Ted Bromund explains for The New Ledger why elections for the European parliament, which are scheduled to take place later this week, matter to the United States:

The results of the June elections are likely to show that British Euroskepticism continues to gain strength. And, as Cameron has noted, there is a very coherent case to be made that Britain’s move into Europe is part and parcel of its broader retreat from responsible, limited, parliamentary government, and that the logical cure is to back away from the EU. All this makes excellent sense.

But it will not be popular in Washington, where the new Obama Administration is more enthusiastically pro-European than any administration since Kennedy’s. The outcome of the elections is likely, therefore, to create storms not only for the Union, but for the Special Relationship. The sooner both sides of that relationship realize this, the better equipped Britain will be to fight its corner against American demands that it continue its fifty year slide into the elitist, undemocratic European experiment.

This is not only the case in Britain: the Dutch are becoming increasingly Europskeptic as well. In fact, less than 50% of the Dutch – a ridiculously low percentage in that country – use the right to vote for Europe. Why? Because they feel there is a major gap between Brussels and individual member states, let alone those states’ peoples, and because they believe that nobody in Brussels is listening to them.

And they are right.

Europe belongs to the Eurofans. Anybody with even the slightest possible criticism is either ignored, or pushed out.

The result, at least in the Netherlands? Euroskeptic parties are expected to do reasonably well. Libertas is the first European party, its platform: to reduce the size of Brussels, and to give individual member states more power – as the union was once meant. The socialists of the Socialist Party are expected to do reasonably well, as well, same goes for Geert Wilders’ party the PVV.

All regular major parties will lose seats because they have become too pro-Europe; even when a majority of voters are not.

Obama and Washington in general are wise to keep the above in mind. Europeans are extremely skeptical. If the US wants to improve its relationship with European countries, it is wise to act accordingly.

There is also good news: Europeans finally understand conservative Americans, Where they did not understand this attitude years ago, they now feel Americans’ pain and concerns. Ironically, Europeans criticized federalism for decades, but have now become federalists themselves.