1979: a commemorative stamp from the UK

When the first elections to Europe’s parliament were held in 1979 I was a energetic four year old. We had just moved to Ireland where we would spend many happy years. 

Back then it was the “European Economic Community” or the “Common market” as most people of my father’s generation still call it.

Thirty years later I find myself involved in this year’s European election – primarily as a voter – and also as the English editor for part of the parliament’s website. My job is to try and communicate information to the public about a parliament of 27 countries, 23 languages and 785 members. To do this I have to try to make sense of it myself.

I work in a team that reflects the diversity of the parliament and of this election. From Thessaloniki in the Aegean to Tallinn in the Baltic, from Lisbon on the Atlantic coast to Göteborg on the Kattegat. My immediate workmates hail from every corner of Europe.

Doing some research about what to write I was struck by the differences and similarities we face between the first elections in ‘79 and now.

Then and now

In 1979, the economy – at least in Britain where I hail from – was in crisis, a state of discontent that would bring Margaret Thatcher – europhile turned europhobe – to power. In September of that year the Chrysler motor corporation asked the US government for $1 billion to avoid bankruptcy.

In Afghanistan a superpower and her allies were engaged in a life and death struggle with a formidable foe. Then as now Iran was in the news as the Ayatollahs toppled the Shah.

Zimbabwe, then called Rhodesia, was in chaos after a civil war. A peace agreement would herald the arrival on Robert Mugabe in January 1980.

Equally, the Middle East was on the agenda with the Camp David accords offering some hope. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat would later give a speech to the European Parliament. A few weeks later he would be assassinated.

And then the changes, if you had said to some in ‘79 that within a decade the Berlin Wall would be rubble and Europe’s political division at an end they would have thought you crazy, idealistic or both.

If you had said to some in ‘79 that within a decade the Berlin Wall would be rubble and Europe’s political division at an end they would have thought you crazy, idealistic or both.

 If you had said to a Pole attending Pope John Paul’s historic visit to his homeland that within 15 years they would be able to work and visit anywhere in Europe, I doubt they would have believed you.

 If you had imagined that a community of 6 countries in 1979 would be 27 in 2009 it would hardly have seemed believable. Europe is changing – but are we – particularly in my native Britain – changing our mindsets to keep up?