European Parliament Election: May 23-26, 2019

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I don't think anyone has commented on them, so here go the Spanish results (rounded to the nearest %)

99.65% in (so pretty much final)

PSOE-S&D 32% (20)
PP-EPP 20% (12)
Cs-ALDE 12% (7)
UP-GUE/NGL 10% (6)
Vox-ENF 6% (3)
AR-G/EFA 5% (3)
JxCat-ALDE 4% (2)
CEUS-ALDE 2% (1)

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Final results from Portugal:

33.4% PS (+1.9), 9 seats (+1)
21.9% PSD, 6 (nc)
  9.8% BE (+5.2), 2 (+1)
  6.9% CDU (-5.7), 2 (-1)
  6.2% CDS, 1 (nc)
  5.1% PAN (+3.4), 1 (+1)
  1.9% Alliance (new), 0
  1.8% Livre (-0.4), 0
  1.5% Basta! (+0.6), 0
  1.0% NC (new), 0
  0.9% IL (new), 0
  0.8% PCTP (-0.9), 0
  0.5% PNR (nc), 0
  0.5% PDR (new), 0 (-1)
  0.4% PURP (new), 0
  0.3% PTP (-0.4), 0
  0.2% MAS (-0.2)
  7.0% Blank/Invalid

31.4% Turnout (-2.3)

By EU parties: PES - 33.4%, 9 seats (+1); EPP - 28.1% 7 seats (nc); GUE-NGL - 16.7%, 4 seats (nc); EGP - 5.1%, 1 seat (+1)

How on Earth did the Animal right's party manage to get a seat?

I get there are 2% of Portuguese who care enough for animals to give them a national seat or 2, but 5% seems quite high? (and also not predicted by polls I think?)

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So Korwin Mikke gets no seats?

Also, if this was the result in the general election PiS would still keep it's majority? (Not sure if you can extrapolate or not)

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In Malta, the Nationalist Party receives its worst result since 1951, after a failed attempt to spin the rumour that Labour were planning on legalising abortion (even as Malta has rapidly got more socially liberal in recent years, they have not touched that taboo) and pledging to constitutionally ban it. This probably means Labour scores the highest percentage in the EU? (have't checked yet) Another fresh mandate for Joseph Muscat and his insanely corrupt government.

In the third party stakes (not that anyone cares about third parties in Malta, given how rigidly partisan the electorate are) the far right got 3% and "third prize". These far rightists are called Imperium Europa, and want to create a united Europe or as they describe it in their platform: "a Europid bond forged through Spirituality closely followed by Race, nurtured through High culture, protected by High Politics, enforced by The Elite."  The Democratic Party, a split from Labour who ran with the Nats last time round, got 2%, although intriguingly their socon leader got less first preferences than his running mate, a Swedish social liberal and environmental activist who publicly criticized the party's support for a constitutional abortion ban (which is something for Malta, where the electorate don't tend to break the party's list orders). The traditional third party, the Greens, are nowhere: they had quite a tiff and split during the campaign because their candidate, a non-binary transgender person, broke the ultimate taboo and said they supported the right to an abortion.

Lol, so apparently Malta has far right borderline neonazi EU federalists

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The list I voted for (Hamon's Génération.s) won 3.3%. That's better than I expected honestly.

And in Italy?

It's illegal to vote in two different countries for European elections.

If I'd voted in Italy I guess I would have voted for the "united" leftist list, which got 1.7% (which is a stunningly bad result even by the standards of the Italian left). Or possibly Bonino's list to own the Euroskeptics, although she's way to my right economically (it got 3%).

It's been pretty disastrous across the board for the True Left - Melenchon's bunch humbled, Podemos crushed (Iglesias has got to be thinking of resigning, no?), Die Linke recedes, Sinn Fein wiped out, Dutch Socialists gone, Austrians, Polish and Italians nowhere to be seen, Syriza hit hard, Czech Communists on death's door etc.

The case of Podemos should be treated with the founders on the psychotherapist's couch. Pablo Iglesias has many faults, but to be honest it has to be said: a) Podemos and Iglesias are inextricably linked b) Iglesias is a man of remarkable talent who managed to save UP from disaster in the last general elections. Actually Iglesias was a dead man at the campaign start, but his good performance in debates and a turn in the last week of campaign saved his face in April. Certainly UP lost ground, but 14% of the vote and 42 seats was a result better than polls predicted. However Pablo Iglesias was not running in local, regional and EP elections. Podemos collapsed this Sunday (meanwhile his rival got a remarkable result in Madrid)  I think that Podemos does not make sense without the charismatic leader. Maybe Podemos won't be relevant anymore and the Spanish alternative left needs a process of refoundation. While the True Left crashes in Europe, the good results of green parties and Fridays for Future give me some hope. Greens have never been relevant in Spain or Italy. However, in the case of Spain, the platform of Más Madrid incorporated a lot of environmentalist elements, besides feminism and other things. Perhaps this the path to follow...

Eh, while Más Madrid did incorporate environmentalist elements and was successful, Compromís also did that (with more credibility and longer running than MM) and saw a decrease in the Valencian elections, a really bad result in the general elections and only held Valencia's mayor by like 250 votes I think.

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Swedish Liberals now at 4.00% so exactly on the threshold. There seems to be more rural than urban areas counted so far though so they still look on track to make it in.

Why is Sweden still counting? I thought elections didn't take that long to count?

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Any reason for that particular political geography that isn't "Former German Empire+Warsaw"? (You can also see the usual rural vs urban divide of course)

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Vox has finally decided to join ECR and not ENF. That seems like a better fit for them I think, they aren't quite a Le Pen or Salvini I think.

https://twitter.com/voxnoticias_es/status/1139190365016264715

Fun fact, in their tweet they claimed that they got assurances that "all members of the ECR Group would respect Spain's territorial integrity". Which means one of two things:

1: N-VA will be kicked out of the ECR group (who would they join, EFDD maybe if it somehow survives?)

2: N-VA will stop supporting Puigdemont and the like. So they support Spain's territorial integrity but not Belgium's?

Then again, VB would be in ENF, so it's not like they would have much of a choice.

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Vox has finally decided to join ECR and not ENF. That seems like a better fit for them I think, they aren't quite a Le Pen or Salvini I think.

Fun fact, in their tweet they claimed that they got assurances that "all members of the ECR Group would respect Spain's territorial integrity". Which means one of two things:

1: N-VA will be kicked out of the ECR group (who would they join, EFDD maybe if it somehow survives?)

2: N-VA will stop supporting Puigdemont and the like. So they support Spain's territorial integrity but not Belgium's?

Then again, VB would be in ENF, so it's not like they would have much of a choice.

So, are Tories giving Gibraltar back to Spain or is VOX accepting that Gibraltar is part of UK?

Fun fact: Vox's "2nd in command" Javier Ortega Smith actually deployed a huge Spanish flag in Gibraltar and then escaped the Gibraltar police by swimming across the bay back to Spain! (a 5km swim at the absolute minimum, and more realistically a 8.5 km one)

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/681909/Gibraltar-Spain-dispute-police-arrest-man-flag-stunt

So I would not mess around with him! Actually I didn't know until now, but Vox does have "Get Gibtraltar back" as part of their platform! Not unexpected but still.

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Junts I suppose.

I believe JxCat has applied to join the G/EFA group (alongside ERC). Not sure if their application will be successful, but it is a possibility. N-VA was in that group for a while after all

Though seeing Puigdemont and Farage belong to the same Eurogroup would be hilarious

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That's 21 MEPs and 4 countries - even the PNV-ALDE relationship has soured? Including Croatia's Živi Zid that's 22 MEPs and 5 coutries. 2 more countries and 3 more MEPs needed.

For what's worth, back during the general election campaign Cs did extremely harsh attacks on PNV and the special Basque economic regime. Cs is arguably more pro-centralism than even PP, who in some regions still mainains a somewhat decentralized image (most notably their Galicia branch and what little remains of the Basque PP branch)

https://twitter.com/CiudadanosCs/status/1119168760080846848

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We are over one year away from the European Parliament elections throughout the EU, so it’s time for a thread!

EP elections 2024: The Revenge of the Sith

_{Also starring: Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson}

Looking at  how Brexit is being handled, I would not be surprised to see PM Boris Johnson and MEP Nigel Farage still there by 2024 lol

[Former President tack50]

Today was the day when the Spanish MEPs were supposed to swear in. As expected, the 2 JxCat MEPs (Carles Puigdemont and Toni Comín, in so-called exile in Belgium) and one of ERC's 2 MEPs (Oriol Junqueras, currently on jail) were not allowed to swear in.

Horribly biased sources, but it's not like there are many in English:

https://www.elnacional.cat/en/news/oriol-junqueras-catalan-prisoner-mep_394714_102.html

https://www.elnacional.cat/en/news/puigdemont-comin-madrid-meps-swear-constitution_394432_102.html

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Horrible decision from the EU

While I wanted Timmermans (or Vestager I guess) why kill the spitzenkandidat process just to install another CDU politician?

I'd much rather have Manfred Weber over von der Leyen; at least that would give the EU a bit more democratic legitimacy and keep the spizenkandidat process alive for a couple more years.

I can only hope the EU parliament rejects this but it's probably not happening. Only silver lining seems to be Josep Borrell as "EU Foreign minister" (basically the top diplomat). He has done a good job, but still.

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The EU share of female MEPs is now up to 40% in total (higher than the 25% share in the US Senate or 23% in the US House):

I mean, regarding this point it is worth noting that pretty much all EU member states (minus Ireland and Malta?) use party lists in order to elect their MEPs.

I am not sure how widespread this is, but at least here party lists have quotas (so you need at least 2 women and 3 men or viceversa in every group of 5 consecutive candidates so getting a mostly balanced parliament is not hard.

Not sure how accurate it is, but I remember some study or analysis finding out that women tend to do much better in parliamentary systems than presidential ones. There is a reason why (for example) the UK elected Thatcher all the way in 1979 while France or the US have not elected a female president (though interestingly France did elect a female PM once)

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You may now press F for Europe 

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As ignorant American^TM, all of this sounds bit over the top or am I missing something?
It seems to me that these kind of decisions in EU always involves backdoor dealing.

Yeah, EU decisions generally involve backdoor dealing. And it is indeed a bit over the top, I imagine a majority of Europeans won't know who this people are or what they do.

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Regarding urutzizu's post, he has a point. I remember during the campaign (what little EU campaign there was that is), Zahradil continually mentioned Eastern Europe feels unrepresented in the EU, and he is probably right.

There needs to be some sort of compromise. However that does not mean that every compromise is good. The ECR should probably be accomodated to a large extent and the cordon sanitaire against them dropped (and same for GUE/NGL on the left, though they are quite irrelevant now). The ENF (now ID group) though? Not so much

The EU should accomodate governments like the Bulgarian one, the Czech or Slovakian governments or the Baltic states. But it should not cave to the far right of people like Salvini or Orban.

The solutions for a more democratic EU are actually extremely simple: either EU wide party lists (so you vote EPP or S&D and not say CDU or PSOE or whatever) or a US style "EU presidential election" (complete with its very own electoral college most likely).

However there doesn't seem to be the support for either of those options for some reason (not surprised about the latter, but EU party lists would be a simple and extremely effective improvement)