Extremist and fringe parties are expected to make gains when voting begins next week for the European Parliament, a little-loved but highly symbolic assembly that increasingly makes vital decisions on issues ranging from climate change and online privacy to cellphone roaming charges.
Polls indicate that voters from Romania to Ireland will show up in record low numbers to select the only democratic institution in the EU, yet one that many voters around the nations that form the still-evolving union see as wasteful and somehow irrelevant.
Polls suggest that the center-right European People’s Party will return as the largest group, followed by the Socialists and centrist Liberal Democrats. But even small gains could provide meaningful platforms for extremist parties, such as the virulently anti-immigrant French National Front and the British National Party, which stands a good chance of winning its first seat.
Observers say that could increase the gnawing sense of public disappointment with the 51-year-old EU, which many see as an aloof bureaucracy out of touch with ordinary voters and insensitive to the national sentiment they often retain despite integration.
Perhaps worse still is the feeling that the union seems to be failing to deliver the prosperity that caused many to put national feelings aside. Its response to the global economic crisis has been widely seen as indecisive, piecemeal and halfhearted.
Parties skeptical of greater European unification are expected to see greater success than the fringe parties, potentially giving a louder voice to mainstream voter dissatisfaction with the EU.
“For the parliament, it’s very much a test of its credibility,” said Jacki Davis, an analyst at the European Policy Center, a Brussels-based think tank.
Some 375 million voters across the 27-nation union will be able to cast their ballots between Thursday and Sunday in the second-largest elections in the world, after India’s. Mainstream parties and candidates have been desperate to avoid a repeat of the last vote five years ago, which saw fringe and extreme parties take more than 50 seats in the 785-seat assembly — now down to 736 seats under new treaty rules.
An EU survey of 28,000 EU citizens released this week showed only 43 percent of those polled would “definitely vote.” That’s down from 62 percent who actually turned out to vote in the first such elections in 1979 and below the previous record of 45.5 percent in 2004.
“The lower the turnout the more likely fringe parties are likely to do well and that’s because those who are really motivated to come out and vote will vote,” Davis said.
While many previous candidates were not taken seriously in their home countries, national parties have lined up some veteran candidates for the parliament this time, including French Justice Minister Rachida Dati, 43, and former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, 56, as well as a slew of other ex-ministers and EU commissioners.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS