The European Election in June 1999 saw 15 countries go to the polls to elect 626 European Members of Parliament. The largest member state is Germany which elects 99 MEPs and the smallest state is Luxembourg which has 6 MEPs. The United Kingdom sends 87 MEPs to Brussels, 8 of which were elected in Scotland. The voter turnout over the whole of Scotland was 24.8%. This was the lowest turnout ever recorded in a Scottish-wide election. The turnout in other member countries was also down.

Scottish Euro Parliament Results & Analysis

The SNP were unlucky not to win three seats. It was the closest ever the Scottish National Party have come to beating the Labour Party across Scotland. Even though there is only 1.5% between them Labour managed to get three seats and the SNP two. This new system of Proportional representation enabled the Conservatives to get two seats. The Liberal Democrats also got representation with less than 10% of the vote thanks to the PR.

Political Party	No. of Votes	% Vote	No. of Seats
Labour Party	283,490 votes	28.6%	3 Seats
Scottish National Party	268,525 votes	27.1%	2 Seats
Conservative Party	195,296 votes	19.7%	2 Seats
Liberal Democrats	96,971 votes	9.8%	1 Seat
Green Party	57,142 votes	5.8%	0 Seats
Scottish Socialist Party	39,408 votes	4.0%	0 Seats
Others	49,260 votes	5.0%	0 Seats

Distribution Of Seats In The Rest Of The UK and Europe
The European Parliament Election results brought a number of historic results. Here is a quick analysis of things elsewhere: The Welsh Nationalists won there first ever Euro seats. The Greens also won there first ever UK seat in the Euro Parliament in the south of England and then got another elsewhere. Also in England there was success for the United Kingdom Independence Party who won representation for the first time ever with three seats. There was also gains by the Conservatives from Labour in England. The Greens made a great impact in France. Overall, the composition of the European Parliament has seen a major shift across the whole of Europe towards a more Conservative or "Center right" agenda. For the first time in more than ten years the Socialist group will no-longer be the ruling party in the European Parliament.

Distorted Results
In spite of all these political developments it should be remembered that the results are somewhat distorted due to the low turnout of voters. The new system of Proportional representation was also going to aid the Tories in their recovery and punish Labour. Its difficult to surmise if the results of this vote was a judgement of the government, or on the Euro single currency or on the Euro Parliament.

Celebrity Euro-MPs in 1999!!!
Former '80s Eastenders actor Michael Cashman elected for Labour in the Midlands.
Dana (the former Eurovision champion) got elected in Ireland.
Paulo Rossi, former Italian International striker, was elected his home country.