EP elections 2014

[Tender Branson]

The Austrian "Wahlkabine" also launched today:

http://wahlkabine.at/app/eu2014

(The party "EU-STOP" sadly refused to send answers to the questions ...)

My results:

 291 Europa Anders
 237 Greens
 228 NEOS
 228 SPÖ
 142 ÖVP
 101 BZÖ
    -1 FPÖ
-134 REKOS

[Diouf]

Top 5 in Germany
CDU 65.8 %
Tierschutspartei 61.8 %
FDP 60.5 %
CSU 60.5 %
Freie Wähler 60.5 %

Expect for the animal party, pretty much as expected. However, generally I had quite low agreements with all parties when 65.8 % is the highest score.

Bottom 5 in Germany
PRO NRW 34.2 %
PSG 42.1 %
NPD 43.4 %
CM 46.1 %
DKP 46.1 %

Small, extremist right, left or Christian parties. Of the normal parties, die Linke were my worst match.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Labour's polling will probably change quite dramatically next week when Cruddas's review is finally published, especially if the reformist, populist wing win over the cautious side.

Up or down?!

I'm not sure. My gut instinct is that if Labour endorse something slightly far out (mooted ideas include train nationalisation, Scandinavian style childcare, allowing councils to borrow more for building housing,  an "NHS tax" paid for with a rise in NI contributions and intense decentralisation or federalisation); they'll at least gain a bit of energy.

Alternatively I could be completely wrong and the cautious wing are right. All of the above have fairly obvious ways to be attacked, so Labour could swing down if they mismanage it. However, I tend to disagree with this wing. People like parties who propose to do something, not just keep things as status quo. See: Milliband's rise in popularity following the "energy bills curbing" policy. That was literally the only time this parliament Labour have seized the national conversation and forced other parties to save face.

[Enno von Loewenstern]

AfD 70,7%
CSU 63,4%
FV 61%
CDU 61%
FDP 58,5%
Left 36,6%
SPD 29,3%
Greens 28%
Pirates 28%

[Tender Branson]

Tonight at 7pm local time, the first major English-speaking debate will take place on Euronews !

The top candidates attending will be:

* Jean-Claude Juncker (European People’s Party)
* Martin Schulz (Party of European Socialists)
* Guy Verhofstadt (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party)
* Franziska Keller (European Green Party)

The debate:

The event will be held in Maastricht in the Netherlands in partnership with the European Youth Forum and the University of Maastricht.

Lasting 90 minutes, it will focus on the following themes: the economy, the future of the EU, the rise in skepticism of the EU project, immigration and European foreign policy.

The debate will be moderated by Euronews’ Isabelle Kumar, Chris Burns and myself, Mark Davis. My part in the moderation will be to monitor the social networks, taking a few of the best questions posted before and during the debate and putting them directly to the candidates.

http://www.euronews.com/2014/04/14/what-will-you-ask-the-potential-future-president-of-the-european-commission

The Euronews website will likely offer a live stream at 7pm.

The debate starts in a few minutes.

[Tender Branson]

Good god, Junckers English is baaaad ...

[Niemeyerite]

Loving Martin Schulz.

[Tender Branson]

Loving Martin Schulz.

At least he tries some jokes ...

Keller from the Greens is the only one who can speak good English, the other 3 have thick accents.

[Diouf]

Not a fan of the three presenters, and the tight structure. I think they should focus more on a few concrete areas and proposals to get some real debate instead of hurrying through a lot of short subjects and questions from the audience and the internet.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Was Tspiras invited?

I'm actually liking Verhofstadt (I never thought I'd say that)

[Tender Branson]

Was Tspiras invited?

I'm actually liking Verhofstadt (I never thought I'd say that)

Yeah, they said in the beginning that Tsipras was invited but declined to debate.

[Tender Branson]

So, Verhofstadt attacked Juncker on Berlusconi's recent Nazi comments and Orban changing the constitution all the time and Keller attacked Juncker and his EPP on being backwards on gay rights.

The debate could need more of this ...

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

The German Wahl-o-mat for the European elections is available:

https://www.wahl-o-mat.de/europawahl2014/

SPD 82,6 %
PIRATEN 81,4 %
GRÜNE 80,2 %
Tierschutzpartei 75,6 %
DIE LINKE, Die PARTEI 70,9 %
FAMILIE 67,4 %
ÖDP 65,1 %
MLPD 64 %
DKP, FDP 62,8 %
PBC 54,7 %
PSG 53,5 %
Volksabstimmung 52,3 %
FREIE WÄHLER 51,2 %
CDU 50 %
AfD, CM, CSU 44,2 %
BP 39,5 %
BüSo 38,4 %
NPD 34,9 %
AUF 29,1 %
PRO NRW, REP 23,3 %

[EPG]

Well, there isn't one true English-language accent.

We are long used to hearing Continental people talking in non-EFL accents - I would say that is disproportionately true for the kind of people who watched this debate.

[Tender Branson]

Lol Schulz:

Mod: "Candidates, please make your closing remarks."

Schulz: "How much time do I have ? 15 seconds ?"

[Niemeyerite]

IMO, Martin and Guy were the cleear winners. I'd give an advantadge to the 1st., but that may be just because I like him more.

[Tender Branson]

IMO, Martin and Guy were the cleear winners. I'd give an advantadge to the 1st., but that may be just because I like him more.

Keller wasn't bad either, but it's pretty clear that Juncker had the worst performance.

[Diouf]

I think Verhofstadt did quite well. Generally the three to the left acted more like a normal debate, while Juncker often looked a bit absent and didn't really engage with the others, although that did seem to be partially due to his poorer English skills.

The debate had a somewhat better flow in the last part of the debate, but that was unfortunately on the subject of Ukraine where there were not really much difference between them. I hope the debate on 15 May will function better; it looks positive that there is only one host.
In this debate, I believe there was a number of problems. First of all, the presenters talked far too much about time; all the time saying thirty seconds, forty seconds, one minute. That is okay for opening and closing statements, but good hosts can run a debate so the time is divided quite fairly without these constant time references. It made it seem more important to keep the structure than to actually have any real debate.
Furthermore, I have yet to see a debate that gains much from switching to a "Twitter watcher" who tells how many are tweeting, trying to find out what the "consensus" is among the tweeters and to find questions. This generally works better when it is integrated in the program, and not as a seperate point that you have to get by a number of times. It can be integrated by having a social media line in the bottom of the screen with good/funny comments to the debate, and edited by a web editor behind the scenes. This editor can then also provide questions to the presenter if something genious emerges; otherwise it is often better to just keep to the prepared questions.
Finally, the presenters should have focused on fewer and clearer points. It often resulted in candidates starting out by answering other candidates' questions to get some debate, and ended up without enough time to answer the questions they were given. This often made it more like detached questions and answers instead of debate.

[justfollowingtheelections]

IMO, Martin and Guy were the cleear winners. I'd give an advantadge to the 1st., but that may be just because I like him more.

Keller wasn't bad either, but it's pretty clear that Juncker had the worst performance.

And yet he will be the next president because that's what TPTB want.  No wonder eurosceptics are gaining ground.

[RodPresident]

And among candidates in debate, Verhofstadt is the most likely Comission President.

[MaxQue]

Deutschland:

Piraten 76.3
Linke 75
Grüne 69.7
SPD 63.2
FW, FDP 61.8
CDU 59.2
CSU, AfD 56.6
NPD 44.7
REP 30.3

Other small parties are between all those.
Gutted than Piraten is first.

Osterreich:

Grüne: 236
Eu Anders: 214
SPÖ: 149
NEOS: 36
BZÖ: 22
ÖVP: -17
FPÖ: -85
REKOS: -181

[Enno von Loewenstern]

All candidates are one single awkwardness for Europe, but they well fit to Ashton and the damp rag. With one of them in the next five years we will have a eurorealstic party in the next elections, as everyone of them is an advertisement for the euroskeptics across Europe.

[Zinneke]

Verhofstadt did well to clear up the F word. He made it clear that he isn't arguing for a bureaucratic Europe but rather a common policy Europe by any means necessary, then rightfully shifted the responsibility on the council for a lack of common policy. I think he basically got to the heart of the institutional issue within the EU better than the others. He will never get on with the council though.

I thought Ska Keller was really dissapointing. She could have had a right go at both EPP and S&D for their joint socio-economic programme of austerity and instead she banged on about Green issues. In fact, the whole socio-economic debate was a farce. Juncker is to the left of his party and supports workers rights and high wages. Schulz is to the right of his party and is German-orientated so supports austerity. This debate really needed Tsipras or Bové to argue against gloablisation and liberalism in general.

Schulz is, for me, the one who should get the job based on tongiht's performances. He has too much baggage though and I see an increasingly xenophobic Europe turning its back on ''softy'' social democracy sooner rather than later. I mean in 2009 the Social Democrats were destroyed and that was after the biggest failure of capitalism for a long while. I really fear for the traditional European Left in general.

Looks like it will be Juncker...ugh...

To not end on a negative note, I actually thought the debate, while chaotic, was really good in some parts and amusing in others. Keep in mind I believe most of the audience are students and I think that is a demographic that desperately needs to have new political fire in the belly. Aside from Juncker, the others actually did a decent job of not looking like the political Brussels-based beaurodinosaurs they are.

[EPG]

As a debate, it didn't matter to the election outcome. Two of the candidates will not come in first place, and the other two candidates will win seats if their member parties are in opposition and lose them if they're in government, and there's no guarantee that the European Council will propose any of the four, anyway. As the French-language Euronews commentators said afterwards, even Juncker really wanted to be President of the Council but the EPP needed a German-speaking candidate.

[Zinneke]

As a debate, it didn't matter to the election outcome. Two of the candidates will not come in first place, and the other two candidates will win seats if their member parties are in opposition and lose them if they're in government, and there's no guarantee that the European Council will propose any of the four, anyway. As the French-language Euronews commentators said afterwards, even Juncker really wanted to be President of the Council but the EPP needed a German-speaking candidate.

Juncker will probably end up as President of the Council with Schulz or Verhostadt as Comission President.

To be President of the Council ideally you have to be a diplomat, and politically you have to be a centrist. Juncker is perfect for this.

To be President of the Commision ideally you have to have a strong image of leadership and know-how (so far Delors is the only one who managed this) and politically you just need a majority in parliament and to bend your back to whatever the Council demands of you. Schulz fits this criteria.