Tuesday, June 15, 2004

Europe is for the Dutch, Irish, Italians . . .

The big news across the pond is the European Union parliamentary elections. The bigger news is the success of conservative and anti-EU parties in those elections. In Britain, the Tories won 27 seats, Labour 19 (a whipping for PM Blair) and the anti-EU UK Independence Party won 12. The anti-Iraq war Liberals also won 12 -- that means 39 for conservatives, 12 for anti-war vote, 19 for Blair. Results are here.

In Poland, the anti-EU League of Polish Families took the second-largest number of seats and the Euroskeptic Self-Defense of Poland Party came in third.

In Italy, Euroskeptics also made significant gains.

And in Germany, Schroeder's governing Social Democrats were crushed.

Naturally, there has been much spin -- mostly anti-Blair and anti-Berlusconi comments claiming that their support for the US hurt their parties (although wins for the Tories and UKIP are not really anti-US votes) while "local issues" accounted for the poor showing of Schroeder's and Chirac's parties. Aussie blogger Arthur Chrenkoff breaks down the spinning on his page.

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