Duitse kandidaten Europarlement zoeken de grens op (en)
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – Two prominent German MEPs are testing the limits of free speech in their EU election campaign, while Polish politicians compete for attention on the 20th anniversary of the fall of Communism.
Top German Liberal candidate, the attractive Silvana Koch-Mehrin, whose smiling face graces the party's numerous posters ahead of voting on 7 June, finds herself in Germany top newspapers over her attendance record in the European Parliament.
In April, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported that her attendance in the EU assembly was just 38.9 percent. Ms Koch-Mehrin complained that her time off for maternity leave had not been factored in and had a temporary court injunction – since lifted - taken out against the paper preventing the unflattering attendance figure, taken from an unofficial website on MEPs' records, from being mentioned.
Meanwhile, she testified that the real figure was 75 percent. Official European Parliament statistics in May cited 62 percent, however, prompting speculation about whether the MEP lied under oath as well as a wider debate on the pressure that politicians put on media if they do not like coverage.
Website netzpolitik.org has had some fun with Ms Koch-Mehrin's slogan "Für Deutschland in Europa" saying it should be changed to "Für Deutschland öfter mal nicht in Europa" (meaning "Not very often for Germany in Europe").
Leading German Socialist MEP Martin Schulz has meanwhile laid into the leader of the far-right FPO party in Austria, Heinz-Christian Strahe, campaigning on an anti-immigrant and anti-Israel platform.
"Even if this risks getting me a lawsuit – to my mind, this man is a Nazi," Mr Schulz said, Financial Times Deutschland reports.
Polls say the FPÖ will triple its share of the vote in Austria. The result, together with victories for the far-right BZÖ party and eurosceptic MEP Hans-Peter Martin, would mean that the majority of the Alpine republic's 17 MEPs would be anti-EU.
The far-right is not proving too energised in France, however. Just 1,000 or so people turned up to a 3,000-man venue for a meeting with racist octogenerian Jean Marie Le Pen on Wednesday.
In Poland, the nationalist Law and Justice party has laid aside scare stories about German World War II exiles coming to take Polish land, to focus on celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of Communism.
Law and Justice party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski and his twin brother, Polish President Lech Kaczynski, have organised a rally in Gdansk, where they are expected to showcase the party's anti-Russian politics.
The ruling Civic Platform party is set to steal the thunder at official celebrations in Krakow however, with anti-Communist heroes Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel as well German Chancellor Angela Merkel i to appear side-by-side with the centre-right Polish faction.
Surveys are showing that Civic Platform will send 26 MEPs to the EPP-ED group in the new EU parliament. Law and Justice is to double its number of deputies from seven to 15.
With voters in the UK and Netherlands on Thursday (4 June) casting ballots on the first day of the EU elections, the British Conservative party is expected to storm to victory with 26 percent, while the ruling Labour party is to come in third place on 16 percent, behind the eurosceptic UKIP faction.
The Dutch far-right Freedom Party is in second place in mainstream polls, but a shadow poll of high school students on Wednesday put the anti-immigrant and anti-Islamic faction back ahead of the Socialists by a whisker.
In France, the green Europe Ecologie party is set to come in third place on 13.5 percent, with the fourth-ranked centrist MoDem party complaining that polls are distorting political life.
Final outcome?
The final prediction of a poll-analysis project by UK and Irish academics Simon Hix and Michael Marsh says the EPP-ED will get 262 seats in the new parliament, the socialist PES will have 194, the Liberals will be on 85, a new EPP-ED splinter group will get 53, with around 50 far-right and eurosceptic MEPs also in the mix.
Visitors to the project's predict09.eu webpage also voted by 50 percent in favour of Danish socialist Poul Nyrup Rasmussen to be the next European Commission chief. Incumbent conservative Jose Manuel Barroso came in fourth place on 8 percent, after green and liberal names.
Amid ongoing reports of Bulgarianpolice busting criminal vote-selling rackets in the towns of Lom and Montana on Wednesday, one Britishcampaigner has launched a scheme to reward voters with online music.
Tamil-origin musician M.I.A., best known for her work on hit film Slumdog Millionaire, has promised on her blog that she will give one free song to everybody who votes for Jan Jananayagam, an independent candidate campaigning for a tougher European stance against the Sri Lankan government.
Online apathy in Sweden
Not all internet campaigns have met with success in the elections.
Nobody has watched the online video of Swedishcentre right leader Maud Olofsson casting her vote, Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter writes. Just six people viewed Social Democrat Olle Ludvigsson's debate and 58 watched far-right politician Jan Bjorklund's town square rally.
A video by the Pirate party showing its ballots being thrown away during early voting attracted 46,000 clicks, however.
In Slovakia , ice hockey stars and an African-born pop singer are trying to drum up turnout to avoid the country again clocking in the lowest turnout in the EU-wide vote, after hitting a low of 17 percent in 2004.
"I don't think Slovak people are racist," the left-wing singer, Ibrahim Maiga, told the BBC.
The biggest event in otherwise humdrum campaign environment was related to Slovak tension over its Hungarian ethnic minority, however. A Hungarian politician, Robert Fico, attended a rally by the Slovak pro-Hungarian minority SMK party on Wednesday, sparking accusations of SMK irredentism by Bratislava's socialist government.