Luxembourg

In Luxembourg, the EP elections were held, as usual, simultaneously with the general election on Sunday 13 June. Both were a landslide victory for the party of the Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, the Christian Social People’s Party (CSV, member of the European People’s Party), a so-called ‘party state’ (Staatstragend) in the Luxembourg political system (Table 21.1).¹ In the EP election, the CSV won 37.13 per cent of the vote (31.2 per cent in 1999), its best result since the fi rst direct EP elections in 1979. The coalition partner with the CSV, the liberal Democratic Party (DP, member of the European Liberal Democrats Party) won 14.8 per cent of the vote (down from 20.4 per cent in 1999). The Luxembourg Socialist Labour Party (LSAP, member of the European Socialist Party), the third main party of the Luxembourg political scene, lost slightly, 22.9 per cent in 2004 against 23.4 per cent in 1999. The CSV has dominated Luxembourg politics since 1945, sharing power with one of the two other main parties. However, it is worth noting that in 1974 after an unsatisfactory electoral result, though still the first party in the country, it chose to go in opposition, and an LSAP-DP coalition government, led by the former President of the European Commission, Gaston Thorn, was created. Two new parties came onto the scene in the 1980s: the Green Party and the sovereignist party Action Committee for Democracy and Interest Justice (ADR, ‘observer member’ of the Union for Europe of the Nations), sensitive to the issues of retired people. The rise of this party should be seen as an example of the so-called silent revolution well known in the majority of Western democracies.² The Green Party did well at the 2004 EP elections with 15.2 per cent of the vote against 10.1 per cent in 1999, whereas the ADR won 8.03 per cent against 9 per cent in 1999.