EP elections 2014

[Tender Branson]

They don't need to satisfy all three voter groups, because simply there won't be any.
The ÖVP will mostly likely return just 4 of the 19 MEP's.
The SPÖ maybe 4 or even just 3.
The FPÖ about 4 or even 5.
The Grüne most likely 3.
The NEOS 2.
And the other two - maybe one to Hans Peter Martin, and the other to Stronach? Or both an extra to FPÖ/SPÖ or ÖVP?

1st point: True, I don't see them getting more than 4%, or even a seat (which requires more than that).

2nd point: Do you think Martin will get a seat again ? He's currently polling only 1-2% and it's not even clear if he'll run again. Also, the Krone backed him in 2009, not this time anymore.

And the Team Stronach is now a total joke and won't achieve anything ...

It will be interesting if they get beyond the 4% election threshold (they got only 2% in the federal elections).

But even if they pass the official 4% threshold it still isn't really sure whether they really get a seat: The threshold they really have to clear will probably be around 5% with Austria only having 18 seats and using D'Hondt as the seat allocation method.
So they have basically no chance of getting a seat.

What I don't know: Is there are lower threshold to qualify for additional party funding, like we have it in Germany?

Only a party that is represented in the national parliament or state parliament gets state funding.

[sirius3100]

What "german gauche citizen activism group" are you thinking of? Pirates? And the preconditions to form a caucus/faction are seven states and 25 members. Where would they come from? Pirates will only have 2 to 4 MEP, and if the three percent threshold isn't declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, it is possible, they don't make it at all.

Getting the 25 MEPs won't be so hard if we really assume that the M5S is involved (I'm not sure if that party was meant with beppe). I don't know current EU parliament polls for Italy but going by other polls I would predict that the M5S will get around 15 seats. So only approximately 10 more from 6 different countries would be required. So if they do get MEPs from those 6 other countries there's a high probability that they also have 25 or more MEPs in total.

I'm not sure which groups in Germany -having a chance of getting a seat if the 3% threshold is scrapped- one could actually call "citizen activists groups". As already mentioned the Free Voters and Pirates could be. The ÖDP initiated some referendums in Bavaria during the last years and if one considers direct democracy as a proxy for the status as a "citizen activists group" one could count them; but I wouldn't say they are one ideologically.
But if the 3% threshold is cancelled around 0.5% of the total votes will probably be enough to get a seat, so a lot of fringe groups need be considered. I'm pretty sure at least one of them would join a faction of "citizen activists".

[Senator Cris]

IPR poll for the EP elections in Italy (the first poll for the EP elections)

The national date is "Italia"



Seats:

PD 23
M5S 21
Forza Italia 20
NCD 5
Lega 4

Threshold: 4%

[Diouf]

Ulla Tørnæs, New Venstre front runner in EP elections

New lead candidate for Venstre (Liberals) in Denmark. Ellen Thrane Nørby had been picked as the lead candidate, but she has become pregnant and therefore decided not to run. She will be replaced by Ulla Tørnæs, an MP since 1994 and a former Minister of Education and Minister of Development. Quite a downgrade I will say; there are still no EU polls from Denmark, but it's not unlikely now that DF (DPP) could actually end out on top. Nørby and Tørnæs ran in the same multimember constituency at the general election in 2011; Nørby received 18 059 personal votes, Tørnæs received 9 125. Also Tørnæs' reputation has been hurt by the recent local elections in Denmark. She was the Liberal front runner in Holstebro, which ended up as the only municipality in Western Denmark without a Liberal mayor. She improved the Liberals' poor 2009 showing with 4 %, but that was mostly because the race turned presidential between her and the incumbent Social Democrat mayor, so she gained a bit from the other right-wing parties. Tørnæs was widely perceived as a candidate without much local knowledge who had been parachuted in, which made many rally around the incumbent mayor, whose social democrats surged forward to 44 %, a 16 % improvement.
As described earlier, Venstre (Liberals) had some troubles in finding their lead candidate in the first place, so it has of course been even more difficult to find someone this time with a relatively short notice. Tørnæs was probable quite easy to convince, but I'm doubting that she can convince the voters.

[Tender Branson]

Pirates, Communists (KPÖ) and Der Wandel have signed their EP election alliance contract.

The name of the election alliance, the campaign team and the next steps (development of a joint election program) will be announced on Thursday.

It's Thursday and their joint name is "Europa anders" ("Europe differently" - or - "A different Europe").

www.europaanders.at

[Middle-aged Europe]

European elections poll for Germany (Infratest dimap, 02/06)

CDU/CSU 38%
SPD 29%
Greens 10%
Left 8%
AfD 6%
FDP 4%

FDP surge!!

[FredLindq]

Seems like CDU looses both to AfD and FDP. Has AfD stated what EP-group they will join? ECR or EFD?!

[Keystone Phil]

IPR poll for the EP elections in Italy (the first poll for the EP elections)

The national date is "Italia"



Seats:

PD 23
M5S 21
Forza Italia 20
NCD 5
Lega 4

Threshold: 4%

Wow. So that's why we haven't seen anything about Italian polls. This is first! That's...strange. Grazie, Cris!

[Middle-aged Europe]

Seems like CDU looses both to AfD and FDP.

Possibly also to the SPD, since the same poll showed that foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has now relieved Angela Merkel as the most popular politician in Germany.

And I don't think that anyone loses anything to the FDP right now. In the 2013 Bundestag election, the AfD had received the most of their votes from former FDP and Left Party voters... maybe that's also the case here. The 11% the FDP had received in the 2009 EU elections have to go somewhere at least.

Has AfD stated what EP-group they will join? ECR or EFD?!

Not to my knowledge.

[FredLindq]

I noticed som increase in the support for SPD, but also the Greens?!

What is the most logical ECR or EFD?! I would say ECR.

[Tender Branson]

Caution !

Before every EP election in Germany the polls have OVERESTIMATED the SPD by a lot (mostly 4-7 points).

Take a look at the historic polls here:

http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/europawahl.htm

[Yeahsayyeah]

The main problem with EP polls in Germany (as almost everywhere) is to figure out who will actually vote as turnout is low. Union and Greens should usually benefit from that, Linke and SPD are usually harmed by that. And some red-green voters were more inclined to vote Greens in the past elections, because of their image as "The Europe Party".

[Tender Branson]

Direct vote for EU Commission President:



By party:

[Velasco]

The Spanish party Union, Progress and Democracy (UPyD) will place its current MEP, Francisco Sosa Wagner, on the top of the list. In the second place is Maite Pagazaurtundua, better known as 'Pagaza' -some Basque family names are complicated-. Maite Pagaza was member of the Basque Parliament (1993-1998) for the Basque Socialists (PSE) and presided an association of victims. Her brother, Joseba Pagazaurtundua was killed by ETA in 2003. She was very critic with former Spain's PM José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and with Patxi López -former Basque premier and PSE leader- because of serious disagreements on anti-terrorist policies and the peace process. Recently, she stated her upset with the "sudden" implementation of a sentence of the Strasbourg Court which allowed the release of several terrorists. The Court overruled the so-called "Parot doctrine", which tried to avoid that ETA members were enjoying penitentiary benefits in order that they were serving their full sentences. In fact, if some ETA members condemned for several murders are now free it's because of the inabilty of the major parties in reforming the Spanish Penal Code of 1973.

Ciutadans (Cs or Citizen Movement) is going to hold "telematic" primaries amongst the membership.

[Steffers]

What exactly is the difference between UPyD and C's?

[EPG]

As I see it, as an outsider, the parties emerged from distinct contexts: Ciutadans can be seen much more as Catalans supporting a Spanish identity, while UPyD is an explicitly national party.

Rivera (Ciutadans) had a history in its Catalan-only days of making electoral pacts with other parties, including local parties in the rest of Spain (not to mention Libertas in 2009), whereas UPyD is much more intransigent about its independence.

More importantly, Rivera and Diez (UPyD) each want to be leader of a big popular anti-system movement. I see them each as little more than one-man or one-woman bands with weak ideological content other than what a British observer would call unionism.

[Diouf]

Zeit writes that several high-ranking AfD members have had negotiations with UKIP regarding cooperation after the elections. However, their front runner Bernd Lucke prefers to cooperate with the Conservatives and has been highly critical of UKIP: "On the theme of immigration, I don't like the tone that UKIP is using. You can incite people in that way". According to the article, the matter will be decided by party members, presumably by a vote. It doesn't state whether this vote will happen before or after the election.

http://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2014-01/afd-briten-ukip-kooperation

[FredLindq]

I hope AfD goes wirth Tories! Might UPyD try to get something togheter with M5S? Like the radical group in 1994-1999?

[Cassius]

Surely 'inciting' the voters is one of the things the AfD needs to do better.

On the subject of the AfD, what, actually, are they for. I mean, from reading the wikipedia page (yes, sadly, up until recently wikipedia was my main source on the politics of foreign countries) they seem vaguely eurosceptic... And yet, even on that, they seem a bit fuzzy.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Surely 'inciting' the voters is one of the things the AfD needs to do better.

On the subject of the AfD, what, actually, are they for. I mean, from reading the wikipedia page (yes, sadly, up until recently wikipedia was my main source on the politics of foreign countries) they seem vaguely eurosceptic... And yet, even on that, they seem a bit fuzzy.

Protest party for:
- conservatives who are disappointed by the CDU and/or FDP
- people who are disaffected by the European Union
- people who are against the traditional establishment and disaffected by the political process in general

In the 2013 Bundestag election, they won most of their votes from the FDP (430.000), the Left Party (340.000), the CDU/CSU (290.000), and non-voters (210.000). Only marginal wins from SPD and Greens.

Broadly speaking, they're against giving German money to other EU countries over the Euro crisis and think that the CDU has become too centrist. Some German media went so far to describe it as "the German Tea Party".

[MaxQue]

I hope AfD goes wirth Tories! Might UPyD try to get something togheter with M5S? Like the radical group in 1994-1999?

Why an italian protest party would ally with castillan supremacists?

[EPG]

Ideologically, the AfD would seem a good fit for the Tories, ODS, etc.

They would also be less likely to end up with strange bedfellows after the election.

[EPG]

I hope AfD goes wirth Tories! Might UPyD try to get something togheter with M5S? Like the radical group in 1994-1999?

UPyD are pro-EU federalism, whereas M5S are anti-euro and so forth.

[FredLindq]

Thats true. But if M5S and UPyD can not align, i do not think an alternative left group can be formed.

[RodPresident]

Thats true. But if M5S and UPyD can not align, i do not think an alternative left group can be formed.

Grillo could try to attract EFA away of Greens. If Greens refuse to accept Bildu, Spanish separatists (ERC) would made a great partner. Another potential European Partners for M5S could be Palikot, Tomio Okamura, Diaconescu, Independent Greeks and 50 Plus.