European Parliament Election 2014

[Simon]

Ahead of this week's European parliament elections (22-25 May), PollWatch has published it's latest and final prediction.

 

 

EPP, the conservative party group, would receive the majority of the seats in the parliament, according to their pre-election polls. The Socialists would be the second largest political group. EPP would get 217 seats, 16 more than the Socialists. The Greens would actually lose seats, going from their current 58 seats to 44 seats. This would mean that the main EPP candidate, Jean-Claude Juncker could soon become EU's most powerful politician.

 

This is just sad, albeit not surprising. Juncker is boring, white, old, and a man. He is basically the epitome of conservatism. It would also mean bad news for the climate and our environment with an EU that will continue to lack political will to combat the climate crisis. In debates, Juncker has used the term "floodgates" to talk about migrants. He has claimed he "don't know anything" about the TTIP mandate. And his political group supports "fracking" and austerity measures, among many things.

 

If you are eligible to vote in the European elections, please use that right and vote for a greener Europe with more solidarity.

[Mark Piazzalunga]

I think that the decision of the European Greens to candidate a man and a woman (who has only 32 years) is fantastic. These elections will decide the president of European Commission and the main rival of Juncker is Martin Schulz, white, old but smart and with a progressist vision of the European Union. I'd prefer to vote Schulz instead of Juncker but I think Socialists, Greens and the European Left have to cooperate because these elections will change everything.

[Simon]

Kaum Unterschiede zwischen #Schulz & #Juncker in der #Wahlarena. Besser morgen @SkaKeller bei #AnneWill gucken! pic.twitter.com/vr5RqrmIDx

— BÜNDNIS90/DIE GRÜNEN (@Die_Gruenen) May 20, 2014

 

There's hardly any differences between Schulz & Juncker!

 

Jokes aside, yes, I agree with you Mark. I would like to see more co-operation between the socialists and the greens. After all, they should be - and are - sharing the same values and ideologies. But in the recent debates, Ska Keller have sounded more like a socialist than Schulz!

[Simon]

I've written more extensively on my thoughts about the European Parliament elections and why it's so important to vote green. It might also be my most pro-EU post ever. I am kinda shocked about it.

[Mark Piazzalunga]

I agree with you and the post I've written it's very interesting. What's more important for Europe is a strong European Commission with the essential particepation of the Greens in Environmental Commission. I really hope that Europeans will choose Schulz which is not so socialist (he's more social democratic) but I think he can do the first step for the future of Europe

[Mark Piazzalunga]

The first exit poll shows that in Netherlands far right and anti-european party is below the expectations and places fourth. The first victory against anti-europeanism.

[Mark Piazzalunga]

2014 EU Elections; The Duel Between Anger and Hope

 

A few weeks ago the Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said that these elections would have been a duel between anger, the refuse of European Union and the hate for Euro, and hope, improving all the aspects of European Union. There was a big and significant wave of euroscepticism but it haven’t drowned the European Union as everyone believed. There were defeats for Europeanism:

- UK, where the Eurosceptic party (UKIP) arrived first with 27.5% and 23 seats.
- France, where the Front Nationale took 25% of the votes and 24 seats.

There were advances:

- Italy, where Five Stars Movement took 21% and 17 seats.
- Germany, where Alternative for Germany took 7% and 7 seats.

But there were significant victories:

- Italy, Democratic Party (center-left) took 41% of the votes and 31 seats, the biggest party in Europe (if we consider CDU of Angela Merkel separated from CSU).
- In Germany Europeanism is still high. The Europeanist parties took 82 seats on 96 (if we consider Die Like, left-wing, too).

As Italian I’m proud of the results of these elections that encouraged the action of the current government. It’s also the highest result a center-left party ever reached in Italy. It’s the sign that not all the Europeans want the destruction of the Union but a majority pretend a better Europe that can be competitive in the world markets and that can be right and fair with all the people of the states. Now let’s just hope to have a strong European Commission with the participation of all the Europeanist parties.

P.S. Greens in Italy are not the best we can have and they didn’t have any chance to enter the European Parliament but in the Democratic Party there’s a strong ecologic component.

Edited June 1, 2014 by Simon Leufstedt
I merged your topic with this one

[Simon]

I agree with you and the post I've written it's very interesting. What's more important for Europe is a strong European Commission with the essential particepation of the Greens in Environmental Commission. I really hope that Europeans will choose Schulz which is not so socialist (he's more social democratic) but I think he can do the first step for the future of Europe

 

Thank you.

 

I would rather see more powers are given to the parliament.

 

At the moment the parliament is not the political body that decides in Europe. Unlike other parliaments in Europe and elsewhere, the members of the European Parliament are not allowed to put forth their own political suggestions. Their role is basically to keep an eye on the EU budget and vote on the proposals given to them by the European Commission.

 

The European Commission is not directly elected by us, but by the European Council. And the Council is also not elected by us. We choose parties that choose a leader who goes into a Council, which selects a Commission that presents their proposals to the Parliament.

 

So, I think we need to abolish the Commission and the Council and introduce elections to the European Parliament every third year. Only then can EU become truly democratic!

[Mark Piazzalunga]

This is what parties should do now. In this electoral campaign a lot of parties all over the countries of EU claimed an instituion decided by the people. This is the occasion for them to change things. Right now I see EPP and Conservatives in a difficult situation for the choice of the President of the Commission.

[Simon]

One interesting thing with the recent EU election is that the Social Democrats actually won. Yes, you read that right. You probably won't read it in the news, but overall, the Social Democrats received the most votes. But because the election isn't happening inside a union the results get skewed. The Dutch newspaper Volkskrant did the counting, and according to them the Social Democrats would have won the election and received the most seats in the parliament. The greens would also be much bigger. The bad thing is that so would some far-right parties too.

 

The election result look this different because smaller countries have more votes than larger countries. And right-wing parties tend to do better in smaller European countries - and thus we now get a conservative EU President. 

 

Maybe it should be better, and more democratic, if the EU started to count all the votes in the Union into a single result? One vote per EU citizen!

 

P.S. Greens in Italy are not the best we can have and they didn’t have any chance to enter the European Parliament but in the Democratic Party there’s a strong ecologic component.

 

Yeah, and that's a shame. The greens lack a political presence in several European countries. Maybe it should be better if only the major political groups in the EU participated in the elections? So that everyone could vote for the greens, the social democrats, the left/green socialist, the EPP/conservatives, the liberals and so on?

[Mark Piazzalunga]

Electoral laws change and if in Italy a party which had 500,000 votes can't enter the European Parliament, a party that in Germany had 200,000 votes can have a seat. That's because the different elction thresholds and I find it wrong and undemocratic. You're totally right when you say one vote per EU Citizen andit would be much better if the big european parties participated in the elections.

I sincerely hope we won't have a conservative president, it's 10 years we have a president from EPP and 15 we don't have a president from a center-left party. EPP and S&D were thinking to Enrico Letta as President of th European Council. Letta is the former President of Italy (he didn't go so well) a "compatriot" and he is from Democratic Party (the only center-left party in Italy) although he comes from a christian democratic tradition that I don't like so much.

Regarding Italian Greens it's such a shame. In the '90 they were starting to increase their votes, they also got Environment Ministry in some governments but they didn't work. In Italy we have horrible environmental scandals (Land of Fires and Ilva) and a well-structured party could really change things.