EP elections 2014 - Results Thread

[StateBoiler]

Whoever ends up commission president is going to be a massive compromise. Taking party seat numbers from euobserver.com:

EPP - 213
S&D - 191
ALDE - 64
Others - 64
Greens/EFA - 52
ECR - 46
GUE/NGL - 42
Non-Iscrits - 41
EFD - 38

There's no ready made coalition that can get up to 376 votes. Doesn't help that people with no party affiliation hold at the moment 105 seats. But even if EPP and S&D formed a grand coalition, that's only 404 votes and these are parties in the very loosest sense of the word, a few "backbencher" political parties can go against their party and vote against commission president.

[StateBoiler]

what plausible candidate is acceptable to the center-right, center-left, liberal, and green representatives in the European Parliament? it's not Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg

[StateBoiler]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Juncker is a super European insider from mighty power Luxembourg that few people know and fewer people in the European voting process were ever exposed to. Elections are supposed to have a veneer of responsibility attached to them, yet there were many countries where people voted and have no idea who Juncker, Schulz, Verhofstedt, etc. were. When people were voting for the European Parliament, they were not voting for those individuals to be their leaders. They were voting for their respective national parties whom most of the people that vote for them don't know their European party affiliation or care.

Verhofstedt to me is the worst. He gets a challenge from Olli Rehn who Verhofstedt and a few of his backers don't like, so instead of actually having an election to decide who is ALDE's candidate/leader for the EP elections (God forbid people, politicians even, actually have to vote on who their leader was), they work out a backroom compromise so the party primary disappears.

[StateBoiler]

Juncker is a super European insider from mighty power Luxembourg that few people know and fewer people in the European voting process were ever exposed to. Elections are supposed to have a veneer of responsibility attached to them, yet there were many countries where people voted and have no idea who Juncker, Schulz, Verhofstedt, etc. were. When people were voting for the European Parliament, they were not voting for those individuals to be their leaders. They were voting for their respective national parties whom most of the people that vote for them don't know their European party affiliation or care.

Verhofstedt to me is the worst. He gets a challenge from Olli Rehn who Verhofstedt and a few of his backers don't like, so instead of actually having an election to decide who is ALDE's candidate/leader for the EP elections (God forbid people, politicians even, actually have to vote on who their leader was), they work out a backroom compromise so the party primary disappears.

Yes but what you are forgetting that a Europe-wide election just between Schultz, Juncker, et al would do well to have a 0.5% turnout.

that's the fault of the European political system and its associated political parties, not me