EP elections 2014 - Results Thread

[Zinneke]

Joelle Bergeron, 64, left the French far right party two days after this year’s elections. The party, led by Marine Le Pen, asked her to leave her seat in favour of another candidate. The widowed auctioneer joins the new Europe of Freedom and Democracy Group, which was formed tonight (18 June), as an independent.

She reportedly said she would support the vote for foreigners no matter where they came from if they paid taxes. This angered the higher echelons of the party and got her kicked out, calling her a Muslim-sympathiser, etc...

Also, Coalition of the New Right are struggling to get into EAF because PVV do not want to associate themselves to a homophobic party. Note that PVV actually have a strong homosexual vote due to islamist hate crime in places like Rotterdam reaching the news regularly. Also, Fortuyn was an open homosexual and used homophobia as one of his main arguments against Islam so Wilder's image as his successor would be somewhat tarnished. The two parties will probably not sit in the same group.

[FredLindq]

ECR third largest group now. 68 seats against 67 for the ALDE. Any implikations?!

[justfollowingtheelections]

ALDE is actually at 66 (some websites are counting the Latvian Union of Greens and Farmers as an ALDE party but they are now with EFD).  I think Verhofstadt screwed up when he invited N-VA to ALDE, but I'm guessing he didn't imagine they would say no.

To me it seems that the anti-Euro bloc is becoming stronger.  I wouldn't be surprised if a couple more EPP parties went to ECR.

The total number of MEPs by party as of now:
EPP 221
S&D 192
ECR 68
ALDE 66
GUE 52 (26 of which are women)
Greens 50
EFD 48
EAF 41 (they still need an MEP from a 7th country)
Others 13

[eric82oslo]

The total number of MEPs by party as of now:

Others 13

Who are these others? The Greek Golden Dawn?

[Middle-aged Europe]

The total number of MEPs by party as of now:

Others 13

Who are these others? The Greek Golden Dawn?

From Germany the NPD and Die Partei.

[eric82oslo]

The Swedish Feminist victory is creating world-wide headlines apparently.
And now they've surpassed 100,000 likes on Facebook! 5 months ago that number was only 15,000.

Washington Post: "Sweden's Feminist Initiative has lessons for social movements elsewhere": http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/06/20/swedens-feminist-initiative-has-lessons-for-social-movements-elsewhere/

[eric82oslo]

The total number of MEPs by party as of now:

Others 13

Who are these others? The Greek Golden Dawn?

From Germany the NPD and Die Partei.

NPD, the neo-nazi party? What's Die Partei exactly?

[Zinneke]

The total number of MEPs by party as of now:

Others 13

Who are these others? The Greek Golden Dawn?

From Germany the NPD and Die Partei.

NPD, the neo-nazi party? What's Die Partei exactly?

Protest/comedy party, created by the German equivalent of Ian Hislop (if you know who that is).

[Middle-aged Europe]

NPD, the neo-nazi party? What's Die Partei exactly?

The NPD are Nazis who are considered too extreme by Front National and FPÖ, and as such they are not invited into a potential EAF group.

Die Partei was basically founded and is run by the staff of the German satirical magazine "Titanic". Their most well-known platform plank is that they want to re-erect the Wall between West Germany and East Germany in order to make the division of Germany permanent. In the European election, they mostly campaigned on the promise of resigning their seats on monthly basis so that everbody on the party's candidate list gets a chance to serve in the European Parliament for a period of 30 days. In practice, the party's actions result in a kind of an anarchist obstructionism.

[Tender Branson]

Turns out that the Austrian outfit "EU-STOP" (which got about 2.8% of the vote) actually took legal steps to nullify & repeat the EU election (1 day before the deadline to do so ended).

One of their reasons is the case in Germany, in which a prominent German-Italian journalist admitted to voting twice in the EP election: One time in Germany and one time for Italian MEPs.

The case will now go to the Constitutional Court, which will rule within 4 weeks if their request is reviewed further or not.

http://www.tt.com/home/8527786-91/eu-wahl-von-eu-stop-angefochten.csp

...

So far, only 1 election has ever went to the Constitutional Court here, in 2004.

But the candidate of the party (FPÖ) sent the formal objection after the deadline to do so had already passed, so the case was not reviewed by the Court.

Will be interesting to see what comes out of this, if anything at all.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Oops, there's indication that Die Partei may partially drop the pretense and get semi-serious.

They published a decidedly non-satirical post on their Facebook profile asking their fans which group in the EP they should join: ALDE, Greens-EFA or GUE-NGL while hinting a own preference for the Greens. Their main argument is that joining a group would weaken the right-wing populists.

[minionofmidas]

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Non-satirical? Not exactly...

[Middle-aged Europe]

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Non-satirical? Not exactly...

Why not exactly? At best it's only mildly satirical.

The parts of this FB post which could be interpreted as satirical are the very first sentence and restating their goal of "Inhalte überwinden".

As for the first sentence which claims that they have received offers from those three groups to join them, I wouldn't rule out the possibility Sonneborn had some unofficial chats with people from these parties regarding a possible group membership. To my knowledge, it has at the very least been semi-seriously discussed within the Green ranks whether Sonneborn could eventually join their group. So, while the first sentence is probably an exaggeration, it's not entirely untrue either.

As for restating their goal of "Inhalte überwinden"... they put a smiley behind it, implying that they're not fully serious about that goal either anymore.

[minionofmidas]

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Non-satirical? Not exactly...

Why not exactly? At best it's only mildly satirical.

The parts of this FB post which could be interpreted as satirical are the very first sentence and restating their goal of "Inhalte überwinden".

As for the first sentence which claims that they have received offers from those three groups to join them, I wouldn't rule out the possibility Sonneborn had some unofficial chats with people from these parties regarding a possible group membership. To my knowledge, it has at the very least been semi-seriously discussed within the Green ranks whether Sonneborn could eventually join their group. So, while the first sentence is probably an exaggeration, it's not entirely untrue either.

As for restating their goal of "Inhalte überwinden"... they put a smiley behind it, implying that they're not fully serious about that goal either anymore.

While it's a much milder form of satire than the usual PARTEI style, really the one entirely serious note here is point 5 (oh, and the explanatory second sentence of point 7).

[Јas]

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http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/brian-crowley-rumoured-to-be-moving-to-new-group-in-eu-parliament-1.1841643

[Јas]

Things developed quite quickly it seems...

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http://www.rte.ie/news/2014/0623/625874-fianna-fail-europe/

[Diouf]

Der Standard reports that Martin Schulz will officially put forward his candidature for President of the European Parliament tomorrow. The German government will propose Günther Oettinger for another term as EU Commissioner. This means that there seems to be a deal with EPP and S&D, on persons at least. It remains to be seen how hard Renzi and his allies will push for concessions on the budget rules. It sounds there like some kind of a compromise might be crafted which keeps the Stability and Growth Pact as it is, but allows for a more flexible interpretation of it. What that exactly means is hard to know, but perhaps it's some new way of calculating budget deficits or maybe just more time for France or Italy to keep their budget deficit below 3 %.

Juncker will probably be nominated on the EU summit Friday with a vote. Then the EP will vote on him after a few weeks, the 16 July has been mentioned. They can do it by a secret vote, but with all the talk in the election campaign of no more backroom deals, I think it will be appropriate with an open vote.

http://derstandard.at/2000002234595/CDU-nominierte-Oettinger-als-EU-Kommissar-aus-Deutschland

[Diouf]

Geert Wilders has announced that the EAF won't be able to create a group before the start of the new parliament. However, he says that he is still optimistic about a group being created later this year. He also states that they won't cooperate with Korwin-Mikke's KNP; he describes that as "een brug te ver" (a bridge too far).

Only a few weeks ago, the general secretary of the EAP was cited as saying that they had managed to form a group, but that was probably just a part of the spin war to convince the few small parties who was torn between EFD and EAF. Must admit that I'm impressed that Farage managed to form a group; it always looked the most difficult for the EFD. The Sweden Democrats' decision to join EFD instead of EAF was arguably the key moment.

http://www.refdag.nl/nieuws/politiek/wilders_vorming_van_eu_fractie_mislukt_1_836888?localLinksEnabled=false&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

[YL]

Things developed quite quickly it seems...

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http://www.rte.ie/news/2014/0623/625874-fianna-fail-europe/

Crowley has had the FF whip removed over this move.

[ObserverIE]

Things developed quite quickly it seems...

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http://www.rte.ie/news/2014/0623/625874-fianna-fail-europe/

Crowley has had the FF whip removed over this move.

Doing a solo run to ally with the Tories was "een brug te ver" for FF, for historical-cultural reasons as much as ideological ones.

The combination of economic centrism, social conservatism by European standards, and less than total enthusiasm for further European integration means that FF doesn't naturally fit into any of the EP groups.

[politicus]

Things developed quite quickly it seems...

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http://www.rte.ie/news/2014/0623/625874-fianna-fail-europe/

Crowley has had the FF whip removed over this move.

Doing a solo run to ally with the Tories was "een brug te ver" for FF, for historical-cultural reasons as much as ideological ones.

The combination of economic centrism, social conservatism by European standards, and less than total enthusiasm for further European integration means that FF doesn't naturally fit into any of the EP groups.

Apart from immigration issues, this combo makes FF identical to the DPP, who are already in the group.

[EPG]

FF hates the idea of associating with those parties. Its identity is like the Canadian Liberals; it's the party that built the country; it doesn't identify with junior-partner agrarian or anti-immigrant parties.

[politicus]

FF hates the idea of associating with those parties. Its identity is like the Canadian Liberals; it's the party that built the country; it doesn't identify with junior-partner agrarian or anti-immigrant parties.

True, but one thing is self perception, another is reality.

[EPG]

Politics is all about these perceptions, the pacts between voters who identify with and respect politicians, and politicians who identify with and respect each other. As is clear from European Parliament groups, the details of policies matter very little at all.

[politicus]

Politics is all about these perceptions, the pacts between voters who identify with and respect politicians, and politicians who identify with and respect each other. As is clear from European Parliament groups, the details of policies matter very little at all.

Unnecessary lecture is unnecessary.