Brussels, 12/02/2001 (Agence Europe) - The fall in electoral participation is not a problem that is specific to the European Parliament, but a more general problem: it constitutes a challenge for democracy and it is "too simplistic" to attack Europe. It is thus that the British Labour member Richard Corbett reacted to the actions of his colleague in the European Parliament's Constitutional Committee Jens-Peter Bonde, co-President of the Europe for Democracies and Diversities group which, said Mr Corbett in a press release, last week slammed the door of this Committee by stating that it lacked legitimacy, due to the fall in participation in European elections (a fall of 13% between the first European elections, in 1979, and the last in 1999). Mr Corbett wrote an open letter to Mr Bonde recalling that between 1977 and 1998 the electoral participation fell 14.8% in the general elections in the Netherlands and that it fell 14.4% in France between 1978 and 1997, from 13.1% in Germany (West) between 1976 and 1990 and by 10.2% in Ireland between 1979 and 1996. As for the United States, Mr Corbett noted that participation in the mid-mandate Congressional elections, in 1998, was only 48%, and on 17% in Nevada.