Word: parliament
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...diverse environmentalist parties. The grouping's seven-month campaign, which fused environmental messages with those of European construction and leadership, apparently appealed to voters: Europe Ecologie won 16.3%, and in so doing, staked a claim to a leadership role on the left in both France and the European Parliament. "Our first big action will be negotiating a [leftist] majority," proclaimed Europe Ecologie official Daniel Cohn-Bendit - the Franco-German ecologist who first gained fame as the iconic leader of radical students during France's May 1968 uprising before becoming a moving force in the European Parliament. "I have already spoken...
...Reflecting the miserable voter turnout across Europe, only 43% of Germans bothered to go to the polls. Social Democrats have been quick to point to the low turnout as a reason the European Parliament vote shouldn't be seen as a test for the upcoming federal elections. "I don't think you can reach any conclusions when the turnout for the European elections was so low," says Social Democrat MP Sebastian Edathy. "It's a different picture in the federal elections, when we normally have a bigger turnout of 70%-80%." Nevertheless, Edathy admits his party failed to reach...
...midst of a financial downturn, with big government back in fashion and capitalism badly bruised, the left should have swept the European Parliament elections that took place over four days last week. But instead, voters emphatically punished socialist and social-democrat parties - when they could be bothered to show up to the polls...
...center left was not the only loser in the elections. The Parliament itself saw its credibility suffer further as voter turnout fell to a record low of 43.1%, compared with 45.5% in 2004. (For the Parliament's first direct elections in 1979, turnout was a remarkable 61.99%). This came despite a gargantuan effort to fight apathy through poster campaigns, television ads and YouTube initiatives...
...Austria, two far-right parties earned 18%, while Finland's anti-immigrant True Finns won 10% of the vote. And Britain's UKIP, who won 13 of the 72 British seats despite having no members in the 646-member House of Commons, will be joined by two European Parliament newcomers: the far-right British National Party and Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru. (Read a TIME piece on the gains made...