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PASTOR'S REPORT, Page 18, 1979
Page 17
ON THE WORLD SCENE
(Phoned in by Mr. Hogberg from Brussels)
THE PARLIAMENT OR THE POPE: WHICH HOLDS THE KEY TO EUROPE'S UNITY?
I am writing this in the press room of the Common Market headquarters
complex in Brussels, Belgium. Directly in front of me is a huge score
board whereon was just registered the final results in the world's first
international election. On Thursday, June 7, and Sunday, June 10, about
60 percent of an eligible 180 million voters in the nine European Community
nations cast ballots for directly elected representatives to the expanded
European Parliament, one of three principal bodies which govern the affairs
of the Community.
The new parliament, expanded from 198 to 410 delegates, will not hold its
first session until next month, but at least its ideological makeup is
evident from the voting outcome. It will reflect a center-right conserva
tive tone. The socialist parties will constitute the single largest bloc,
but the European Peoples' Party, an umbrella union of the continent's
Christian Democrats, will wind up only a handful of seats behind. They
are expected to be joined on most issues by Britain's Conservatives, voted
in by a landslide.
Excitement surrounding the election here has been pretty high, but community
officials are disappointed with the results for two basic reasons. First,
the turn-out, despite a remarkable 85% watershed in Italy, was, in their
view, "disappointingly low" (though a 60% turn-out in the United States
would be terrific!). Apathy combined with singificant voter antipathy was
the rule in much of Britain and Denmark. Officials in West Germany--the
Common Market's most enthusiastic supporter--had hoped for at least an 80%
turn-out but had to settle for 15% less.
The second and most detracting factor in the Euro-election is that the old
bug-a-boo of nationalism refused to recede into the background. In fact,
national perspectives and national politics dominated the very conduct of
the election itself, an election in which the people of Europe were
theoretically supposed to act politically for the first time as Europeans
rather than as Germans, Danes or Frenchmen.
In West Germany, for example, the vote was analyzed almost entirely in its
national context. When Christian Democratic candidates pulled 49.2% of the
popular vote, CDU leaders were overjoyed at the prospect that they could
emerge victorious in the 1980 federal elections--perhaps even with a clear
majority, not needing·help from the Free Democrats.
In France, the election appeared mostly to be a test of voter strength
between President Giscard's Centrists, battling against the fractured left
of the Socialists and Communists and against the far-rightists led by
Jacques Chirac, who blanch at every expansion of the EEC bureaucracy in
Brussels. President Giscard, of course, was not a candidate but he won
a personal victory when his Centrist slate emerged as the largest bloc.
In Ireland, Prime Minister Jack Lynch and his ruling Fianna Fail Party were
rebuffed ·
at the polls--not for their own particular views
with
regard to a
United Europe but because Irish voters were fed up with a protracted postal