European Parliament Election: May 23-26, 2019

[EPG]

Matteo Renzi: "We should build a European coalition with Macron, Greens, Liberals and Tsipras. Frans Timmermans should be our candidate for Commission President".

https://www.huffingtonpost.it/2018/09/20/alle-europee-con-macron-e-tsipras-e-timmermans-candidato-alla-presidenza-della-commissione_a_23534008/

Frans who? Manfred who? Do any of these people want a Commission with authority?

[EPG]

Trust me that nobody normal outside the Benelux knows who he is nor what he stands for. Plenty of commissioners have meaningful profiles like Oettinger, Moscovici, and of course Vestager - maybe Renzi is trying to keep Vestager away from the Presidency by setting up a socialist lead candidate.

[EPG]

Irish constituencies will be arranged 5-4-4, 5 in the south of the country, 4 in Dublin and 4 in the rest.

With 8 months to go:
1 extra seat in the south will probably be FF (ALDE) with outside chance of FG (EPP)
1 in Dublin will probably be FF (ALDE)
Retiring S&D in Dublin may be replaced by Greens or one of the GUE-NGL affiliates, but in reality, this is an open seat for the most compelling new left-wing candidate.
No extra seat in the rest, but FF (ALDE) will probably gain from independent Harkin (ALDE) and FG (EPP) have an outside chance of taking one off independent Flanagan (GUE-NGL).

So an ALDE merry-go-round at the moment, ALDE +2 Greens or GUE-NGL +1 S&D -1, but if there is a change of government, all bets are off.

[EPG]

My top matches are a lot of the Alliansen MEPs and Guy Verhofstadt, none of which surprises me. The best match I could vote for last time, I did vote for, so the test must work ok.

[EPG]

BTW Question 5 "Should asylum seekers be redistributed across EU countries on the basis of a quota system?" is a little problematic. I'm against a quota system because I want open borders and I'm for refugee settlement, not because I'm against refugee settlement. So I answered neutral on that question.

It's just matching your questions to MEP votes, so this is fine, you will match to the MEPs who agree with you on this reasoning as well as the ones who don't.

[EPG]

It makes perfect sense as either alone would be weak whereas together their coalition would be strong, and they agree on the fundamentals. Contrary to opinion in the Brussels bubble, Euro-federalism is neither a fundamental nor is it likely any time soon, as half a dozen countries are in open revolt against the EU's authority.