Reaction: European elections

Elections to the European Parliament have seen centre-right parties make gains at the expense of the left. Far-right groups also made gains. Here is some of the reaction.

It is to the credit of President [Nicolas] Sarkozy and to the credit of our party that we have covered the ground in a manner that was considered efficient by the voters. Whenever there were issues about financial security, about appropriate policies on immigration, whenever there were issues on the environment, our party provided appropriate responses that were practical and understandable by the voters.

It is a sad evening for social democracy in Europe. We are particularly disappointed, (it is) a bitter evening for us.

It is very damaging for Britain, a country that has stood up for democracy over the last century, to see the (far-right) BNP elected to the European Parliament.

For the Socialist Party these results are undoubtedly disappointing, and fall well short of our expectations. As I always do, and as Socialist Party secretary-general, I openly want to take political responsibility for these results.

Berlusconi's doing fine. I won't say he's satisfied. I'll say that the enormously low turnout played a role.

This is a roar of opposition by ordinary people in Dublin to the savage policies of the Fianna Fail-Green Party government in making working people and unemployed pay for a crisis caused by speculators, by big developers and by big bankers facilitated by Fianna Fail.

We need to ponder why our supporters refused to back us and we need to modify our policy accordingly.

This result calls for a change in government economic policy and many other things because the majority of Spaniards have spoken.

It is a great thing to improve the results of the parliamentary elections… in conditions of a global crisis and obtaining a greater support than 1.5 years ago. The government did not obtain a warning, we obtained a successive card of confidence.

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