EP elections 2014

[Tender Branson]

The FPÖ decided to plagiarize UKIP and puts this ad into today's "Kronen Zeitung" newspaper:



A 1:1 copy of UKIP's effective ad ...

[Tender Branson]

New OGM poll for the "Kurier" (OGM is historically the best pollster in Austria):

26% SPÖ
25% ÖVP
20% FPÖ
13% Greens
11% NEOS
  5% Others

NEOS-"collapse" continues ...

43% say they will "definitely vote" in the EP election.

http://kurier.at/politik/eu/umfrage-zur-eu-wahl-junge-haben-keinen-bock-auf-die-europa-wahl/64.767.939

[sirius3100]

Then no one would vote in them.

In that case they should just get rid of the EU parliament.  But they shouldn't do that until they do elections with european parties first.

Abolishing the EU parliament would be a great idea as nobody cares about it. Your other idea is absurd for that very reason.

For me personally the EU elections are the most important elections I can take part of. I know that's not the case for the majority of the people, but I hate it whenever someone states that nobody cares about this election.
And I know that the european parliament doesn't have the powers national parliaments do have, but at least there are still some fundamental decisions to be made at the EU level.

I for one don't care about local elections at all^*. But that doesn't mean that those are useless or nobody cares about them.

*I'm still always voting in them, but that's mostly because I see voting as a civil duty. But I'm often throwing in either a blank ballot or a vote for the party I would have voted for in elections at the national level.

[Tender Branson]

NRW (=> biggest German state) EU poll (Infratest dimap for WDR):



http://www1.wdr.de/themen/politik/sp_europawahl/nrwtrend206.html

...

Good news for the SPD, if true ...

[EPG]

The European Parliament clearly does matter to some extent. However, the most influential bodies are still the inter-governmental Council of the EU (Council of Ministers) and European Council (heads of government).

The Parliament's weakness is that they can't initiate legislation and can only amend laws. Its strength is that it is the only European body not chosen by national governments, so it can force action or block a bad inter-governmental compromise by firing the whole Commission, as with Santer and Buttiglione. However, the gravity of those acts means they use their power very rarely, so a lot of bad compromises don't get substantially amended.

Pan-European parties are already allowed to run in European Parliament elections! Libertas ran in 2009. You could register an EPP local branch in a country without an EPP member party, as Four Freedoms have done in London. However, national parties have better brands and grassroots organisations, so it would be foolish for confederal European parties to alienate them.

In summary, the European Parliament has an important role of democratic control over the Commission, but unlike a normal legislature, it can't initiate laws and the Commission's powers are already heavily circumscribed by the European governments. The European government is too big to do without the Parliament, but European common powers are not important enough to make the Parliament and pan-European politics relevant to most people, so they use it to stick a tongue out at their national governments.

[EPG]

Unfortunately, those 5% MOE polls are dominating reportage on the European elections in Ireland, at the expense of stories that are meaningful or funny. Fortunately, we have the conflict between Labour (PES) and Ming (Eurosceptic) in Midlands-North West, which is descending into farce. They are trying to one-up each other on simultaneously wordy and petty personal attacks. The other parties are too busy with their own gaffes and scandals to contribute.

[Enno von Loewenstern]

Germany

Forschungsgruppe Wahlen for ZDF

CDU/CSU 38%
SPD 27%
Greens 12%
Left 8%
AfD 6%
FDP 3%
Others 6%

[Donnie]

Poland

TNS

PIS    (conservative-national)                          27%
PO     (center-liberal)                                      24%
SLD    (socialdemocratic)                                 11%
New Right of Korwin Mikke (Polish Ron Paul)      7%
PSL  (peasant)                                                 5%
Undecided                                                      16%

[Tender Branson]

Possible (big ?) trouble for SPÖ-frontrunner and former journalist Eugen Freund:

http://www.krone.at/Oesterreich/Geheimdienst-Vorwuerfe_gegen_SPOe-Spitzenkandidaten-Freund_Laecherlich-Story-403891

A Slovenian politics website is reporting that a Slovenian historian has found evidence in formerly classified documents that Eugen Freund worked for the Yugoslav intelligence service UDBA in 1978.

Roman Leljak, the historian, found Freund's name in formerly secret documents in the national libraries of Belgrade and Ljubljana, with the reference number 234953 - a number which also indicates that Freund got paid for by the UDBA.



Freund was in fact in Slovenia at that time as press employee for former Foreign Minister Willibald Pahr, but he said today that the allegations are "ridiculous" and that "he never got paid for anything related to spying."

Freund also said that he assumes "political enemies from Austria are behind these allegations."

Let's see how this turns out in the next weeks ...

[Velasco]

Feedback/ La Vanguardia poll, two days ago.

Spain: PP 33.1% 20; PSOE 29.8% 18; IU+allies 10.3% 6; UPyD 6.3% 3; CEU (CiU+PNV+CC) 5.6% 3; ERC 3.4% 2; Cs 2.9% 1; EHBildu+BNG 1.8% 1; Others 7.5%.

Catalonia: CiU 24.4%; ERC 22.2%; PP 17.6%; PSC 17.5%; ICV-EUiA 9%; Cs 6.1%; UPyD 1.3%; Others 1.9%.

[Tender Branson]

The newspaper "Heute" did a Google-Hangout interview session yesterday with all 9 frontrunners in the EP election.

Look at the EU-STOP guy:



LOL.

(you can watch this thing here if you like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVD0wA_LQ_Y)

[Middle-aged Europe]

The newspaper "Heute" did a Google-Hangout interview session yesterday with all 9 frontrunners in the EP election.

Look at the EU-STOP guy:



LOL.

(you can watch this thing here if you like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVD0wA_LQ_Y)

[YL]

ICM poll for UK: Con 27, UKIP 26, Lab 24, Green 10, Lib Dem 7

Ugh... (well apart from the Greens doing OK)

[Phony Moderate]

...and ICM also has the Tories with a two-point lead for the GE.

If Labour comes third in ten days' time, it might be time to start thinking about putting Burnham in as leader...oh yeah, right, this isn't Australia.

[joevsimp]

ICM poll for UK: Con 27, UKIP 26, Lab 24, Green 10, Lib Dem 7

Ugh... (well apart from the Greens doing OK)

hmm, I'd take that at this point, Labour need a kick up the backside, and once the seats are doled out it'd be near enough a three way tie than anything else

[Diouf]

The Danish Parliament has made this video in an attempt to make more people vote in the European elections. They have apparently been told that sex and violence sell...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltvV7_-6GUw

EDIT:

The video has been withdrawn. http://euobserver.com/tickers/124114

It can still be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT4lhERDZ8s

[afleitch]

ICM poll for UK: Con 27, UKIP 26, Lab 24, Green 10, Lib Dem 7

Ugh... (well apart from the Greens doing OK)

UKIP topped the poll in 2009 in traditionally Labour areas (Hull, Stoke, Dudley, Hartlepool) and the Lib Dem areas of Cornwall. If Labour are only getting anything from 32-36% nationally at Westminster polls then winning anything close to 30% at the Euro's would be a massive retention rate for what is a third rate national election.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

...and ICM also has the Tories with a two-point lead for the GE.

If Labour comes third in ten days' time, it might be time to start thinking about putting Burnham in as leader...oh yeah, right, this isn't Australia.

Let's be honest, if Ed goes, then Labour won't be attempting a "risky choice" again. They'll probably go for Tristram Hunt, or if the Labour party are really out of touch, Ed Balls.

ICM poll for UK: Con 27, UKIP 26, Lab 24, Green 10, Lib Dem 7

Ugh... (well apart from the Greens doing OK)

hmm, I'd take that at this point, Labour need a kick up the backside, and once the seats are doled out it'd be near enough a three way tie than anything else

I can't really think of any reason why Labour should have sunk recently. No notable gaffes that I can think of, and most of the negative press this week has been around Gove. Odd, probably an outlier.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Patterns from previous rounds of local elections would tend to indicate that that's not totally unreasonable though.

---

Further confirmation (and then some) of the ridiculous crapshotty nature of EuroParl polling, of course...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Let's be honest, if Ed goes, then Labour won't be attempting a "risky choice" again. They'll probably go for Tristram Hunt, or if the Labour party are really out of touch, Ed Balls.

Um... no.

Most probable if-Miliband-fell-under-a-bus leader is Burnham, fwiw.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Well Labour barely run a campaign for these elections, but, yes, over focus on one poll is to be avoided, particularly when they're all weird.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Let's be honest, if Ed goes, then Labour won't be attempting a "risky choice" again. They'll probably go for Tristram Hunt, or if the Labour party are really out of touch, Ed Balls.

Um... no.

Most probable if-Miliband-fell-under-a-bus leader is Burnham, fwiw.

Are you sure? That's not accusatory, I was just idly speculating. I'd have thought Burnham was too left-wing for the Parliamentary group...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Er... also no. Burnham is a right-winger.

But we are getting slightly ahead of ourselves.

[Diouf]

Italian poll by Epoké Ricerche.



A rare poll that shows Scelta Europea crossing the threshold. It might be an outlier though; a low PD result and a very low Forza Italia result.

[Zanas]

I would be in awe if Altra Europa con Tsipras actually get 6.3%. Most probably they will be struggling to reach the threshold though, IMO not reaching it by a fluke.

Also, I give you my wild proposition to boost turnout. Each country is given their present seat count in the EP as a maximum, then their actual seat count is a pro-rata of their national turnout, that they ultimately dispatch according to their results. Maybe the fear that there would be as many Spanish MEP as there would French, or more Italian than German, would GOTV somehow. Or not. It's just my two pence.

[Middle-aged Europe]

The Danish Parliament has made this video in an attempt to make more people vote in the European elections. They have apparently been told that sex and violence sell...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltvV7_-6GUw

EDIT:

The video has been withdrawn. http://euobserver.com/tickers/124114

It can still be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT4lhERDZ8s

Seems to be a bit of a hommage to MACHETE!

Machete Votes!