democrats
1 October 2004A new party which calls itself a “Labour” party, created in autumn 2003 by an entrepreneur who made his fortune in canning, topped the polls at the European elections, beating the social democratic party of Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas, the conservative party of Vyatautas Landsbergis and the established liberal parties.