by Sarah Schröder Die doppelte Krise (The double crisis) Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung – 08/06/09 In his article published on Monday, June 8th, 2009, Majid Sattar argues that the actual winners of the European elections are the ones we talk about the least: the group of non-voters. According to the author, the main reason why abstention rates in European elections continued to grow in last elections is that Europe remains abstract and impossible to personalize. Consequently, even the catch-all parties (“Volksparteien”), and essentially the SPD (Socialist Party of Germany), clearly failed to mobilize their own electorate. The fact that most of last Sunday’s voters declared to base their vote essentially on national themes, as well as on the impact that the EU elections’ outcome might have on the German federal elections in September 2009, clearly proves their miscomprehension and/ or indifference concerning the actual European issues that are at stake. Furthermore, although much is being said about the “decline” of the SPD, the CDU and CSU (centre right parties) also lost part of their electorate, mainly amongst the young people under 30. Most researchers however agree that the results of the EU elections are surely not representative of the possible turnout of the German Bundestag elections in the fall, since the participation rate at these elections should be twice as high. However, the EU elections’ results may very well contribute to the continuous fall of big catch-all parties in favour of small opposition parties in Germany, as had already been observed in the past Bundestag elections of 2004. Majid Sattar, a German journalist of Iraqi origin, is part of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung editorial staff and its section about politics since 2004. To read the full FAZ article click here. Back to German Press on Europe