1. Skip to content
  2. Skip to main menu
  3. Skip to more DW sites

European Elections - What the Polls Say

DW staff (ncy)June 11, 2004

Europeans have already started casting ballots for the EU Parliament election. DW-WORLD has compiled a selection of forecasts to give a sense of what will happen in EU member states when the results are announced Sunday.

https://p.dw.com/p/5ApU
The EU vote takes place from June 10 to 13Image: Bilderbox

Czech Republic

Czechs will be the first new EU citizens to vote in EP elections when the polls open Friday. Polls suggest that Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla's ruling Social Democratic party (CSSD) will take a beating since carrying out painful cost-cutting measures to bring the budget in line with criteria to join the EU's monetary union. Appealing to Czechs fears of the EU, the euroskeptics stand to gain, particularly President Vaclav Klaus's conservative ODS, which is pegged to win most of the 24 Czech seats in the Strasbourg parliament. The Communist Party is expected to also benefit from the euroskeptic vote and could send four or five representatives to the EP.

France

The opposition Socialist party is expected to claim a clear victory with around 29 percent of the vote in the French EP elections on Sunday, another slap in the face for Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin. President Jacques Chirac's conservative UMP party may be in for a repeat of its sharp defeat in May regional elections. Pollsters forecast only 17 percent for the UMP. The center-right, EU-friendly UDF party could bring in 10 percent, ahead of the environmentalist Green party, which is expected to garner around 8 percent. Polls put the Communists at 4 percent. The right-wing nationalist MPF, which has focused its EP campaign on opposing Turkey joining the EU, is expected to receive 6 to 9 percent. Jean-Marie Le Pen's right-wing extremist could end up with 10 percent of the vote. France will send 78 MEPs to Strasbourg.

Germany

Germany is looking forward to a "Super Sunday" this weekend, as the EP election coincides with local polls in seven of the country's 16 states. Campaigns for the 99 German seats in European Parliament have been dominated by national issues. Thus, the vote is being touted as an indication of what could happen in the next German general elections in 2006. If that's the case, the governing coalition doesn't have a rosy future. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's Social Democrats are expected to bring in less than 30 percent, far behind their rivals in the conservative CSU/CDU parties, who polls say could curry 48.7 percent. The Green party, the Social Democrats' junior partner in the government, are pegged to tally around a sturdy 10 percent. The business-friendly FDP is forecast to just make the 5 percent hurdle to allow them to send representatives to Strasbourg, something they failed to do in the last EP elections five years ago.

Hungary

Face-offs between the ruling Socialists (MSVP) and the opposition Party of Young Democrats (Fidesz) dominate Hungary's political scene, and that's no different for EP elections, which take place Sunday in the country. But MSVP has been falling out of voters' favor since introducing cost-cutting measures in 2002 to quell a huge public deficit caused in part by arch enemy Fidesz, their predecessor in the government. Fidesz has been promising to protect jobs and Hungary's sovereignty, which pollsters say could bring them more 50 percent of the ballots and at least half of the country's 24 parliamentary seats.

Spain

Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero has a good chance of seeing his recent electoral victory confirmed in the EP elections. The Socialists have only been in power since April after sweeping the conservative Popular Party out of office and nearly achieving an absolute majority. The Socialists are still benefiting from the post-election honeymoon atmosphere, which, in addition to Zapatero's enthusiastically pro-EU focus, will likely add up to another large victory for the party and a sizeable portion of the country's 54 seats in Strasbourg. Fighting Basque separatist and Islamic terror in the wake of the March 11 bombings in Madrid and Spain's recent withdrawal of troops from Iraq have also played a role in the EP campaign. Voters are especially concerned that due to the EU enlargement that brought many countries poorer than Spain into the EU fold, Madrid will receive fewer subsidies from Brussels than in the past.