THE EU: Centre-right parties are likely to dominate the new European Parliament elected in June and liberals may hold the balance of power in the next EU legislature, a study published yesterday forecast.
The survey by political scientists Dr Michael Marsh of Trinity College Dublin and Dr Simon Hix of the London School of Economics suggested the European People's Party (EPP), made up of conservative and Christian Democratic parties, and the European Liberal Democrat and Reformer Party (ELDR), made up of liberal and centrist forces, could jointly win an overall majority for the first time.
That would make it easier to win parliamentary approval for a centre-right president of the European Commission to succeed Italy's centre-left Romano Prodi, whose term expires at the end of October.
"The average forecast of our model would lead to a slight shift to the right from the outgoing parliament," Dr Hix told a news conference.
"We predict that the 2004-2009 parliament will be dominated by the centre-right." The forecast, based mostly on trends from past elections rather than opinion polls, suggested the EPP would win about 285 seats in the 732-member assembly and the Socialists about 217.
It projected liberals would win 73 seats, provided Germany's Free Democrats cross the 5 per cent threshold this time, with nationalists and regionalists taking roughly 28 seats and the number of independent rightists rising to about 50.
The Greens were set to shrink slightly to 40 seats and a group of communists and leftists was set to fall to 39 seats.
The statistical model used had predicted the results of past European elections with 92 per cent accuracy, with an average error per party of less than two percentage points, Dr Hix said.
However, he acknowledged there were bigger uncertainties this time because of the absence of comparative data for the 10 mainly east European countries that join the EU on May 1st.
High voter volatility in France, Germany and some new member-states also made the outcome harder to call, Dr Hix said.
A post-election realignment on the right might also tilt the balance, with some Euro-federalist Christian Democrats threatening to break from the EPP.
The collapse of support for the ruling parties in Germany, Poland and Slovakia prompted the researchers to use opinion polls rather than past election swings as a more reliable pointer to the likely result in those countries. - (Reuters)