The number of people voting in the EU elections this year was around 43.09% - a small increase from the turnout 5 years ago.
In
comparison with other countries; at the last US 2010 Congressional
elections, which you can compare to the EU Parliamentary elections, the
turnout based on US government statistics was 37.8%.
As
for what the radical conservatives and their supporters in the press
call the BIG win of the EU "Radical Nationalist Conservatives" like Le
Pen and Nigel Farage, that should probably be taken with a grain of
salt.
Obviously
this must be raising concerns with the ruling centrist pro-EU parties,
but the success of those fringe party's should also be put into a
realistic context of comparing numbers and percentages.
No
doubt, when one party goes from having 3 seats in the EU parliament to 6
seats that statistically is a 100% gain for the party, but in the
actual number of seats they gained versus the number of seats controlled
by the ruling majority, it only represents a drop in the bucket.
Nevertheless, moderate European politicians have had their wake-up call. Europe now has its own equivalent to the US Tea party.
The
EU-Commission, the EU-Parliament and the EU member state Parliaments
have to start doing a far vbetter job at informing their close to half a
billion EU constituents about the benefits of the European Union.
It
certainly won't hurt, at least in this case, to copy some of the
"Proud to be an American" campaign techniques from the US, so eventually
we can also say without any doubt - "Proud to be a European".
