March of the Greens? Final Voting Today!

[ccharles000]

The end of the speculation is near in the European elections, with final results from four days of voting to be released this evening at 20:00 GMT. In the meantime, we'll take a look at a curious trend regarding the protest vote and small parties in Europe - something that has possibly played into this cycle of voting.

The buzz around western Europe has been that in France and elsewhere, the Greens are on the move. With a charismatic leader in Daniel Cohn-Bendit (French-German fellow), and widespread dissatisfaction with the larger parties in France (and Germany), many people are looking at Les Verts as a good "lefty" option, but without the ugly party politics of the Socialists or Communists. Particularly among the young, green social democracy has become a new leftward movement, fueled in part by frustration with the mainstream system, and the recognition that environment damage, particularly climate change and natural resource depletion are the burden of the younger generation.

It turns out, however, that a "green" sensibility has a lot more power at the European level than at the national level in most big EU countries.

Across each of the four largest delegations to the European Parliament, green factions outstrip their national counterparts by wide margins. Only in Germany do Die Grünen have a significant presence, where green politics have made great inroads to the mainstream left since the reunification in the early 1990s. Perhaps green movements, which recognize the need for cooperative global action on issues such as climate change, are the pragmatic new leaders of the pan-European movement, following the first wave of economic liberals and trade integrationists?

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/06/march-of-greens-final-voting-today-and.html