In Germany, although Chancellor Angela Merkel took a small knock, it is not comparable to the hammering the Social Democrats (SPD), the junior partner in Germany's grand coalition, took. They only managed to scrape 99 of the Parliament's 736 seats. With less than four months until Germany's general election, the results will give strength to Merkel's hopes of moving to a center- right alliance with the small Free Democrats, which actually made the biggest gains with over 10 percent of the vote. In France and Italy, both leaders were smiling from ear-to-ear. French President Nicolas Sarkozy was triumphant with his Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party taking 28 percent, while Silvio Berlusconi -- whose recent swimming pool drama has had him in the media for all the wrong reasons -- took 35 percent with his allies, the anti-immigration Northern League, doubling their share of the vote to 10 percent. Both men clearly benefited from their tough anti-immigration, anti-minority and law-and-order stances. In the UK, it was another story with the almost total disintegration of the Labour Party with the openly racist British National Party (BNP) taking two seats in the new Parliament along with the UK Independence Party (UKIP), which secured 13 seats. In fact, the UK was the only one of the EU's six biggest countries where the governing party did not come either first or a close second. Labour was forced into a humiliating third position with a little over 15 percent of the vote. Gordon Brown is coming under increased pressure to call early elections, but he continues to resist. EU colleagues will be praying that he will manage to hang on for as long as possible, given that Euroskeptic Conservative leader David Cameron, who has promised to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, is an almost dead cert to be the UK's next prime minister. Given that the Lisbon Treaty is about as popular as Brown himself, this does not bode well for the EU, but at the same time he can only do this if the treaty has not been ratified by all 27 member states. Therefore, additional pressure is being placed on the Irish government to hold their second referendum on the treaty as soon as possible so that it can be wrapped up while Brown is still in office. Of course, if the Irish vote no again, that would also be a catastrophe for the EU, but all the signs are that a yes vote is on the cards.Although the fear that far-right and racist parties would sweep the board did not materialize, a significant breakthrough was still achieved by the extreme right-wing nationalists and xenophobes, particularly from Central Europe. But again this is not a totally unexpected outcome, considering the historical linkage between economic recession and support for anti-immigrant policies. Following the victory of the anti-Islam campaigner, Geert Wilders, who came second in the Netherlands, hard-right and neo-fascists gained further victories. The poor Roma community were also particularly hard-hit with anti-gypsy extremists in Hungary, Slovakia and Austria gaining seats. Nationalist and anti-immigration parties also made gains in Denmark, Finland and Greece. In total, extreme-right and extreme-left parties will now account for about 12 percent of the new Parliament.
Clearly the 736-seat Parliament will be more representative than ever before, but clearly this unsettling diversity, with a larger group of eccentrics, extremists and nationalists, could disrupt proceedings on a more regular basis. The next few weeks will see a lot of horse-trading, as up for grabs are the leaderships of the different political factions, the chairs of the various committees and the presidency of the Parliament itself. As no party has a majority alone, there will be a lot of tough negotiations as the different factions ponder over which other political groups may be good political allies and where and with whom compromises and deals can be made.
For Turkey, and other countries that have their eye on joining the EU, it is not good news as clearly the composition of the new Parliament will see an increase in those who are opposed to further enlargement in general and, more particularly, to Turkish accession. Although this is a bitter pill to swallow, Turkey has two options: The leadership in Ankara can either use it as yet another “tree” to hide behind and continue to do the minimum as regards their EU reform process, or they can endeavor to speed up the process and get on with business at home. They should show a Europe that is currently bogged down in an economic quagmire, with a population that is fearful of job losses, that Turkey is serious and that having Turkey in Europe will boost the economy, bring jobs and increased prosperity. In short, an EU that includes Turkey will be more prosperous than one without it.
