Vote Denotes The Growing Disunity Of The European Union
By Anthony Faiola and Griff Witte, Monday, May 26, 12:23 PM E-mail the writer
BERLIN — From France and Britain to Denmark and Greece, voters may have just put the brakes on the Golden Age of European integration.
Stunned leaders across the region were grappling Monday with the aftershocks of Sunday’s vote for the 751-member European Parliament that saw a record number of seats go to once-fringe parties bitterly opposed to a united Europe. The results presented the region’s mainstream parties with a reality check: Maybe Europeans aren’t quite as eager as their leaders think they are to forge a joint future.
In the decades after World War II, nations across the region embraced a common path, boldly moving to open borders, create a common currency and cede national powers to a European Union authority based in the region’s administrative capital of Brussels. With little more than a plane ticket and a plan, Polish plumbers could find work in Paris or London. Italian engineers could labor inside German auto factories. Greek cooks could set up shop in Barcelona, Copenhagen or Amsterdam.
But after four years of economic devastation from Europe’s debt crisis, the love-thy-neighbor shtick is wearing thin for millions of European voters. Even pillar countries such as France, now mired in economic stagnation and hopelessness, are increasingly blaming the E.U. for their woes.
At the same time, the results suggested a strong backlash to German-led demands for tough fiscal austerity and economic reforms that voters across the region are blaming for massive unemployment, particularly in still-troubled Greece.
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