Sweden will assume the EU's six-month rotating presidency on 1 July, amid great economic challenges and institutional uncertainty for the 27-nation bloc.
If ratification of the Lisbon Treaty is completed this year it could be the last six-month presidency.
What are Sweden's priorities as it takes over from the Czech Republic?
ECONOMIC CRISIS
Sweden is taking over the reins of an EU reeling from the impact of the economic crisis - the worst since the 1930s. Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt says the EU must continue with its recovery plan, shoring up banks with liquidity and guarantees, so as to get credit flowing again.
High unemployment is an EU-wide problem, so Sweden is anxious to lay the foundations for a new growth and employment strategy, to replace the EU's Lisbon Agenda. That agenda, adopted in March 2000, aimed to make the EU "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world" by 2010.
EU leaders have agreed on a framework for improved financial supervision, and Sweden hopes to get the corresponding EU legislation passed during its presidency. The plan is to install new EU supervisory bodies to identify systemic risks and to monitor individual financial firms, to prevent another meltdown.
Sweden also has the job of defending the EU's single market against protectionist pressures fuelled by the economic crisis.
CLIMATE CHANGE
The EU has set strict targets for reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, but Sweden says it will work to get similar commitments from other industrial powers ahead of the UN climate conference in Copenhagen in December.
Mr Reinfeldt has said "everyone talks about the importance of reducing emissions and yet global greenhouse gas emissions have not even started to decline". But he welcomes the "encouraging signals from the new US administration".
A major Swedish goal is to get EU agreement on measures to help developing countries convert to renewable energy and reduce their emissions.
The Copenhagen conference is intended to map out a new global climate agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.
LISBON TREATY
Institutional uncertainty overshadows the Swedish presidency, because the Lisbon Treaty has not yet been ratified by all member states. Much depends on the Republic of Ireland's second referendum, expected in October. A win for the "Yes" camp would give the treaty a good chance of coming into effect this year.
Under Lisbon, the six-monthly rotating EU presidency would be replaced by one that runs for two-and-a-half years, there would be a powerful new foreign affairs chief and the European Parliament would gain wider powers.
The treaty would give the parliament a bigger say over the appointment of the new European Commission and would boost the number of Euro MPs from 736 to 754.
BALTIC SEA CO-OPERATION
Sweden says it wants joint EU efforts to tackle pollution in the Baltic Sea and to revive economic activity in the region, which has been hit hard by the financial crisis.
"The objective is to adopt an EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea which will contribute to a cleaner sea and make the region more economically dynamic," the Swedish government says.
IMMIGRATION
Sweden plans to promote a common asylum policy "characterised by legal certainty and transparency".
It wants to boost EU co-operation on migration through a "Stockholm Programme," covering border controls, visa policy, asylum and law enforcement.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Iran at a turning point
By Roula Khalaf, Najmeh Bozorgmehr and Anna Fifield
They are outraged and they are desperate for change. But look at the faces of many of Iran’s protesters, and they appear cheerful. Despite the deaths of the past week, the arrests and the beatings, they have kept a smile on their faces as they raise their hands in a victory sign.
As the crisis over the disputed presidential election result has unfolded – posing the biggest challenge to the Islamic Republic since its founding in 1979 and taking the world by storm – hopes for a move towards a more reformist, tolerant Islamic regime have rested on the hundreds of thousands who have taken to the streets. Many of them are young and ambitious for their country, demanding above all that they be respected.
In a country not known for displays of happiness – it was a novelty in the late 1990s to have a president (the reformist Mohammad Khatami) who smiled – the outcome of the election eight days ago, which declared hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad the winner, is seen as one affront too many by those who voted for Mir-Hossein Moussavi, the reformist candidate. “They took us for fools,” is a common refrain.
For a youthful, educated population, it appears a wall of fear has been shattered, releasing them from years of bottled-up frustration. Mohsen Rezaei, a conservative candidate in the presidential election, has spoken of a “phenomenon” in this election. “People valued their votes so much as if it was their honour,” he says.
No one doubts the crisis is a turning point. The country, says Gary Sick, an expert on Iran from Columbia University, has entered “an entirely new phase of its post-revolution history”. The one characteristic that has always distinguished it from other authoritarian regimes of the Middle East, he says, “was its respect for the voice of the people, even when that voice was saying things that much of the leadership did not want to hear”.
But the shift will be tumultuous. The regime has no intention of giving in to demands for a new vote and no appetite for compromise. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, supreme leader, made clear in an address on Friday that the election result would not be altered and protests would not be tolerated.
“Even if this fire is extinguished, the government will lack a popular base and people will obstruct its policies,” warns one political activist in the country.
The real size of Mr Moussavi’s support is impossible to gauge, and the president retains popularity – particularly among religious radicals, the poor and the rural population, whom he has assiduously courted with his populist policies. But the divisions in society so starkly illustrated this week will not go away, and they have been mirrored within the regime itself.
Mr Moussavi is no secular politician. He was an active participant in the 1979 revolution. His candidacy had attracted backing from Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, the powerful former president, and other conservatives, including segments of the clerical establishment. Strongly behind him, too, was the reformist camp, which believes that in order for the revolution to survive, its system – part theocracy and part democracy – must re-engage with society, giving it wider freedom and accountability.
Some commentators have described the election as a palace coup, engineered by the hardline wing of the regime, represented by the military establishment that backs Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, and supported by the supreme leader, who is the ultimate authority in the country. The aim, say these commentators, was to destroy the reform movement and either control and manage any opening up to the US, now that President Barack Obama is seeking engagement with Iran, or thwart it altogether.
The passionate protests, and their style, have conjured up images of 1979, but their outcome need not be the same. The silent, solemn marches; the cries of Allahu Akbar (“God is Great”) from rooftops at night, used in 1979 to notify the authorities that no one is above God and symbolically reminding today’s regime of that time; and the lashing out of the authorities – all remind Iranians of the revolution. The organisation of rallies, too, has gone back to the primitive ways of the revolution, amid unprecedented restrictions on high-technology media such as Twitter, the social networking service. “We’ve been sending motorcycles to the streets to tell people about the rallies, we have to transfer information face to face,” says one person involved in the protests.
But whether the crisis will provoke a larger protest movement that shakes the power structure more deeply, or a total consolidation of power by hardliners, as Mr Khamenei hinted on Friday , is difficult to judge.
Just as there are similarities with the revolution, there are also stark differences – not least that the western world is cheering not for the shah but for the demonstrators.
As the political activist who took part in the revolution says, it was led by a charismatic religious leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had an extraordinary ability to mobilise segments of a fractured society while in exile. He was relentless in both method and ambition for an overthrow of the shah. “But now there is no leader,” says the activist, “and Moussavi wants to lead protests peacefully.”
. . .
Mr Moussavi, out of the political establishment since he served as prime minister in the 1980s, has been surprisingly bold in his statements in the past week. So far he has appeared to be led by the street, which has mobilised for protests even when he issues a statement postponing a rally. At least some support, moreover, is less for him than against Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, seen by large parts of the educated middle class as having destroyed both the foundation of the economy, provoking rampant inflation, and its image abroad.
The main target of protesters this week has been Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, who has a popular support base and is not, in any case, the real decision-maker in the country. Although few doubt that the authority of the supreme leader remains solid, some analysts say that even he may not be in full control of his troops, not least the powerful Revolutionary Guard. Clearly taken by surprise by the intensity of the unrest, which spread to other parts of the country, the regime has been scrambling for ways to damp the protests, lashing out with arrests, beatings and attacks.
During much of the day Tehran has looked normal, with residents going about their daily business. But it has been gripped by rally fever in late afternoons. Most evenings, particularly in the north of the city, home to the elite who turn out in force, the tensions have been at their highest.
Plain-clothes Basiji, members of the feared Islamic militia, holding shields, and wielding batons, deploy in the streets, sometimes setting up checkpoints. Their task seems to have been to chase and punish protesters as they dispersed from rallies and return home. The government says eight people have died in the past week; Amnesty International puts the death toll at 15.
The regime has been working hard to ensure that the rallies will peter out, as fear of violence and retribution spread. Friday’s speech by the supreme leader, warning people to stop their protests and portraying any domestic unrest as playing into the hands of the enemy, was the most dramatic move to silence the streets.
Analysts and diplomats, however, say that, unlike the unrest of 1999, the last serious crisis in Iran that involved a student uprising, tougher repression today carries a much higher cost, as it would have to target so many segments of the population, all of which have relatives in the security forces.
The stance of Mr Moussavi, torn between his supporters’ demands and the consequences of widespread repression, will be crucial.
“Will Moussavi end up standing with the regime and deciding to end this, or will he follow his troops and stay with them? Will he become more radical and challenge the regime even more?” asks a western diplomat.
The fear in Tehran is that the regime’s actions will turn the peaceful demonstrators, now still focused on a demand for a rerun of the vote and reform of the system, into a more radicalised opposition that wants an end to the Islamic system itself. With society divided, part of it deeply wounded by the election, and the regime under strain, the country could face a prolonged period of unrest. The dispute over the election could bode ill for western governments hoping to curb the fast-progressing nuclear programme, and at least delay US intentions to engage.
“With his speech, the leader has put himself against the people,” says one young Iranian who has participated in daily protests. “The regime does not understand that this wave is driven by people, not by politicians.”
“The regime has taken a big hit,” notes the western diplomat. “But the hardliners also think any concession would be the beginning of their end.”
They are outraged and they are desperate for change. But look at the faces of many of Iran’s protesters, and they appear cheerful. Despite the deaths of the past week, the arrests and the beatings, they have kept a smile on their faces as they raise their hands in a victory sign.
As the crisis over the disputed presidential election result has unfolded – posing the biggest challenge to the Islamic Republic since its founding in 1979 and taking the world by storm – hopes for a move towards a more reformist, tolerant Islamic regime have rested on the hundreds of thousands who have taken to the streets. Many of them are young and ambitious for their country, demanding above all that they be respected.
In a country not known for displays of happiness – it was a novelty in the late 1990s to have a president (the reformist Mohammad Khatami) who smiled – the outcome of the election eight days ago, which declared hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad the winner, is seen as one affront too many by those who voted for Mir-Hossein Moussavi, the reformist candidate. “They took us for fools,” is a common refrain.
For a youthful, educated population, it appears a wall of fear has been shattered, releasing them from years of bottled-up frustration. Mohsen Rezaei, a conservative candidate in the presidential election, has spoken of a “phenomenon” in this election. “People valued their votes so much as if it was their honour,” he says.
No one doubts the crisis is a turning point. The country, says Gary Sick, an expert on Iran from Columbia University, has entered “an entirely new phase of its post-revolution history”. The one characteristic that has always distinguished it from other authoritarian regimes of the Middle East, he says, “was its respect for the voice of the people, even when that voice was saying things that much of the leadership did not want to hear”.
But the shift will be tumultuous. The regime has no intention of giving in to demands for a new vote and no appetite for compromise. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, supreme leader, made clear in an address on Friday that the election result would not be altered and protests would not be tolerated.
“Even if this fire is extinguished, the government will lack a popular base and people will obstruct its policies,” warns one political activist in the country.
The real size of Mr Moussavi’s support is impossible to gauge, and the president retains popularity – particularly among religious radicals, the poor and the rural population, whom he has assiduously courted with his populist policies. But the divisions in society so starkly illustrated this week will not go away, and they have been mirrored within the regime itself.
Mr Moussavi is no secular politician. He was an active participant in the 1979 revolution. His candidacy had attracted backing from Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, the powerful former president, and other conservatives, including segments of the clerical establishment. Strongly behind him, too, was the reformist camp, which believes that in order for the revolution to survive, its system – part theocracy and part democracy – must re-engage with society, giving it wider freedom and accountability.
Some commentators have described the election as a palace coup, engineered by the hardline wing of the regime, represented by the military establishment that backs Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, and supported by the supreme leader, who is the ultimate authority in the country. The aim, say these commentators, was to destroy the reform movement and either control and manage any opening up to the US, now that President Barack Obama is seeking engagement with Iran, or thwart it altogether.
The passionate protests, and their style, have conjured up images of 1979, but their outcome need not be the same. The silent, solemn marches; the cries of Allahu Akbar (“God is Great”) from rooftops at night, used in 1979 to notify the authorities that no one is above God and symbolically reminding today’s regime of that time; and the lashing out of the authorities – all remind Iranians of the revolution. The organisation of rallies, too, has gone back to the primitive ways of the revolution, amid unprecedented restrictions on high-technology media such as Twitter, the social networking service. “We’ve been sending motorcycles to the streets to tell people about the rallies, we have to transfer information face to face,” says one person involved in the protests.
But whether the crisis will provoke a larger protest movement that shakes the power structure more deeply, or a total consolidation of power by hardliners, as Mr Khamenei hinted on Friday , is difficult to judge.
Just as there are similarities with the revolution, there are also stark differences – not least that the western world is cheering not for the shah but for the demonstrators.
As the political activist who took part in the revolution says, it was led by a charismatic religious leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had an extraordinary ability to mobilise segments of a fractured society while in exile. He was relentless in both method and ambition for an overthrow of the shah. “But now there is no leader,” says the activist, “and Moussavi wants to lead protests peacefully.”
. . .
Mr Moussavi, out of the political establishment since he served as prime minister in the 1980s, has been surprisingly bold in his statements in the past week. So far he has appeared to be led by the street, which has mobilised for protests even when he issues a statement postponing a rally. At least some support, moreover, is less for him than against Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, seen by large parts of the educated middle class as having destroyed both the foundation of the economy, provoking rampant inflation, and its image abroad.
The main target of protesters this week has been Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, who has a popular support base and is not, in any case, the real decision-maker in the country. Although few doubt that the authority of the supreme leader remains solid, some analysts say that even he may not be in full control of his troops, not least the powerful Revolutionary Guard. Clearly taken by surprise by the intensity of the unrest, which spread to other parts of the country, the regime has been scrambling for ways to damp the protests, lashing out with arrests, beatings and attacks.
During much of the day Tehran has looked normal, with residents going about their daily business. But it has been gripped by rally fever in late afternoons. Most evenings, particularly in the north of the city, home to the elite who turn out in force, the tensions have been at their highest.
Plain-clothes Basiji, members of the feared Islamic militia, holding shields, and wielding batons, deploy in the streets, sometimes setting up checkpoints. Their task seems to have been to chase and punish protesters as they dispersed from rallies and return home. The government says eight people have died in the past week; Amnesty International puts the death toll at 15.
The regime has been working hard to ensure that the rallies will peter out, as fear of violence and retribution spread. Friday’s speech by the supreme leader, warning people to stop their protests and portraying any domestic unrest as playing into the hands of the enemy, was the most dramatic move to silence the streets.
Analysts and diplomats, however, say that, unlike the unrest of 1999, the last serious crisis in Iran that involved a student uprising, tougher repression today carries a much higher cost, as it would have to target so many segments of the population, all of which have relatives in the security forces.
The stance of Mr Moussavi, torn between his supporters’ demands and the consequences of widespread repression, will be crucial.
“Will Moussavi end up standing with the regime and deciding to end this, or will he follow his troops and stay with them? Will he become more radical and challenge the regime even more?” asks a western diplomat.
The fear in Tehran is that the regime’s actions will turn the peaceful demonstrators, now still focused on a demand for a rerun of the vote and reform of the system, into a more radicalised opposition that wants an end to the Islamic system itself. With society divided, part of it deeply wounded by the election, and the regime under strain, the country could face a prolonged period of unrest. The dispute over the election could bode ill for western governments hoping to curb the fast-progressing nuclear programme, and at least delay US intentions to engage.
“With his speech, the leader has put himself against the people,” says one young Iranian who has participated in daily protests. “The regime does not understand that this wave is driven by people, not by politicians.”
“The regime has taken a big hit,” notes the western diplomat. “But the hardliners also think any concession would be the beginning of their end.”
Iran’s Children of Tomorrow
By ROGER COHEN
TEHRAN — They are known mockingly as the “Joojeh Basiji” — the “chicken Basiji.” These are the militia scarcely old enough to manage more than a feeble beard. Teenagers, brainwashed from early childhood, they have been ferried into the capital in large numbers, given a club and a shield and a helmet and told to go to work.
I saw them throughout downtown Tehran on Sunday, seated in the back of grey pick-ups. I saw them, sporting sleeveless camouflage vests, in clusters on corners, leaning on trees, even lolling shoeless on the grass in the central island of Revolution Square.
They were far from alone in a city in military lockdown. Elite riot police with thigh-length black leg guards, helmeted Revolutionary Guards in green uniforms and rifle-touting snipers composed a panoply of menace. The message to protesters was clear: Gather at your peril.
That threat had already been rammed home Saturday evening, when a student named Neda Agha Soltan was killed by a single shot. Her last moments were captured on video that has gone global. Martyrdom is a powerful force in the world of Shia Islam. Mourning on the 3rd and 7th and 40th days after a death form a galvanizing cycle.
Neda is already another name for the anger smoldering here, whose expression, in my experience, has been bravest, deepest and most vivid among women. She could become Iran’s Marianne.
Tehran, cradled in its mountainous amphitheater, is holding its breath. Sunday was quiet and Monday dawned quiet but between them the defiant cries of “Death to the dictator” and “Allah-u-Akbar” reverberated between high-rises once again.
In this pregnant lull, I keep hearing three questions: Will Mir Hussein Moussavi lead? How powerful are the internal divisions of the revolutionary establishment? And what is the ultimate goal of the uprising? On the answer to them will hinge the outcome of this latest fervid expression of Iran’s centennial quest for pluralistic freedom.
After the shootings Saturday that took several lives, Moussavi seemed absent. The bespectacled revolutionary leader thrust now into defiance was silent. People risking their lives craved guidance. Disappointed in 1999 and 2003 by the legalistic kowtowing of the reformist former president, Mohammad Khatami, they feared resignation redux.
Then, early Monday, Moussavi spoke. “Protesting to lies and fraud is your right,” he said, referring to the preposterous manipulation of the June 12 election and laying down the gauntlet again to the once sacrosanct pronouncements of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader invested by the Islamic Revolution with an authority close to the Prophet’s. Last Friday, Khamenei said: “I want everyone to end this sort of action.”
Khamenei also said, “Trust in the Islamic Republic became evident in these elections.”
In fact I believe the loss of trust by millions of Iranians who’d been prepared to tolerate a system they disliked, provided they had a small margin of freedom, constitutes the core political earthquake in Iran. Moderates who once worked the angles are now muttering about making Molotov cocktails and screaming their lungs out after dusk.
Moussavi is trying to calm their rage and coax the multiple security forces to his side. Restraint was the core appeal of his Monday statement. He urged his followers to avoid violence and adopt parental forbearance before the “misbehavior” of security forces — an appropriate reference given all the teenage thugs out there.
I think Moussavi is right to avoid extreme positions even as Khamenei has deliberately radicalized the conflict. He’s right because his moderation fans internal divisions that seem rampant. Any counterrevolutionary stance, at least at this point, would have the opposite effect.
Which brings me to the fight within. On Sunday, I saw Mehdi Hashemi Rafsanjani, the son of the establishment’s embittered éminence grise, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. He told me his father, who despises President Mahmoud Adhmadinejad, is fighting a furious rearguard action to have the election annulled by the Guardian Council, the 12-member oversight body that will pronounce this week on the election’s legality.
The ruling had seemed a formality, given Khamenei’s summary dismissal of a recount and the loyalist composition of the body, but the Council is now talking about irregularities in 50 cities and discrepancies that could affect 3 million votes. Out of a total of 40 million votes, that’s a significant number.
There are rumblings from the influential parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani, who is close to Khamenei but not Ahmadinejad. With Rafsanjani, Khatami and the defeated conservative former Revolutionary Guard leader, Mohsen Rezai, the dissenting front has breadth. Rezai, who officially won 680,000 votes, says more than 900,000 voters have written to him with their ID numbers saying they cast their ballot for him.
The third question — the strategic goal of the uprising — is increasingly fraught. Khamenei said, “The dispute is not between the revolution and the counterrevolution,” and that all four electoral candidates “belong to the system.” He was right, if his words had been spoken the day after the vote.
Ten days on, however, the brutal use of force and his own polarizing speech have drawn many more Iranians toward an absolutist stance. Having wanted their votes counted, they now want wholesale change. If Moussavi wants to prevail, he must keep his followers tactically focused on securing a new election. That’s essential because it’s the one position the opposition within the clerical establishment will go along with.
Whatever happens now, all is changed utterly in Iran. Opacity, a force of the Islamic Republic, has yielded to a riveting transparency in which one side confronts another. The online youth of Iran will not be reconciled to a regime that touts global “ethics” and “justice” while trampling on them at home.
I received this from an anonymous Iranian student: “I will participate in the demonstrations tomorrow. Maybe they will turn violent. Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to be killed. I’m listening to all my favorite music. I even want to dance to a few songs. I always wanted to have very narrow eyebrows. Yes, maybe I will go to the salon before I go tomorrow!”
And she concludes: “I wrote these random sentences for the next generation so that they know we were not just emotional under peer pressure. So they know that we did everything we could to create a better future for them. So they know that our ancestors surrendered to Arabs and Mogols but did not surrender to despotism. This note is dedicated to tomorrow’s children.”
I bow my head to the youth of Iran, the youth that is open-eyed, bold and far stronger and more numerous than the near-beardless vigilantes.
TEHRAN — They are known mockingly as the “Joojeh Basiji” — the “chicken Basiji.” These are the militia scarcely old enough to manage more than a feeble beard. Teenagers, brainwashed from early childhood, they have been ferried into the capital in large numbers, given a club and a shield and a helmet and told to go to work.
I saw them throughout downtown Tehran on Sunday, seated in the back of grey pick-ups. I saw them, sporting sleeveless camouflage vests, in clusters on corners, leaning on trees, even lolling shoeless on the grass in the central island of Revolution Square.
They were far from alone in a city in military lockdown. Elite riot police with thigh-length black leg guards, helmeted Revolutionary Guards in green uniforms and rifle-touting snipers composed a panoply of menace. The message to protesters was clear: Gather at your peril.
That threat had already been rammed home Saturday evening, when a student named Neda Agha Soltan was killed by a single shot. Her last moments were captured on video that has gone global. Martyrdom is a powerful force in the world of Shia Islam. Mourning on the 3rd and 7th and 40th days after a death form a galvanizing cycle.
Neda is already another name for the anger smoldering here, whose expression, in my experience, has been bravest, deepest and most vivid among women. She could become Iran’s Marianne.
Tehran, cradled in its mountainous amphitheater, is holding its breath. Sunday was quiet and Monday dawned quiet but between them the defiant cries of “Death to the dictator” and “Allah-u-Akbar” reverberated between high-rises once again.
In this pregnant lull, I keep hearing three questions: Will Mir Hussein Moussavi lead? How powerful are the internal divisions of the revolutionary establishment? And what is the ultimate goal of the uprising? On the answer to them will hinge the outcome of this latest fervid expression of Iran’s centennial quest for pluralistic freedom.
After the shootings Saturday that took several lives, Moussavi seemed absent. The bespectacled revolutionary leader thrust now into defiance was silent. People risking their lives craved guidance. Disappointed in 1999 and 2003 by the legalistic kowtowing of the reformist former president, Mohammad Khatami, they feared resignation redux.
Then, early Monday, Moussavi spoke. “Protesting to lies and fraud is your right,” he said, referring to the preposterous manipulation of the June 12 election and laying down the gauntlet again to the once sacrosanct pronouncements of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader invested by the Islamic Revolution with an authority close to the Prophet’s. Last Friday, Khamenei said: “I want everyone to end this sort of action.”
Khamenei also said, “Trust in the Islamic Republic became evident in these elections.”
In fact I believe the loss of trust by millions of Iranians who’d been prepared to tolerate a system they disliked, provided they had a small margin of freedom, constitutes the core political earthquake in Iran. Moderates who once worked the angles are now muttering about making Molotov cocktails and screaming their lungs out after dusk.
Moussavi is trying to calm their rage and coax the multiple security forces to his side. Restraint was the core appeal of his Monday statement. He urged his followers to avoid violence and adopt parental forbearance before the “misbehavior” of security forces — an appropriate reference given all the teenage thugs out there.
I think Moussavi is right to avoid extreme positions even as Khamenei has deliberately radicalized the conflict. He’s right because his moderation fans internal divisions that seem rampant. Any counterrevolutionary stance, at least at this point, would have the opposite effect.
Which brings me to the fight within. On Sunday, I saw Mehdi Hashemi Rafsanjani, the son of the establishment’s embittered éminence grise, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. He told me his father, who despises President Mahmoud Adhmadinejad, is fighting a furious rearguard action to have the election annulled by the Guardian Council, the 12-member oversight body that will pronounce this week on the election’s legality.
The ruling had seemed a formality, given Khamenei’s summary dismissal of a recount and the loyalist composition of the body, but the Council is now talking about irregularities in 50 cities and discrepancies that could affect 3 million votes. Out of a total of 40 million votes, that’s a significant number.
There are rumblings from the influential parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani, who is close to Khamenei but not Ahmadinejad. With Rafsanjani, Khatami and the defeated conservative former Revolutionary Guard leader, Mohsen Rezai, the dissenting front has breadth. Rezai, who officially won 680,000 votes, says more than 900,000 voters have written to him with their ID numbers saying they cast their ballot for him.
The third question — the strategic goal of the uprising — is increasingly fraught. Khamenei said, “The dispute is not between the revolution and the counterrevolution,” and that all four electoral candidates “belong to the system.” He was right, if his words had been spoken the day after the vote.
Ten days on, however, the brutal use of force and his own polarizing speech have drawn many more Iranians toward an absolutist stance. Having wanted their votes counted, they now want wholesale change. If Moussavi wants to prevail, he must keep his followers tactically focused on securing a new election. That’s essential because it’s the one position the opposition within the clerical establishment will go along with.
Whatever happens now, all is changed utterly in Iran. Opacity, a force of the Islamic Republic, has yielded to a riveting transparency in which one side confronts another. The online youth of Iran will not be reconciled to a regime that touts global “ethics” and “justice” while trampling on them at home.
I received this from an anonymous Iranian student: “I will participate in the demonstrations tomorrow. Maybe they will turn violent. Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to be killed. I’m listening to all my favorite music. I even want to dance to a few songs. I always wanted to have very narrow eyebrows. Yes, maybe I will go to the salon before I go tomorrow!”
And she concludes: “I wrote these random sentences for the next generation so that they know we were not just emotional under peer pressure. So they know that we did everything we could to create a better future for them. So they know that our ancestors surrendered to Arabs and Mogols but did not surrender to despotism. This note is dedicated to tomorrow’s children.”
I bow my head to the youth of Iran, the youth that is open-eyed, bold and far stronger and more numerous than the near-beardless vigilantes.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Foreign relations: Ankara builds a role as regional peacemaker
By Daniel Dombey
Ahmet Davutoglu paints a picture of the world with Turkey at its centre.
Recently appointed foreign minister – he was previously a close adviser to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister – Mr Davutoglu lists several of the planet’s most important disputes and proceeds to explain why his country is key to solving them.
In the Middle East, Turkey maintains good relationships with a range of countries – including Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia – and last year Mr Davutoglu spearheaded efforts to foster a Syrian-Israeli peace deal.
Turkish soldiers serve in Afghanistan and the country has hosted trilateral meetings with both Afghanistan and Pakistan. If President Barack Obama is to withdraw US forces in Iraq, as he has promised, his military will use its base in Incirlik, Turkey, to do so. And when the discussion turns to the financial crisis, Turkey is at the table, as a member of the G20.
“North Korea was the one thing with which we were not involved,” Mr Davutoglu told journalists in Washington. “But now as the United Nations Security Council president [for the month of June] we have to deal with that as well.”
That global role makes Turkey all the more important a partner of the US, he adds, and he is quick to argue that the new US president has reached the same conclusion.
He stresses Mr Obama visited Ankara and Istanbul little more than two months into his presidency – “it shows how the new US administration perceives Turkey’s significance” – and remarks that some Turks were so taken with Mr Obama’s election last November that they sacrificed sheep in celebration.
But most of all, Mr Davutoglu dwells on Mr Obama’s suggestion, in a press conference with Abdullah Gul, Turkey’s president, that the two countries could form a “model partnership”.
Mr Obama spoke of how Turkey, a predominantly Muslim nation, and the US, a predominantly Christian nation, both of which have secular constitutional frameworks, “can create a modern international community that is… respectful of rule of law, respectful of freedom, upholding these values and being willing to stand up for them in the international stage.”
Many of Mr Obama’s advisers, including Richard Holbrooke, special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, James Jones, national security adviser, and George Mitchell, Middle East envoy, have also identified Turkey as an important country in achieving their respective goals.
But none of that means that Turkish-US relations, much less Turkish relations with the rest of the world, are untroubled or have always flowed smoothly. The presidency of George W. Bush and in particular the Iraq war and the failed attempt by the US to use Turkey to send troops into that country, have left their mark. According to Pew Research, the proportion of Turks with a favourable image of the US fell from 52 per cent in 1999-2000 to 9 per cent in 2007, before a slight uptick to 12 per cent in 2008.
Nor was the success of Mr Obama’s own visit to Turkey a sure thing. Before his arrival there were jitters in Ankara about whether he would follow a campaign pledge and identify the massacre of up to 1.5m Armenians from 1915 on as genocide.
Turkey, which denies that the deaths were any such thing, has long warned that relations would suffer if the term were used by a US president or Congress. In the event, Mr Obama said his views had not changed – without saying the word.
“There’s a floor below which US-Turkish relations do not go for various reasons and there is a ceiling beyond which they cannot go,” says Bulent Aliriza, director of the Turkey Project at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington thinktank. “At the moment we are closer to the top than the bottom. But could we say the relationship is as firm as it was during the Cold War when there was a common enemy? I would say no, because this is an era of uncertainties.”
Moreover, the goal that Mr Davutoglu identifies as Turkey’s “main strategic objective” – membership of the European Union – appears considerably more remote than it did several years ago, with the leaders of France, Germany and Austria set against it.
US influence reaches much less into Turkey than the EU did in its heyday, as at root Washington views Ankara as a strategic partner with influence in the Middle East and beyond, while the fundamental concern of the EU accession process is domestic reform that can make a country ready for membership.
Mr Aliriza adds that the reason for Mr Obama’s stance on the genocide issue – Turkey’s effort to improve relations with Armenia – is less copper-bottomed than the arguments made by past presidents, who cited national security as the rationale for avoiding the term. If the Armenian talks should falter, the issue may recur.
Even now, a US Congressional resolution denouncing genocide is backed by 125 members of the House of Representatives, but may not come to a vote. Mr Davutoglu, sounding a less sanguine note, says such a resolution would be “very destructive”.
Ahmet Davutoglu paints a picture of the world with Turkey at its centre.
Recently appointed foreign minister – he was previously a close adviser to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister – Mr Davutoglu lists several of the planet’s most important disputes and proceeds to explain why his country is key to solving them.
In the Middle East, Turkey maintains good relationships with a range of countries – including Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia – and last year Mr Davutoglu spearheaded efforts to foster a Syrian-Israeli peace deal.
Turkish soldiers serve in Afghanistan and the country has hosted trilateral meetings with both Afghanistan and Pakistan. If President Barack Obama is to withdraw US forces in Iraq, as he has promised, his military will use its base in Incirlik, Turkey, to do so. And when the discussion turns to the financial crisis, Turkey is at the table, as a member of the G20.
“North Korea was the one thing with which we were not involved,” Mr Davutoglu told journalists in Washington. “But now as the United Nations Security Council president [for the month of June] we have to deal with that as well.”
That global role makes Turkey all the more important a partner of the US, he adds, and he is quick to argue that the new US president has reached the same conclusion.
He stresses Mr Obama visited Ankara and Istanbul little more than two months into his presidency – “it shows how the new US administration perceives Turkey’s significance” – and remarks that some Turks were so taken with Mr Obama’s election last November that they sacrificed sheep in celebration.
But most of all, Mr Davutoglu dwells on Mr Obama’s suggestion, in a press conference with Abdullah Gul, Turkey’s president, that the two countries could form a “model partnership”.
Mr Obama spoke of how Turkey, a predominantly Muslim nation, and the US, a predominantly Christian nation, both of which have secular constitutional frameworks, “can create a modern international community that is… respectful of rule of law, respectful of freedom, upholding these values and being willing to stand up for them in the international stage.”
Many of Mr Obama’s advisers, including Richard Holbrooke, special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, James Jones, national security adviser, and George Mitchell, Middle East envoy, have also identified Turkey as an important country in achieving their respective goals.
But none of that means that Turkish-US relations, much less Turkish relations with the rest of the world, are untroubled or have always flowed smoothly. The presidency of George W. Bush and in particular the Iraq war and the failed attempt by the US to use Turkey to send troops into that country, have left their mark. According to Pew Research, the proportion of Turks with a favourable image of the US fell from 52 per cent in 1999-2000 to 9 per cent in 2007, before a slight uptick to 12 per cent in 2008.
Nor was the success of Mr Obama’s own visit to Turkey a sure thing. Before his arrival there were jitters in Ankara about whether he would follow a campaign pledge and identify the massacre of up to 1.5m Armenians from 1915 on as genocide.
Turkey, which denies that the deaths were any such thing, has long warned that relations would suffer if the term were used by a US president or Congress. In the event, Mr Obama said his views had not changed – without saying the word.
“There’s a floor below which US-Turkish relations do not go for various reasons and there is a ceiling beyond which they cannot go,” says Bulent Aliriza, director of the Turkey Project at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington thinktank. “At the moment we are closer to the top than the bottom. But could we say the relationship is as firm as it was during the Cold War when there was a common enemy? I would say no, because this is an era of uncertainties.”
Moreover, the goal that Mr Davutoglu identifies as Turkey’s “main strategic objective” – membership of the European Union – appears considerably more remote than it did several years ago, with the leaders of France, Germany and Austria set against it.
US influence reaches much less into Turkey than the EU did in its heyday, as at root Washington views Ankara as a strategic partner with influence in the Middle East and beyond, while the fundamental concern of the EU accession process is domestic reform that can make a country ready for membership.
Mr Aliriza adds that the reason for Mr Obama’s stance on the genocide issue – Turkey’s effort to improve relations with Armenia – is less copper-bottomed than the arguments made by past presidents, who cited national security as the rationale for avoiding the term. If the Armenian talks should falter, the issue may recur.
Even now, a US Congressional resolution denouncing genocide is backed by 125 members of the House of Representatives, but may not come to a vote. Mr Davutoglu, sounding a less sanguine note, says such a resolution would be “very destructive”.
Far right exploits rising insecurity
By Vincent Boland in Milan, Michael Steen and Thomas Escritt
The far right made gains in the elections to the European parliament, with voters in Italy, the UK, Hungary and the Netherlands, among others, supporting candidates who espoused explicitly anti-immigrant, anti-Islamic and hardline nationalist platforms.
Italy’s Northern League, stridently anti-foreigner, more than doubled its share of the vote to 10.2 per cent and won eight seats. In Hungary, the Jobbik party, with its anti-gypsy platform, won three seats. In the Netherlands, the Freedom party of Geert Wilders, the maverick politician who has become the face of anti-Islamic sentiment across Europe, won four seats.
In the UK, the anti-Islamic British National party (BNP) won its first two European parliamentary seats amid widespread disaffection with the ruling Labour party among white voters in the depressed industrial north.
Analysts said there was a pattern to the rise of the far right: it was able to exploit what seems to be a rising sense of insecurity and hostility to immigrants. Writing in Corriere della Sera, the political commentator Massimo Franco said the rise in support for the Northern League “legitimises a politics that is shared by xenophobic forces that are on the rise nearly everywhere, especially in Holland and Austria”.
High on most far-right parties’ to-do lists, however, is keeping Turkey out of the EU. Roberto Cota, a senior Northern League official, said the party would be working “above all to block illegal immigration and the entry of Turkey into the Union”.
The challenge for these parties now, analysts said, was to form a coherent grouping in the European parliament, given the unpredictable nature of many of their MEPs. Mr Wilders will not take up a seat himself, and he said his MEPs would co-operate “if other parties have good proposals”, though the party is likely to want to maintain some distance from other far right parties.
Jobbik intends to set up a new political bloc in co-operation with the BNP.
The BNP confirmed this move, and said it was also exploring tie-ups with Jean-Marie Le Pen’s Front Nationale in France, Austria’s Freedom Party and Vlaams Belang of Flanders. The party would also approach the Dutch Freedom Party, a spokesman said, though agreeing on a leader for the bloc could prove difficult.
Jobbik has ruled out co-operation with the Greater Romania Party, which won three seats, or the Slovak National party, which won a seat, because both are fiercely anti-Hungarian.
The far right made gains in the elections to the European parliament, with voters in Italy, the UK, Hungary and the Netherlands, among others, supporting candidates who espoused explicitly anti-immigrant, anti-Islamic and hardline nationalist platforms.
Italy’s Northern League, stridently anti-foreigner, more than doubled its share of the vote to 10.2 per cent and won eight seats. In Hungary, the Jobbik party, with its anti-gypsy platform, won three seats. In the Netherlands, the Freedom party of Geert Wilders, the maverick politician who has become the face of anti-Islamic sentiment across Europe, won four seats.
In the UK, the anti-Islamic British National party (BNP) won its first two European parliamentary seats amid widespread disaffection with the ruling Labour party among white voters in the depressed industrial north.
Analysts said there was a pattern to the rise of the far right: it was able to exploit what seems to be a rising sense of insecurity and hostility to immigrants. Writing in Corriere della Sera, the political commentator Massimo Franco said the rise in support for the Northern League “legitimises a politics that is shared by xenophobic forces that are on the rise nearly everywhere, especially in Holland and Austria”.
High on most far-right parties’ to-do lists, however, is keeping Turkey out of the EU. Roberto Cota, a senior Northern League official, said the party would be working “above all to block illegal immigration and the entry of Turkey into the Union”.
The challenge for these parties now, analysts said, was to form a coherent grouping in the European parliament, given the unpredictable nature of many of their MEPs. Mr Wilders will not take up a seat himself, and he said his MEPs would co-operate “if other parties have good proposals”, though the party is likely to want to maintain some distance from other far right parties.
Jobbik intends to set up a new political bloc in co-operation with the BNP.
The BNP confirmed this move, and said it was also exploring tie-ups with Jean-Marie Le Pen’s Front Nationale in France, Austria’s Freedom Party and Vlaams Belang of Flanders. The party would also approach the Dutch Freedom Party, a spokesman said, though agreeing on a leader for the bloc could prove difficult.
Jobbik has ruled out co-operation with the Greater Romania Party, which won three seats, or the Slovak National party, which won a seat, because both are fiercely anti-Hungarian.
Parties mull election implications
Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis (above) makes a televised address following defeat in Sunday’s election. A worker cleans up (left) at New Democracy’s election center in Athens. Sources said yesterday the premier is considering a reshuffle but is unlikely to call elections in the fall. He is likely to wait for PASOK to force elections in March over the presidential nomination.
The implications of Sunday’s European Parliament elections became clearer yesterday, as Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis pondered his next move following his first defeat at the polls to PASOK leader George Papandreou, although the results also gave the Socialists plenty of food for thought.
The final confirmed results had PASOK 4.3 percent ahead of New Democracy (36.6 to 32.3), but the fact that only 52.6 percent of almost 10 million eligible voters cast their ballots meant that it was difficult for either party to read too much into the numbers when considering what might happen in the next general election.
Although PASOK won, it attracted 195,000 fewer voters than in the European elections five years ago and 849,000 fewer than in the general elections of 2007.
The low turnout also affected ND dramatically. Almost one in two voters that supported the conservatives two years ago failed to back them this time. Almost 1 million fewer people voted for the government on Sunday than in 2004.
Karamanlis commented on the record abstention in his speech in the early hours of yesterday morning.
“It is clear that a lot of New Democracy voters chose to protest by sending us a message, mainly through abstention,” he said, promising a government that would be speedier, more decisive and effective.
Papandreou did not make reference to the stay-away vote in his speech and PASOK sources said that the party was trying to make sense of the low turnout yesterday, while not getting carried away with its victory.
Giorgos Papaconstantinou, who headed PASOK’s list of potential MEPs, said many ND supporters stayed at home because “they did not feel ready to vote for another party but wanted to protest by abstaining.” He argued that PASOK voters abstained because the opinion polls before the election had predicted a comfortable victory for the Socialists so they did not feel compelled to cast their ballots.
The prime minister met with close aides yesterday in a bid to digest the results and sources indicated that he would soon decide on a series of moves aimed at rebuilding faith in his government. These are likely to include tackling illegal immigration and boosting public order, both of which are issues where the conservatives lost votes to the right-wing Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS), which was the only parliamentary party to see its support rise. It attracted 162,000 voters in the March 2004 general election, but on Sunday 367,000 people voted for the nationalists.
The implications of Sunday’s European Parliament elections became clearer yesterday, as Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis pondered his next move following his first defeat at the polls to PASOK leader George Papandreou, although the results also gave the Socialists plenty of food for thought.
The final confirmed results had PASOK 4.3 percent ahead of New Democracy (36.6 to 32.3), but the fact that only 52.6 percent of almost 10 million eligible voters cast their ballots meant that it was difficult for either party to read too much into the numbers when considering what might happen in the next general election.
Although PASOK won, it attracted 195,000 fewer voters than in the European elections five years ago and 849,000 fewer than in the general elections of 2007.
The low turnout also affected ND dramatically. Almost one in two voters that supported the conservatives two years ago failed to back them this time. Almost 1 million fewer people voted for the government on Sunday than in 2004.
Karamanlis commented on the record abstention in his speech in the early hours of yesterday morning.
“It is clear that a lot of New Democracy voters chose to protest by sending us a message, mainly through abstention,” he said, promising a government that would be speedier, more decisive and effective.
Papandreou did not make reference to the stay-away vote in his speech and PASOK sources said that the party was trying to make sense of the low turnout yesterday, while not getting carried away with its victory.
Giorgos Papaconstantinou, who headed PASOK’s list of potential MEPs, said many ND supporters stayed at home because “they did not feel ready to vote for another party but wanted to protest by abstaining.” He argued that PASOK voters abstained because the opinion polls before the election had predicted a comfortable victory for the Socialists so they did not feel compelled to cast their ballots.
The prime minister met with close aides yesterday in a bid to digest the results and sources indicated that he would soon decide on a series of moves aimed at rebuilding faith in his government. These are likely to include tackling illegal immigration and boosting public order, both of which are issues where the conservatives lost votes to the right-wing Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS), which was the only parliamentary party to see its support rise. It attracted 162,000 voters in the March 2004 general election, but on Sunday 367,000 people voted for the nationalists.
Voters steer Europe to the right
Voters steer Europe to the right
Centre-right parties have done well in elections to the European Parliament at the expense of the left.
Far-right and anti-immigration parties also made gains, as turnout figures plunged to 43% - the lowest since direct elections began 30 years ago.
The UK Labour Party, Germany's Social Democrats and France's Socialist Party were heading for historic defeats.
The centre-right European People's Party (EPP) looks set to continue to hold power in the parliament.
Jose Manuel Barroso, who seems set for a second term as European Commission president following the centre-right success, thanked voters and assured them their voices would be heard.
"Overall, the results are an undeniable victory for those parties and candidates that support the European project and want to see the European Union delivering policy responses to their everyday concerns," he said.
Socialist leader Martin Schulz said his group's defeat would be analysed.
"It's a sad evening for social democracy in Europe. We are particularly disappointed, [it is] a bitter evening for us," he said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel praised the EPP's performance, saying: "This result shows that the core of society in Europe has become stronger."
Vice-president of the European Commission Margot Wallstrom said the low turnout was a "bad result".
Green gains
Fringe groups appear to have benefited, with far-right and anti-immigrant parties picking up seats in the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, Slovakia and Hungary. The British National Party won two seats - its first ever in a nationwide election.
Greens also made gains - the Green-European Freedom Alliance bloc has so far taken 50 seats, compared with 43 in the last assembly.
Sweden's Pirate Party, which wants to legalise internet file sharing, won 7% of the national vote and one of the country's 18 seats in the European Parliament.
Several governments battling the economic downturn are facing a heavy defeat, says the BBC's Oana Lungescu in Brussels.
However, governing parties in France and Germany appear to have done relatively well despite the crisis.
Angela Merkel described the increase in the vote of her Christian Democrats over the Social Democrats as "sensational" and said it boded well for her chances in the nation's general election in September.
In results so far:
French President Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP trounced socialist opponents, while greens from the Europe-Ecologie party also made gains
In Italy, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right People of Freedom party won most votes - 35% - although that was well below his prediction. The anti-immigrant Northern League made strong gains
In the UK, the governing Labour Party suffered a serious defeat, gaining its lowest share of the vote for a century
Spain's conservative Popular Party beat the ruling Socialists, but the four percentage point margin was lower than they had expected
Poland's governing centre-right Civic Platform gained ground at the expense of the Eurosceptic Law and Justice Party
Portugal's conservative Social Democrats secured about 31% of the vote. The ruling Socialists fell a massive 18 percentage points from the last European election, to about 26%
Austria's far right increased its vote on the last European election but was well down on its percentage in last year's national polls
Greece's Socialist party, PASOK, bucked the European trend by securing the largest vote percentage, ahead of the ruling conservatives
Voters have been choosing representatives mainly from their own national parties, many of which then join EU-wide groupings with similarly-minded parties from other countries.
The centre-right EPP retains its place as the largest grouping over the past five years, securing an estimated 264 of the 736 seats (the overall number of seats in the assembly has been reduced from 785). The socialists are on 183, while the liberal ALDE has an estimated 84.
Provisional figures released by the EU suggested turnout was at an all-time low in some countries, including France, where it dropped to 40.5%.
Lowest turnout was seen in Slovakia (19.6%) and Lithuania (20.9%), while the highest figures came from Luxembourg (91%) and and Belgium (85.9%) - both countries where voting is compulsory.
Overall turnout has fallen at each European election in the last 30 years, from a high of nearly 62% in 1979.
Centre-right parties have done well in elections to the European Parliament at the expense of the left.
Far-right and anti-immigration parties also made gains, as turnout figures plunged to 43% - the lowest since direct elections began 30 years ago.
The UK Labour Party, Germany's Social Democrats and France's Socialist Party were heading for historic defeats.
The centre-right European People's Party (EPP) looks set to continue to hold power in the parliament.
Jose Manuel Barroso, who seems set for a second term as European Commission president following the centre-right success, thanked voters and assured them their voices would be heard.
"Overall, the results are an undeniable victory for those parties and candidates that support the European project and want to see the European Union delivering policy responses to their everyday concerns," he said.
Socialist leader Martin Schulz said his group's defeat would be analysed.
"It's a sad evening for social democracy in Europe. We are particularly disappointed, [it is] a bitter evening for us," he said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel praised the EPP's performance, saying: "This result shows that the core of society in Europe has become stronger."
Vice-president of the European Commission Margot Wallstrom said the low turnout was a "bad result".
Green gains
Fringe groups appear to have benefited, with far-right and anti-immigrant parties picking up seats in the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, Slovakia and Hungary. The British National Party won two seats - its first ever in a nationwide election.
Greens also made gains - the Green-European Freedom Alliance bloc has so far taken 50 seats, compared with 43 in the last assembly.
Sweden's Pirate Party, which wants to legalise internet file sharing, won 7% of the national vote and one of the country's 18 seats in the European Parliament.
Several governments battling the economic downturn are facing a heavy defeat, says the BBC's Oana Lungescu in Brussels.
However, governing parties in France and Germany appear to have done relatively well despite the crisis.
Angela Merkel described the increase in the vote of her Christian Democrats over the Social Democrats as "sensational" and said it boded well for her chances in the nation's general election in September.
In results so far:
French President Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP trounced socialist opponents, while greens from the Europe-Ecologie party also made gains
In Italy, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right People of Freedom party won most votes - 35% - although that was well below his prediction. The anti-immigrant Northern League made strong gains
In the UK, the governing Labour Party suffered a serious defeat, gaining its lowest share of the vote for a century
Spain's conservative Popular Party beat the ruling Socialists, but the four percentage point margin was lower than they had expected
Poland's governing centre-right Civic Platform gained ground at the expense of the Eurosceptic Law and Justice Party
Portugal's conservative Social Democrats secured about 31% of the vote. The ruling Socialists fell a massive 18 percentage points from the last European election, to about 26%
Austria's far right increased its vote on the last European election but was well down on its percentage in last year's national polls
Greece's Socialist party, PASOK, bucked the European trend by securing the largest vote percentage, ahead of the ruling conservatives
Voters have been choosing representatives mainly from their own national parties, many of which then join EU-wide groupings with similarly-minded parties from other countries.
The centre-right EPP retains its place as the largest grouping over the past five years, securing an estimated 264 of the 736 seats (the overall number of seats in the assembly has been reduced from 785). The socialists are on 183, while the liberal ALDE has an estimated 84.
Provisional figures released by the EU suggested turnout was at an all-time low in some countries, including France, where it dropped to 40.5%.
Lowest turnout was seen in Slovakia (19.6%) and Lithuania (20.9%), while the highest figures came from Luxembourg (91%) and and Belgium (85.9%) - both countries where voting is compulsory.
Overall turnout has fallen at each European election in the last 30 years, from a high of nearly 62% in 1979.
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