Monday June 14th, 2004 18:04 Europe votes

The latest news from Italy is the scarce participation at the polls, that accordiong to Peppe Allegri, a researcher at the University of Rome "indicates the absence of a European consciousness among the citizens."

Another significative element is that the vote in the majority of the courtries has been a vote against the governments that support the war.

"Despite the hopes of many, the European and Italian scene did not under go a huge change. In Italy the Prodian left is not convincing and therefore has been an interesting shift to the "radical" left. This shift indicats the possibility of the construction of a citizen’s Europe of welfare and against the war." concludes Peppe Allegri.

The analysis of Papi Brinzini, judge and legal rights expert, is similar. According to him "the first thing that is disappointing is the low turn-out rates: even thought the descisions of the European Parlament are evermore important in each of our lives, the citizens don’t percieve this fact and are not participating in teh political life of the Union. However it is necessary to distinguish between the European and national elections. In Italy the protest vote against the government politics did not work, while the more "radical" left is growing. If this trend does not fall in to the old trap of restrictive and non-representative coalitions (for example a coalition of so-called European comunists), there might be the possibility that they push the construction of a citizen’s Europe ahead.

In Spain, Zapatero’s socialists see the national vote confirmed, despite the scarce participation at the polls. El Pais titled is front page "Abstention Wins the Elections" and in fact more than half of the population did not vote. "This is the highest abstention rate since 1977" explains Angel Lara from Madrid. "Infact, the youth and the movement did not vote, people are tired of voting and the political class failed in proposing these elections as an internal Spanish issue instead of opening a significant European debate."

In Germany, the Christian Democrats fell but still held 44%, the SPD instead lost many votes falling to 21%, while the Greens went from 6.3% to 11.9%. This is how the German scene played out. Also in Germany very few voters turned out because "the elections represent little, people think that they do not bring a significant change into their lives" comments Dario Azzellini from Berlin. "The interesting thing is that the Greens, the most critical wing of the government, experienzed a large growth. In the end, the electoral facts didn’t suprise anyone and no one thinks that the politics of Shroeder will change."

In France, like in the rest of Europe, the fact is that many poeple did not vote. The socialist party jumps to 30% while the other parties remained more or less the same.

In Greece, the party that won the elections three months ago ha mainitained its strong position. "The New Democracy party took the majority of the votes..." explaines Guido from Athens.