Whether this is indicative of any real trend is another story but at least for the European parliament, the left was throttled. Even the unpopular Sarkozy had a good day as his center-right party crushed the Socialists. The interesting development in France was the success of the Europe Ecologie party who were just behind the Socialists. At least in France the results were fairly even between the right and left though it was the UMP (Sarkozy's party) who led all groups.
These elections appear to me as similar to an off year state election but without even a governor in play. Even that may be overstating the attention it receives. Today the EU Parliament is very weak compared to the internal politics of each member state and Brussels - Parliament, at least - doesn't have a strong reputation for achievement. Another 20 or 30 years and this may change but for the moment it remains the place for has-beens and do-nothings who are full of good reasons why nothing happens. Maybe this new batch will change everything. Maybe not.
Europe's mainstream centre-left parties suffered humiliation last night when four days of voting in the EU's biggest-ever election concluded with disastrous results for social democrats.
Results from the national rounds of the European parliament election across the 27 member states also showed support for centre-right Christian democrats diminishing in places, but nonetheless notching up handsome victories in several key states.
In Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary and the Czech Republic, the centre right won the elections, with stunning defeats for the left in certain cases.
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