European Parliament Election: May 23-26, 2019

[CumbrianLefty]

Of course the United Kingdom is going to send some right-wing populist loons to the European Parliament as a lovely parting gift, as if the ideology still makes any logical sense in the country given the last two years. I hope they're out of the EU by the next election, which I now can see not happening honestly.

There will be plenty of "right wing populist loons" elected from other EU states, don't worry.

[YL]

Of course the United Kingdom is going to send some right-wing populist loons to the European Parliament as a lovely parting gift, as if the ideology still makes any logical sense in the country given the last two years. I hope they're out of the EU by the next election, which I now can see not happening honestly.

You do realise that stopping the idiotic Brexit project would be a huge (and richly deserved) embarrassment for right-wing populist loons?

[Diouf]

Phoenix poll in CZ. Surprisingly, Pirates at top with ANO only in 2nd place. The latter still leads national polls clearly. But in these ultra-turnout elections (18% in 2014, 24% expected in this poll in 2019), who knows? There are still a lot of undecideds, and many votes for the mini-parties. The threshold is 5%.

[Kyng]

Well, if we do send any "right-wing populist loons" to the EU Parliament, it won't be happening in my name: I'm not voting for UKIP or the Brexit Party.

I also refuse to vote for Labour or the Conservatives, because the majority of their MEPs voted in support of Article 13 (which I consider to be utterly unforgivable and an automatic disqualifier).

I'm still open to voting for pretty much anybody else, though.

[DavidB.]

Of course the United Kingdom is going to send some right-wing populist loons to the European Parliament as a lovely parting gift, as if the ideology still makes any logical sense in the country given the last two years. I hope they're out of the EU by the next election, which I now can see not happening honestly.

You do realise that stopping the idiotic Brexit project would be a huge (and richly deserved) embarrassment for right-wing populist loons?

It really wouldn't be, at least not for eurosceptics in the EU27. Brexit actually leading to an economic disaster for the UK would be the worst outcome. Brexit succeeding would be the best outcome. While Brexit not happening would be outrageous morally from a democratic point of view, it would not be all that bad for eurosceptics purely in terms of effect. First, the EU issue would only have become more salient in the UK and ~50% still oppose it, meaning that the country would still sabotage further integration under any Conservative (and perhaps even Corbyn) government. Second, we would have one more argument to portray the EU as the "Hotel California" that you aren't even allowed to leave, comparable to the USSR perhaps. Referendums are simply ignored. Wait for the next economic downturn and euro crisis and you have a powerful argument.

[Ethelberth]

You may understand that situation in Ireland is unique, so UK is not best example for the problems of leaving union. USSR actually had paragraphs for disintegration of the union, and they were actually used in order disintegrate.

[Aboa]

You may understand that situation in Ireland is unique, so UK is not best example for the problems of leaving union. USSR actually had paragraphs for disintegration of the union, and they were actually used in order disintegrate.

Law on exiting Soviet Union was purposedly built on a way that made exiting union very hard requiring 2/3 majority and seperate referendums for all national autonomies and places where non-titular nationality constituted majority, like Narva in Estonia for example.

Obviously the law was ignored when USSR disintegrated but if one of the Union republics had tried to secede in accordance of the law situation somewhat comparable to problems with Northern Ireland would have likely followed.

[Diouf]

https://www.politico.eu/article/slovenian-pm-we-need-a-commission-that-obeys-rule-of-law/

Marjan Šarec endorses Vestager as Commission President:

"He will be one of the 28 EU leaders (or 27, if Britain has managed to leave by then) charged with nominating the next president of the European Commission later this year. And he already has one prominent candidate in mind — Margrethe Vestager, the competition commissioner, who hails from Šarec's ALDE political family and is also from a relatively small country, Denmark.

Officially, Vestager is one of a slate of ALDE candidates for top EU jobs but she is widely regarded as the liberals' best shot at the Commission presidency.

Vestager is “one of the best commissioners. We talked several times and I see her view on the future of the European Union ... is common sense," Šarec said."

[DavidB.]

The candidates and lists for the Dutch EP election are now official. The incumbent 9 parties are ranked based on their number of votes last time.

1. Democraten 66 (D66)
2. CDA - Europese Volkspartij
3. PVV (Partij voor de Vrijheid)
4. VVD
5. SP (Socialistische Partij)
6. P.v.d.A./Europese Sociaaldemocraten
7. ChristenUnie-SGP
8. GROENLINKS
9. Partij voor de Dieren
10. 50 PLUS
11. JEZUS LEEFT
12. DENK
13. De Groenen
14. Forum voor Democratie
15. vandeRegio & Piratenpartij
16. Volt Nederland

CU-SGP and CDA have a surplus vote agreement, as do GL and PvdA. Not sure how, as these have been abolished in other elections.

The first 9 and Forum will get in, 50Plus seems the only maybe. That's 10 or 11 parties for 26 seats.

My estimate would be:

Forum voor Democratie-ECR 3-6 (now 0)
VVD-ALDE 3-5 (now 3)
GL-G/EFA 3-4 (now 2)
CDA-EPP 3-4 (now 5)
PvdA-S&D 2-4 (now 3)
D66-ALDE 2-3 (now 4)
CU/SGP-ECR 2-3 (now 2); the CU MEP may go to EPP once Forum join ECR.
PVV-ENF 1-3 (now 4); will probably sit in the new EAPN group
SP-GUE/NGL 2 (now 2)
PvdD-GUE/NGL 1-2 (now 1)
50Plus 0-1 (now 0); could either go to ALDE (their #1 used to be a VVD MEP) or perhaps join something weird led by M5S or so

The turnout gap between general elections and European elections is almost the highest in the Netherlands (I think it's only bigger in Slovakia). This should help parties that rely on older voters, mostly CDA and PvdA. The PVV may be totally screwed over by a combination of lack of momentum and the fact that their higher-propensity voters are exactly the first ones moving to Forum. But the PVV's EU stance seems more clear to the public than Forum's, which may help them with eurosceptics unconvinced of Forum's credentials.

[Diouf]

PNL now topping EP poll in Romania. Former PM and EU commissioner Dacian Cioloș is the lead candidate for the 2020 Alliance (but is not expected to take up a seat) between his party PLUS and Save Romania Union. I think it's still an open question what group, they will join. EPP perhaps most likely. Former PM Victor Ponta is leading the list for his new PRO Romania party (but won't take up his seat) with a very strong list; also including current EU commissioner Corina Crețu, former PM Mihai Tudose and former Moldovan PM Iurie Leanca. PRO have joined European Democratic Party, which normally sits in the ALDE group. The Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania and Basescu's People's Movement Party are both just around the 5% threshold.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

PRO have joined European Democratic Party

Can you share any link with that information confirmed?

[Diouf]

PRO have joined European Democratic Party

Can you share any link with that information confirmed?

http://www.democrats.eu/en/member/pro-romania

[Tender Branson]

Claudia Gamon and Karin Feldinger, the frontrunner duo for the liberal NEOS, have presented their plans for a common (pink) EU passport for a United States of Europe, with a common EU army and where Austria gives up its everlasting neutrality law (the law is supported by 85% of Austrians):

[Diouf]

In Denmark, the deadline for parties to run have also passed. 10 parties are running. Nine of them are running in four different electoral alliances while DPP run on their own.
Social Democrats + SPP run together
Liberals, Conservatives + Liberal Alliance run together
Red-Green Alliance + People's Movement against EU run together
Social Liberals + Alternative run together.

So this means that neither New Right, Christian Democrats nor Klaus Riskær Pedersen managed to become eligible to run by being elected to parliament or collecting 70 000 signatures. New Right are slightly above 3% in the polling average for the national parliament, where they have mostly drawn DPP voters, so you would expect DPP to benefit from New Right's absence. Christian Democrats and Riskær have around 1% each currently, and these votes would probably mostly flow towards the government parties, although Riskær did seem to have attracted a fair bit of former DPPers, at least initially.

[Beezer]

Well...there it is.

[rc18]

It’s almost like we really do want to leave...

[Diouf]

Sunder Katwala list on % needed to get a seat in each of the UK regions. The Droop quota is the share that ensures a seat, while the left column shows how big a share was needed to win the last seat in 2014. The actual share can be different in 2019 depending on how many and how big parties are in contention for the seats. The polls so far has had several parties in this twilight zone, where it could just miss out on seats in most regions. I guess its more likely that there's consolidation on the hard Brexit side with Brexit Party eating UKIP, while I'm less sure that the hard Remain side fall in line between one of Greens, Lib Dem and CUK. That would probably require party coordination, where only one of them runs in each region, which I'm not sure is super likely? Also Labour can probably better make enough Remain noises to attract/keep some hard remainers, while it's probably more difficult for Conservatives to attract/keep hard brexiters.

[Diouf]

In the YouGov poll, Conservatives with a bigger share among 2016 Remain (16%) voters than 2016 Leave (14%) voters. The poll doesn't ask current referendum vote, but if it follows the general trend of a slight move towards Remain, it is likely to in absolute terms be more current remainers than leavers among conservative EP voters.

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/vdqicng3bz/PeoplesVote_190416_EUElections_w.pdf

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There's basically zero public awareness or interest in the European Elections here at present, so polling is liable to be even more random and all over the place than normal. Though, obviously, I'd expect an absurd mess of a result.

[Tender Branson]

The 7 candidacies that were submitted to the Interior Ministry will now be checked if they are valid until April 24 (of course they are, because they are the main parties + KPÖ).

Then the ballots can be printed, so it is likely that I will get my postal ballot by early May.

Then the long wait to election night on May 26th, which will be extremely boring in the Austrian case thanks to the stupidity of the UK and Italy, who keep their polls open until 10pm and 11pm.

Why can't they close their polls like a sane country ? 5-8pm ?

So, the results will be counted in secrecy and embargoed until Italy closes at 11pm. No leaks on Twitter (banned), no election-weekend survey/exit poll (banned), no first trends or vote counts for the public (banned).

Italy needs to be nuked.

[CumbrianLefty]

This latest YouGov is basically a(nother) push poll from the PV campaign, so treat with caution.

[Mike88]

Portugal: Aximage poll from April:

Vote share %:

33.6% PS (-0.5), 8 seats
31.1% PSD (+2.0), 8
  9.4% CDU (+0.2), 2
  8.0% BE (+0.4), 2
  6.8% CDS (-0.5), 1
  1.3% PAN (-0.6), 0
  1.3% Alliance (-0.7), 0
  8.5% Others/Invalid (-0.3), 0

Poll conducted between 30 March and 1 April 2019. Polled 602 voters. MoE of 4.00%.

[Tender Branson]

Pollster OGM will go into the field between April 29 - May 3 for the "Kurier" newspaper.

OGM is Austria's best pollster, so we should get a clear picture on Sunday, May 5, on where things stand and if the Mitterlehner book has hurt the ÖVP or not, or if the far-right extremist Identitarians have hurt the FPÖ or not.

[Tender Branson]

First national poster campaign by the Austrian Greens, who - after their 2017 defeat - are financially almost bankrupt and have only some 800.000 € to spend including grassroots donations (the other parties will invest up to 7 million € each). The posters are not too bad though and are kinda "back to the roots":

"Who the f**k needs peace anyway ? You ? On May 26: Back to the Greens."

"Who the f**k needs climate protection anyway ? You ? On May 26: Back to the Greens."

"Who the f**k needs healthy food anyway ? You ? On May 26: Back to the Greens."

[Helsinkian]

Today was the deadline for the Finnish parties to name their candidates. Finland's personal vote driven open list electoral system is shown in the fact that many MPs elected to the Finnish Parliament just last sunday are now running in the EP election as well. Some of them would take their seat in the EP if elected, but for example Merja Kyllönen of Left Alliance, an MEP who was elected to the Finnish Parliament on sunday, has said that she would not take the seat and would let whoever ends up next on the list take it instead.