Forum of Political Stars

Voters choose members for a new Parliament

Question: What do these people have in common: former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, French Health Minister Simone Veil, British Socialist Barbara Castle, Ulster's Protestant Minister Ian Paisley and Otto von Habsburg, eldest son of the last Austro-Hungarian Emperor?

Answer: Not much, except that they have all just won an election. Soon they will all be commuting to Strasbourg as mint-new members in the Parliament of the European Community, the world's first democratically elected international body.

Brandt, Veil and the heir to the nonexistent Habsburg throne were not the only illustrious names to be chosen as members of a star-studded new political forum for Western Europe. Such notable party leaders as Italy's Communist chief Enrico Berlinguer, France's Socialist leader Franc,ois Mitterrand and the Gaullists' Jacques Chirac also won election as the heads of their parties' lists of candidates. Some of them, though, were expected to yield their seats to underlings.

The new 410-member European Parliament replaces an outgoing assembly that was appointed by the governments of the nine Common Market nations. On paper, both old and new Parliaments have only limited consultative powers, but the potential for expansion lies in public hearings and budgetary scrutiny. The fact that its representatives are popularly elected and that many of them carry political clout at home should lend force to the new Parliament's recommendations.

Conducted in two days of balloting, the Euro-election results tended to confirm recent voting patterns in Britain, Italy and other West European states. In general that trend has been toward a non-ideological centrism, as several countries over the past three years have turned out Socialist governments and opted for center-right or center-left coalitions. Experts cautioned about reading any clear signals into the voting. For one thing, all the successful major parties shared a general commitment to the idea of a more cohesive and active Europe. For another, many of the 180 million eligible voters were clearly bored, confused or irritated by elections to a new Parliament whose purpose was far from clear. In most countries the vote totals were well below those normally attained in national elections.

The Parliament's 111-member Socialist bloc came in a decided No. 2 to the center-right parties, even though it is larger than any one of them. If the three latter groups (the Christian Democrats of continental Europe, with 106 seats; the British and Danish Conservatives, with 63 seats; and the French, West German and Low Country Liberals, with 40) can come to a working alliance, they should be able to dominate the Parliament for its first five-year term. The Socialists publicly refused a common "popular front" with the 44 Communists and their allies, although on such pocketbook issues as prices and unemployment they may make common cause.

Parties with a particularly strong European commitment got out the vote and did better as a consequence. One notable victor was French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who in fact first proposed the idea for a Euro-election back in 1974. In the popular vote Giscard's Union pour la Democratic Franc,aise outpolled Gaullist Leader Chirac's Rassemblement pour la Republique, by 27.5% to 16.3%. In parliamentary elections only 15 months ago, the Chirac forces had won 22.6% to the Giscardians' 21.5%. Chirac's poor showing was a serious blow to his ambitions in the 1981 French presidential campaign.

In Italy the poor showing by the Italian Communists the week before was reinforced. The Communists dropped below the psychologically important 30% they won in the national elections, to 29.6% in the Euro-elections. The Christian Democrats also fell from 38.3% in the national election to 36.5% in voting for the new Parliament. But they could boast that the local ticket headed by Emilio Colombo, outgoing Parliament president, rolled up an impressive total of 860,000 votes, thereby boosting his chances to continue in office at least during the new Parliament's important formative stages.

British Laborites, meanwhile, paid dearly for their years of ambivalent feelings about the Common Market. As former Prime Minister Harold Wilson noted all too aptly of some Labor leaders, "They would really have liked to campaign on the basis of pulling out of Europe." In an election that produced a voter turnout of only 32%, the Tories took 60 of the country's 81 seats, leaving the Laborites with only 17. Saddest of the losers were the Liberals. Though they gained 1.7 million votes, or 13.1% of the British total, the Liberals won no seats at all because Britain eschewed the proportional representation method of allotting seats that prevailed elsewhere.

Public posturing and backroom politicking began within hours after the results were in. The first matter on the agenda when the new Parliament convenes in Strasbourg on July 17 will be the choice of a president. Willy Brandt, who campaigned across the continent for his Socialist colleagues, had been considered the leading contender. In view of the center-right's strong showing, Veil was being touted by supporters as a more fitting choice. Former Belgian Premier Leo Tindemans, who heads the Parliament's powerful Christian Democratic group, meanwhile, was bidding for the informal post of majority leader of the coalition.

The old Parliament met ten or twelve times a year. The new members expect to work harder, and will be paid the same salaries they would have received as members of their national legislative bodies (which vary widely), plus travel allowances. These could prove to be considerable if the Parliament sticks to its plan to hold half its monthly plenary sessions in Strasbourg, the other half in Luxembourg and nearly all committee meetings in Brussels. But the political heavyweights are already chafing about that idea. Brandt, for one, in an initial show of parliamentary independence, declared that the seat for the new Parliament is its own business, "just as it is the most basic right of any family to decide where to live."

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