EP elections 2014

[FredLindq]

So Cameron want let AfD inte ECR and AfD does not want to cooperate with UKIP. So EFD will probably be dissolved. Some of these want to joins ECR like Danish DF and Finnish Peruss, probably also som Baltics parties. IF UKIP them turns to Grillos M5S AfD will have to sit with the non inscrits?! And the flemish NVa will join ECR after thr Scotish referendum. Som ECR will grow?!

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

So Cameron want let AfD inte ECR and AfD does not want to cooperate with UKIP. So EFD will probably be dissolved. Some of these want to joins ECR like Danish DF and Finnish Peruss, probably also som Baltics parties. IF UKIP them turns to Grillos M5S AfD will have to sit with the non inscrits?! And the flemish NVa will join ECR after thr Scotish referendum. Som ECR will grow?!

Apparently the membership of AfD is quite keen on the UKIP alliance, but the leadership are wary. Perhaps AfD might lose their squeamishness - especially if they have to sit in non-inscruits with the real nutters.

I am sure there is a 4%-threshold in Italy this timme. Som NCD, FDI and UCD need som kind of cooperation. Lega Nord polls just over 4%. All in all almost 10% ponts of the italian centre right votes might be lost ie one third off it.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/eplibrary/InfoGraphic-2014-European-elections-national-rules.pdf

This pdf seems to indicate no threshold in the Italian elections - although it obviously hasn't been updated in a while, since Germany still has a threshold.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Most of the EuroParl Party groups are jokes, yeah.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

ND's level of support isn't surprisingly: Te Potami is mostly poaching voters from the right and there's a lot of disillusionment with New Democracy. What I find hard to believe is SYRIZA's similar erosion and the KKE's resilience.

I think that's reading too much into an EU parliament election.

[palandio]

ALDE also contains parties like the Estonian Centre Party, the Labor Party (Lithuania) and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (Bulgaria). The Estonian Centre Party is the most left-wing of the major Estonian parties.

Czech ANO might also become part of the ALDE group.

In Italy there were attempts to form an ALDE list called European Choice from Civic Choice, the Radicals, Stop the Decline, Democratic Centre and others, but this alliance seems to be falling apart already. What will remain is probably an alliance of Civic Choice and Democratic Centre.

[EPG]

There are actually loads of ALDE commissioners.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Commissioner#Portfolios

The Commissioners from Estonia, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Finland, Cyprus, Belgium, Ireland and Sweden are from ALDE. It's remarkable over-representation compared to the EP because of the prominence of the liberals in government around 2009.

As for Schulz/Juncker as EC President, that's probably not the choice that will face the EP after Merkel decides whom she really wants.

[EPG]

ALDE also contains parties like the Estonian Centre Party, the Labor Party (Lithuania) and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (Bulgaria). The Estonian Centre Party is the most left-wing of the major Estonian parties.

Any group that contains both the Estonian Centre and Reform parties is quite broad-minded! Of course, all the Europarties are broad alliances. UKIP is very different from LAOS, the CDA from Forza Italia, the Italian Democrats from the PS, etc. etc.

And looking across the continent, the right-wing parties in left-wing countries often legislate more left-wing policies than self-proclaimed social democrats in other countries. I'm looking at Belgium versus the UK, let's say.

These broad groups need to exist for anything to get done. Otherwise you'd have 700-800 agendas trying to take precedence at once.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

How about if people vote for the groups not the party. So, rather than voting for, say, a Labour candidate to join the SandD coalition; we straight out vote for "Social Democrats".

That would hopefully remove the situation whereby people use the EU election to punish their own government.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

How about if people vote for the groups not the party. So, rather than voting for, say, a Labour candidate to join the SandD coalition; we straight out vote for "Social Democrats".

That would hopefully remove the situation whereby people use the EU election to punish their own government.

Turnout 3%

[Cassius]

How about if people vote for the groups not the party. So, rather than voting for, say, a Labour candidate to join the SandD coalition; we straight out vote for "Social Democrats".

That would hopefully remove the situation whereby people use the EU election to punish their own government.

No, that would give the parties some incentive to run coherent, Europe-wide election campaigns... which isn't what is needed at all.

[Keystone Phil]

In what recent polls did Forza Italia tank? The ones I've seen here show them not far behind PD (not counting FDI's numbers which almost have them tied). Unless FI was recently leading PD...

[MaxQue]

In what recent polls did Forza Italia tank? The ones I've seen here show them not far behind PD (not counting FDI's numbers which almost have them tied). Unless FI was recently leading PD...

Last I seen were 10 points behind PD and behind M5S.

[Lurker]

Most of the EuroParl Party groups are jokes, yeah.

ALDE is the biggest one, it seems.

[EPG]

How about if people vote for the groups not the party. So, rather than voting for, say, a Labour candidate to join the SandD coalition; we straight out vote for "Social Democrats".

That would hopefully remove the situation whereby people use the EU election to punish their own government.

That's already possible... in fact, partisan elections in Europe from parish council to European Parliament could each have different party systems, in principle. It doesn't happen in the EP for the same reason it doesn't normally happen at any other level: national parties have stronger brands and campaigning machines, the top politicians want to join them, and very often the big parties have enough control of the electoral system and public funding to frustrate competitors. Pure Europarties, like small national parties, lack machines, money and personalities.

As for Belgium, the British (or Estonians) would see it as left-wing Flanders versus quasi-Marxist Wallonia. I mean more that if the "political spectrum/compass" were a true model, the Benelux Christian centre-right would be in a Europarty to the left of Ed Miliband's Labour. But of course politics is more about leadership, sentiment and common values rather than ideal policy sets. UK Labour and the French Socialists are miles (kilometres) apart on policy. So are Fine Gael and Fidesz. It's not just ALDE.

[Diouf]

As for Schulz/Juncker as EC President, that's probably not the choice that will face the EP after Merkel decides whom she really wants.

But surely the SPD must have something to say as well. If Schulz can collect just something resembling a majority, the SPD will be quite the laughing stock if they just allowed Merkel and/or some of the other big countries to straight out reject him.

[EPG]

As for Schulz/Juncker as EC President, that's probably not the choice that will face the EP after Merkel decides whom she really wants.

But surely the SPD must have something to say as well. If Schulz can collect just something resembling a majority, the SPD will be quite the laughing stock if they just allowed Merkel and/or some of the other big countries to straight out reject him.

Nobody will be close to a majority in the Parliament; any candidate relying on Tsirpas to vote "yes" for them should think again. There will be some votes where the non-inscrits block everyone, then the EPP/S&D grand coalition will use their small majority to find a compromise candidate that suits both parties and the big member states. Schulz may well get it, but Juncker won't once the EPP heads of state come out to play, and the partisan nominations in a quasi-parliamentary system is a bit of a farce.

[Zanas]

THe only party seemingly doing this is ironically the most dogmatic, GUE.

Well, f[inks] you too.

How is GUE the most dogmatic ? How is EPP not dogmatic ? What's your problem ?

[justfollowingtheelections]

THe only party seemingly doing this is ironically the most dogmatic, GUE.

Well, f[inks] you too.

How is GUE the most dogmatic ? How is EPP not dogmatic ? What's your problem ?

Look at my pseudonym before you start getting angry. The fact is though the traditional far left in Western Europe has for years been stuck to extreme levels of Orthodox Marxism while all the others have basically followed the neo-liberal status quo, making it up as they go along. Its only now that we're actually seeing a radical left that doesn't sound like a broken record from the Cold War and has adapted its programme do the current situation.

I actually think Tsipras and the radical left have an economic platform that makes a lot of sense and could be the only thing possible in Europe from going into 90s Japan-mode. I just don't like Stalinists, and I don't think Marx's dual class system applies to modern society, particularly with the rise of informational capitalism and 1950s welfare economics forming a middle class. That is what i find dogmatic about the GUE group. I still might vote for them.

I think it's completely ridiculous to accuse GUE of having anything to do with Stalinists.  Tsipras in particular comes from a party that was created as an alternative to soviet-style communism and that was long before the USSR collapsed (Synaspismos which later became SYRIZA was created specifically because its members opposed the allegiance of the communist party to the USSR).  He and most of the young European leftists are children of the Seattle-Genoa protests which have absolutely nothing to do with what you describe above.  With the exception of E. Germany, where I will agree the former communists are part of Die Linke, in most eastern European countries, once the regimes collapsed, most of them joined parties that would later become members of the socialist group or even the EPP (whatever suited them in order to remain in power).

[YL]

The second round of Clegg v Farage is on BBC2 in just over half an hour.  I might see how long I can put up with them for...

[FredLindq]

There seems to be a threshold in Italy. All prognosis I have seen like http://pollwatch2014.eu/#country seems to calculate with that. So any news on alliances in Italy?!

And what about EFD will it bee dissolved? A new eurospetic group? I seems like UKIP, M5S and AfD holds the keys.

[justfollowingtheelections]

It will probably change names again to incorporate the ideologies of the very different parties that will attempt to work together.  When the only thing that unites these parties is euroscepticism (a negative ideology in the sense that it is nothing more but a reaction to federalism) it is hard to form a long-lasting alliance.
I guess a lot will depend on how well the UKIP does in the elections.  If they increase their strength, they will probably be able to attract of number of eurosceptic parties and form a new group.

[palandio]

I think you are arguing just because you are unable to listen to each other properly.

It's just a fact that for many years far-left rhetorics have too often (not always) relied on class struggle, proletariate etc. Of course they had abbandoned Stalinism in the proper sense of the word for a long time, but at the same time the Trotzkyist among them still called others Stalinists and for the ordinary voter it's hard to distinguish between Trotzkyism, Maoism, Stalinism, Leninism, Internationalism, Anti-Revisionism, it just scares most voters.

In recent years many, but not all far-left parties have been able to scale back this Marxist-Leninist vocabulary a bit and instead focus their message more on actual politics.

[YL]

The second round of Clegg v Farage is on BBC2 in just over half an hour.  I might see how long I can put up with them for...

ICM and YouGov have polls on who "won".  ICM say Farage 69% Clegg 31% (not including don't knows) and YouGov say Farage 68% Clegg 27% (presumably including don't knows as that adds to 95%).

I wasn't very impressed by either of them.  As a left-liberal pro-European I'm never going to like Farage, but I thought Clegg was a shadow of his April 2010 self and rarely seemed convincing.  So I guess the poll figures make sense.

Anyone else watch it?

[Hifly]

The second round of Clegg v Farage is on BBC2 in just over half an hour.  I might see how long I can put up with them for...

ICM and YouGov have polls on who "won".  ICM say Farage 69% Clegg 31% (not including don't knows) and YouGov say Farage 68% Clegg 27% (presumably including don't knows as that adds to 95%).

I wasn't very impressed by either of them.  As a left-liberal pro-European I'm never going to like Farage, but I thought Clegg was a shadow of his April 2010 self and rarely seemed convincing.  So I guess the poll figures make sense.

Anyone else watch it?

I saw the last 15 minutes of it and honestly, as you say, Clegg has certainly lost his spark from 2010. He could have made more effective points but alas.

[Keystone Phil]

Giorgia Meloni posted a selfie with Le Pen earlier on Facebook with a caption about Europe so it looks like FDI is joining whatever coalition FN is in. Strange because I was pretty sure FDI was already paired with FI for European elections. Didn't expect FI to join FN unless this is just Meloni/FDI innocently "going off the reservation."