European Parliament election results

Yesterday the voting in the European Parliament elections ended and the count generally shows that the centre-right party group has been strengthened, while many far right-wing parties and protest parties made it into the EP, such as the Swedish Pirate Party, which got one seat. Participation was as usual low in most countries. Luxembourg was at the top of the list with 91 % voting while Slovakia came last with a participation of only 19.64 %. The average of some 43 % is the lowest in the history of the European Parliament.
Results country by country may be found at The Guardian's excellent website:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/interactive/2009/jun/08/european-election-results-countries-2009

If one clicks on Norway the map says "Results not yet in", which is interesting as Norway is not a member of the European Union. But for the first time a Norwegian citizen, Eva Joly, was elected to the European Parliament, representing the party Europe Écologie, which won two of the French seats.
The election turned out to be another disaster for Britain's Labour Party - in fact even worse than expected. Labour received only 15.8 % of the votes, which is their worst result since 1910 and means that they loose 6 of their 19 MEPs. The Conservatives came first with 27.5 % and 25 MEPs, UKIP second with 16.6 % and 13 MEPs. Even the racist British National Party got 2 MEPs with 6.3 % of the votes. British results can be found here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/european-election-results-map-2009

Today Environment Minister Jane Kennedy added to Gordon Brown's agony by resigning, while former Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary Charles Falconer in an article in The Times calls on the Prime Minister to go:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6451928.ece

Also in Germany the Social Democrats did their worst election in decades, winning only 20.8 % of the votes, which may be an interesting indicator of the outcome of the country's general election in September.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,629138,00.html#ref=rss