Romania's first Euro-elections confusing

Cristian Tudor Popescu analyses the Romanians' lack of enthusiasm for the European Parliament elections. "This was the most confusing vote since free elections were introduced 17 years ago. The people - who have just acceded to the EU - had no candidates who fulfilled Brussels' criteria to choose from, i.e., who had a basic knowledge of Europe's civilisation, European laws and of at least one foreign language. The normal state of affairs would have been that at least in our first European years the seats in the European Parliament more or less corresponded to the distribution of seats in the Romanian parliament. Then each party would have been able to name its candidates according to its share of votes in parliament. But how can you expect the people to vote with enthusiasm when many of the candidates, forced to run by their parties, withdrew their candidacy as quickly as possible, as if they were going to be punished or even eliminated entirely."

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