Out of Sync

The EU elections bewilder voters – By Theo Sommer

Europe is our common future,” the leaders of the 27 EU member states solemnly declared last year, when the European Union celebrated its 50th anniversary. Their voices did not carry very far. In the 14 months since, they have clearly failed to re-ignite even a modest measure of enthusiasm for the unprecedented integration project launched half a century ago. Only one voter in three is expected to make his way to a polling station on June 7 for the elections of a new European Parliament.

Such electoral abstinence is baffling. Don’t the Europeans appreciate their historical achievement? Shouldn’t they be relieved to see Germany irrevocably anchored in the institutional structures of the Brussels community; grateful for helping Greece, Spain and Portugal along toward democracy after the dark years of dictatorship; and happy to see 10 ex-communist countries in the East integrated into the European family of the free? Are they blind to the enormous progress the Old World has made in the past five decades?

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