Written by: Beck
The results are rapidly rolling in from votes to fill the 732 seats of the European Union parliament, and the message is clear:
Europeans are pissed. They're not sure what they're pissed about. In fact, they seem to be quite conflicted on that point. But man oh man are they pissed. About something.
In nations that backed the Iraq war, notably Britain and Italy, opposition parties did strikingly well. In nations that opposed the Iraq war, notably France and Germany, opposition parties did strikingly well. Like I said, Europeans are pissed, just don't ask them why.
According to the
Financial Times, right-wing political parties captured the majority of the seats. Try not to read too much into that, however, as conservative Europeans aren't too different from the American Democratic party (after all, Chirac is a conservative).
Europe's centre-right parties won the most seats in the new European parliament, with social democrats second, but the most immediate impact will be felt in domestic politics as national leaders try to contain the damage. Mr Schroder's ruling Social Democrats suffered their worst result in 50 years with just 23 per cent of the vote, compared with 46 per cent for the conservative CDU and its CSU Bavarian sister party. "This is a great day for the CDU, a good day for Germany," said party secretary general Laurenz Meyer.
Britain proves especially interesting. The labor party is scared shitless--in local elections Friday, the ruling Labor party came in an unheard of
third place. They came in second in the EU voting, though that's not much consolation as pulling a close third was a party--the anti-EU UK Independence Party--which draws most of its votes from the Conservative side of the isle. It'll be interesting to see what Blair does for damage control. Something pretty drastic I'm guessing.