EP elections 2014

[Tender Branson]

Pressure is piling up on FPÖ's frontrunner for the EP elections, Andreas Mölzer, to step down:

* Austrian President Fischer today called for Mölzer to step down and said his comments crossed a line.

* The FPÖ leaders of Tyrol and Burgenland distanced themselves from the comments (but did not call for his resignation).

* 20.000 Austrians have signed an online petition that supports Mölzer's indictment for incitement of hatred.

* Austrian FPÖ-leader Strache has called a personal 4-eye-meeting with Mölzer today and asked the FPÖ-board to deal with the issue on Wednesday (on Friday at 5pm the federal candidate lists for the EP elections need to be handed in at the Interior Ministry) ...

http://derstandard.at/1395364501926/Bundespraesident-Fischer-fordert-Rueckzug-Moelzers

...

The best news of the day:



"Mölzer (FPÖ) steps down as EP-frontrunner."

http://derstandard.at/1395364560922/Moelzer-zieht-sich-als-FPOe-Spitzenkandidat-zurueck

YESSS !!!

Mölzer is not only stepping down as FPÖ-frontrunner in the EP election, but also stepping down as a candidate for the election.

Which means he won't be on the FPÖ list at all.

Excellent stuff.

(Theoretically, he could launch a list on his own until Friday - but I guess he won't do that.)

[Enno von Loewenstern]

Good news for and from austria and the FPÖ.

[FredLindq]

Interesting that PO is closing the gap. Congress off the new right will probably according to me join EFD, if there is an EFD after the election. I think that parties like KPN might surge and reach the 5 % threshold, as FDI might do in Italy.

Why would E+ be split between S&D and ALDE? Which elements in E6might join ALDE? Palikot is in S&D as I have understood?

[Tender Branson]

Team Stronach will NOT run in the EP elections, party leader Kathrin Nachbaur said today:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://derstandard.at/1395364606981/Nachbaur-Die-Neos-sind-ein-moderner-Maennerklub

[Cranberry]

The good news aren't stopping to come in, Tender. First is Mölzer stepping down, then is Stronach not running... For the first time in a long time, I feel proud to be an Austrian when it comes to politics.

It's interesting, though, that Austria is the only country with voting age at 16, as one could see on your graphic.

[EPG]

Hmm... Surely Team Stronach's absence will help the FPÖ (and BZÖ).

[YL]

Hmm... Surely Team Stronach's absence will help the FPÖ (and BZÖ).

I thought their support had sunk to such levels that it really won't make very much difference.

[Tender Branson]

Breaking News (no joke): Ulrike Haider, daughter of the late Jörg Haider, just stepped down as BZÖ frontrunner for the EP elections.

WTF is going on today ?

[Tender Branson]

Breaking News (no joke): Ulrike Haider, daughter of the late Jörg Haider, just stepped down as BZÖ frontrunner for the EP elections.

WTF is going on today ?

Source:

http://mobil.derstandard.at/1395364664088/Haider-Quercia-legt-BZOe-Kandidatur-zurueck

This might be one of the best days in recent years, politically speaking ...

* Mölzer (Nazi and Racist) steps down, leaving the FPÖ to lick their wounds
* Haider steps down, leaving the BZÖ as an even bigger joke party
* Team Stronach is not running, continues its joke status
* EU top court rules against mass data storage
* ÖVP agrees to bring civil unions more in line with hetero marriages

[Enno von Loewenstern]

Breaking News (no joke): Ulrike Haider, daughter of the late Jörg Haider, just stepped down as BZÖ frontrunner for the EP elections.

WTF is going on today ?

Source:

http://mobil.derstandard.at/1395364664088/Haider-Quercia-legt-BZOe-Kandidatur-zurueck

This might be one of the best days in recent years, politically speaking ...

* Mölzer (Nazi and Racist) steps down, leaving the FPÖ to lick their wounds
* Haider steps down, leaving the BZÖ as an even bigger joke party
* Team Stronach is not running, continues its joke status
* EU top court rules against mass data storage
* ÖVP agrees to bring civil unions more in line with hetero marriages

All that will help the FPÖ. I have seen Ukrike Haider (BZÖ) on ORF ZiB2 where she did incredibly bad. Team Stronach is dead since Frank Stronch went back to Canada. So both populist movements are dead and no competitors for the FPÖ anymore. For euroskeptical voters there is now just only one party left.

[EPG]

Breaking News (no joke): Ulrike Haider, daughter of the late Jörg Haider, just stepped down as BZÖ frontrunner for the EP elections.

WTF is going on today ?

Source:

http://mobil.derstandard.at/1395364664088/Haider-Quercia-legt-BZOe-Kandidatur-zurueck

This might be one of the best days in recent years, politically speaking ...

* Mölzer (Nazi and Racist) steps down, leaving the FPÖ to lick their wounds
* Haider steps down, leaving the BZÖ as an even bigger joke party
* Team Stronach is not running, continues its joke status
* EU top court rules against mass data storage
* ÖVP agrees to bring civil unions more in line with hetero marriages

All that will help the FPÖ. I have seen Ukrike Haider (BZÖ) on ORF ZiB2 where she did incredibly bad. Team Stronach is dead since Frank Stronch went back to Canada. So both populist movements are dead and no competitors for the FPÖ anymore. For euroskeptical voters there is now just only one party left.

Yeah, I think this is the right analysis. Parties win support for a reason, and just because everyone doesn't like the kind of people who vote FPÖ, that doesn't mean they go away. Even if the FPÖ only take 0.5% from Team Stronach and 1% from the BZÖ, that could help them win an extra seat, while neither Team Stronach nor the BZÖ could have hoped to win any. Meanwhile, nationally, it cements FPÖ organisation for future elections.

[justfollowingtheelections]

Since many have been asking about the Potami party in Greece and which europarliament group they will join, I thought I should mention that their leader met with Martin Schulz and Guy Verhofstadt and will meet with the Greens as well.  They will most likely ally with one of those 3 groups.

[FredLindq]

Would it not be suicide to sit in the same group as toxic PASOK?

[Tender Branson]

Breaking News (no joke): Ulrike Haider, daughter of the late Jörg Haider, just stepped down as BZÖ frontrunner for the EP elections.

WTF is going on today ?

Source:

http://mobil.derstandard.at/1395364664088/Haider-Quercia-legt-BZOe-Kandidatur-zurueck

This might be one of the best days in recent years, politically speaking ...

* Mölzer (Nazi and Racist) steps down, leaving the FPÖ to lick their wounds
* Haider steps down, leaving the BZÖ as an even bigger joke party
* Team Stronach is not running, continues its joke status
* EU top court rules against mass data storage
* ÖVP agrees to bring civil unions more in line with hetero marriages

All that will help the FPÖ. I have seen Ukrike Haider (BZÖ) on ORF ZiB2 where she did incredibly bad. Team Stronach is dead since Frank Stronch went back to Canada. So both populist movements are dead and no competitors for the FPÖ anymore. For euroskeptical voters there is now just only one party left.

Yeah, I think this is the right analysis. Parties win support for a reason, and just because everyone doesn't like the kind of people who vote FPÖ, that doesn't mean they go away. Even if the FPÖ only take 0.5% from Team Stronach and 1% from the BZÖ, that could help them win an extra seat, while neither Team Stronach nor the BZÖ could have hoped to win any. Meanwhile, nationally, it cements FPÖ organisation for future elections.

There is also another option in this election: FPÖ-voters are sitting it out and the party only gets something like 18%. BZÖ- and Stronach-voters don't necessarily vote for the FPÖ, they might also stay home.

Another possibility is that these frustrated voters are now voting for NEOS, which is an "unused" party that has not made any mistakes yet. Even though they are strongly pro-Europe, they could still attract a few protest voters, who simply don't care if they are pro-Europe or not, just to show their anger with recent events and with the government.

Anyway, Harald "Voldemort" Vilimsky is now the new (sole) frontrunner for the FPÖ:

[Tender Branson]

The latest EU-wide projections now show a dead-heat between the EPP and the Social Democrats, with both having around 200-220 seats.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_election,_2014#Opinion_polls

Until recently, the Social Democrats were ahead by quite a bit but the EPP has now closed the gap.

[Tender Branson]

If I had to make a prediction right now:

26% ÖVP (-4%)
23% SPÖ (-1%)
18% FPÖ (+5%)
16% NEOS (+16%)
13% Greens (+3%)
  2% Europa Anders (+2%)
  1% REKOS (+1%)
  1% BZÖ (-4%)

Turnout: 45% (-1%)

[justfollowingtheelections]

Would it not be suicide to sit in the same group as toxic PASOK?

I don't think it would really matter.

Theodorakis by the way traveled economy class to Brussels.  If this picture means anything, he is probably closer (at least ideologically) to the Socialists.

He did however ask that whatever group he joins puts some resistance to Merkel-EPP dictated policies.  Guy Verhofstadt also wrote him a letter explaining why he should join ALDE.  But Theodorakis won't make a decision until after the elections.

[FredLindq]

Off course he want tell. IF het old that he was goding the join the socialists he would loose the ND-voters that he ha got. I think this is hypochratic not to tell and then say he is "different"...

[justfollowingtheelections]

Off course he want tell. IF het old that he was goding the join the socialists he would loose the ND-voters that he ha got. I think this is hypochratic not to tell and then say he is "different"...

Well I don't know.  One could also say that it's arrogant to join a group when there are no guarantees you will elect an MEP.  But he only met with the socialists, the liberals and the greens, so it's down to those 3 groups.

[Niemeyerite]

No one cares about European Parliament political groups.

[Tender Branson]

The preliminary number of eligible voters in Austria:

6.409.612 (up from 6.362.761 in the 2009 elections)

http://www.bmi.gv.at/cms/BMI_wahlen/europawahl/2014/WahlberechtigteE.aspx

Carinthia was the only state where the number of eligible voters went down.

[doktorb]

No one cares about European Parliament political groups.

Oh some of us do...(and mischief can be made by pointing out who did with which... dodgy parties...)

[Tender Branson]

Unless the election is different to what the polls show right now, these are our people in the next EP (2014-19):

ÖVP (5 seats)

* Othmar Karas
* Elisabeth Köstinger
* Paul Rübig
* Claudia Schmidt
* Heinz Becker

SPÖ (5 seats)

* Eugen Freund
* Evelyn Regner
* Jörg Leichtfried
* Karin Kadenbach
* Josef Weidenholzer

FPÖ (4 seats)

* Harald Vilimsky
* Franz Obermayr
* Georg Mayer
* Barbara Kappel

NEOS (2 seats)

* Angelika Mlinar
* Stefan Windberger

Greens (2 seats)

* Ulrike Lunacek
* Michel Reimon

[Velasco]

Finally Mariano Rajoy consented to appoint a candidate for the EP elections. No surprises, the Spain's PM is proud of his predictability. The list of top candidates is set as follows:

People's Party (PP/EPP): Miguel Arias Cañete (aged 64). Minister of Agriculture. Civil servant since 1974, later professor at Jerez de la Frontera University (1978-1982) until he joined Manuel Fraga's AP (People's Alliance, the ancestor of PP). He has a long political career: Andalusian Parliament (1982-1986), MEP between 1986 and 1999, senator (1993-2000), minister in the second Aznar administration (2000-2004) in the same post he currently holds, representative in the Congress of Deputies...  Serious candidate for a post in the 'college' of Commissioners. The rest of the list is not defined yet.

Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE/PES): Elena Valenciano (53). PSOE's Deputy General Secretary since Rubalcaba's victory in the 2012 Convention, of whom she's the right-hand woman. Previously she coordinated the unsuccessful 2011 campaign. She has been MEP between 1999 and 2007 and member of the Congress of Deputies since 2008. Juan Fernando López Aguilar, a former minister of Justice who topped the list in 2009, is in the 4th place.

The Left: (Coalition between IU, ICV, Anova and other small parties/ IU will join GUE-NGL and ICV the EGP): Willy Meyer (61). Member of PCE since 1970 and linked to the Cadiz province, where he was elected deputy in 1996, losing his seat in the following election. Between 1996 and 2000 he was the IU spokesperson in the Interior and Defence parliamentary committee. In 2004 and 2009 he topped the IU list in the European Elections, being elected MEP in both contests. The number 2 of the list is for a woman from the CCOO trade union, the #3 for the ICV Catalans, #7 for Javier Couso (brother of a cameraman killed in Irak), with some person of the IU minority faction relegated to number 8.

Union, Progress and Democracy (UPyD/not affiliated): Francisco Sosa Wagner (67). Doctor in Law, he has been University professor and oversaw Zapatero's thesis at León University. In the first years of La Transición he was member of  the Popular Socialist Party -founded by professor Tierno Galván in 1968, dissolved in 1978- and later quited politics to devote himself to the academic life until 2007, when he signed a manifesto which preceded the foundation of the Ciutadans party in Catalonia. In 2009 he topped UPyD list and elected. In the number 2, Maite Pagazaurtundúa, sister of a policeman killed in the Basque Country and anti-ETA activist.

Coalition for Europe (CDC, UDC, PNV, CC and other small regionalist parties/CDC is in ALDE, PNV in the EDP and UDC in the EPP): Ramon Tremosa i Balcells (CDC) tops the list, followed by Izaskun Bilbao (PNV) and Francesc Gambús (UDC). Tremosa (48) is economist and was appointed CEU candidate in 2009, representing the major partner of the CiU coalition.

Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC/EFA): Josep Maria Terricabras. In 2009 ERC joined a coalition with other regionalist parties and the former Confederation of the Greens, list which was topped by Oriol Junqueras, current leader of the Catalan independentist party. Now ERC is running alone and has serious chances of winning 1 or even 2 seats. Polls show a three-cornered contest in Catalonia between CiU, ERC and PSC for this election.  

The Peoples Decide (coalition between EHB, BNG and other small parties/ EFA): Josu Juaristi, from the Basque left-wing independentist Euskal Herria Bildu (EHB), is on top. The other major partner of the coalition is the Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG) and then a bunch smaller of independentist regional parties focused on the "right to decide" (call for self-determination referenda in peripheral regions).  

Ciutadans (C's/ not affiliated): Lawyer and talk show guest Javier Nart tops the list of this Catalan anti-independence party, which is trying to jump into national politics. Polls show that C's is on the verge of winning a seat, but it's not secure.

European Spring (coalition between Equo, Compromís, CHA and others/ EGP-EFA): This mildly leftist, ecologist and regionalist coalition with that poetic name is headed by Jordi Sebastià, who is member of Compromís (centre-left regionalists from Valencia) and mayor of the town of Burjassot, near the city of Valencia. Florent Marcellesi (from Equo, the Spanish Greens) is in the number two and Ángela Labordeta (CHA, Aragonese regionalist) in the third place.

Vox: The PP's hard-line splinter is headed by the veteran Catalan politician Alejo Vidal-Quadras (68), who will try to remain seated in the European Parliament, where he serves since 1999 and is Vicepresident since 2004. If elected, it's unclear in which group will be the proven conservative but not Euro-sceptic Vidal-Quadras.

Podemos: Pablo Iglesias (35). 'Podemos' represents the left beyond 'The Left'. The head of list is a young activist who teaches Political Science at Complutense University in Madrid and appears in TV as guest or hosting political debate shows. Iglesias is said to be one of the main representatives of Chavismo in Spain.

[Velasco]

People's Party (PP/EPP): Miguel Arias Cañete (aged 64) (...)

The acting Minister of Agriculture will go in PP's list with Esteban González Pons (deputy for Valencia and Vicesecretary in the party's leadership), Teresa Jiménez Becerril (MEP and sister of a politician killed by ETA), Luis de Grandes (a veteran politician who is MEP since 2004 and executive in FAES foundation, a conservative think-tank presided by Aznar), Pilar del Castillo (minister of Education between 2000 and 2004), and Ramón Luis Valcárcel (former premier of the Murcia region, resigned past week). Since Arias Cañete is seeking for a post in the European Commission, González Pons will be the leader of PP's caucus in the EP. The big surprise is that María del Mar Blanco won't be in the list. Ms Blanco is sister of Miguel Ángel Blanco, a Basque councilor kidnapped and killed by ETA in 1997, and presides FVT (a foundation of terrorism victims). The aforementioned Teresa Jiménez replaces Blanco as main representative of the victims, a sector which PP always took care of.