Center-right parties hailed European Parliament election victories as a continent-wide vote for conservative approaches to the economic crisis and pledged Monday to forge ahead. Right-leaning governments came out ahead in Germany, France, Italy and Belgium, while conservative opposition parties won in Britain and Spain. “The center-right has been addressing the economic crisis,” said Sara Hagemann, an analyst at the Brussels-based European Policy Center think tank. Voters angry over poor economic conditions and political scandals punished ruling parties of both stripes in Greece, Austria, Spain, Britain, Bulgaria, Ireland, Hungary and the tiny island of Malta. And the June 4-7 elections, across the 27-nation bloc saw only 43 percent of 375 million eligible voters cast ballots for representatives to the 736-member EU legislature. The record low turnout pointed to enduring voter apathy about the EU. It was a discouraging sign for EU officials hoping Irish voters will approve stronger powers for the EU in a fall referendum. Ireland is the only one of the 27 EU nations that must still ratify the reforms. The EU said center-right parties were expected to take the most seats - 267- in the 736-member parliament. Center-left parties were headed for 159 seats. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's center-left Labour party finished third behind the anti-European UK Independence Party. Voters in Italy handed a tepid win to Premier Silvio Berlusconi and rewarded the anti-immigrant party in his coalition. Germans handed a lackluster victory to Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives. French President Nicolas Sarkozy's governing conservatives trounced the Socialists, while an ecology-minded party vaulted to a surprisingly strong third place. France's Socialists, who dominated the last vote in 2004, suffered a stinging defeat, barely clinging to the No. 2 spot. Austria's main rightist party gained strongly while the ruling Social Democrats lost substantial ground. But the big winner was the rightist Freedom Party, which more than doubled its strength over the 2004 elections to 13.1 percent of the vote. It campaigned on an anti-Islam platform. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders' anti-Islamic party took 17 percent of the country's votes, winning four of 25 seats. In Greece, the governing conservatives were headed for defeat in the wake of corruption scandals.
