European Parliament Election: May 23-26, 2019

[Former President tack50]

The proposed system according to which the UK's seats would become a transnational constituency was sadly rejected. The idea was that people would have two votes: one "traditional" vote for a national party in a national constituency, one for European lists (liberals, social democrats, nationalists... you name it).

Yeah, that was a very unfortunate thing

They are apparently talking about implementing that for 2024 election but I'm almost certain that in 2023 they will refuse to do it.

In the end some of the UK's seats will be left vacant, with  27 of them being reapportioned to get more proportionality. The reapportioned seats are:

France, Spain: +5
Italy, Netherlands: +3
Ireland: +2
Denmark, Estonia, Croatia, Austria, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden: +1

So the EU parliament will have 705 seats instead of 751.

And yes, the European parties would almost certainly be the transnational lists. My guess is that the 5 parties that presented an "Spitzenkandidat" in 2014 (EPP, S&D, G/EFA, ALDE, GUE/NGL) would present transnational lists.

The other 3 big groups (ECR, EFDD, ENF) are more of a mystery. I guess there would be at least 1 euroskeptic list.

[Former President tack50]

About PiS, I wonder, why couldn't they join EPP as well? Having their main rivals in the same group will definitely be uncomfortable but there are also several rivals which share group.

Here for example both PDECat and Cs are in ALDE even though they hate each other.

And yeah, I guess there is room for ECR to continue anyways. I guess there will be  groups in the next EP. From left to right

GUE/NGL
G/EFA
SD
ALDE
EPP
ECR (or another similar "further right than the EPP" group)
ENF (or another "Far right, euroskeptic" group)

[Former President tack50]

Apparently the requirements to form an EP group are:

- 25 MEPs
- At least 1/4 of all member states must have representation in the group (7 countries)

So, looking at each group:

EPP: They'll easily pass this. They will be represented in all countries after Brexit (the UK was the only one without EPP members) and have a lot of large parties

S&D: Same as EPP. They'll get the requirements extremely easily. Several large parties and represented everywhere. Losing Labour is a bad thing though, especially now that they are doing well.

ALDE: Represented in 19 countries (they lack: Italy, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Greece and Cyprus) . Not sure if they could add any to their list or if any would drop out. Still, it seems they won't have much trouble. Though adding LREM would be a huge boost. The Lib Dems were already very small so losing them isn't a big deal.

G/EFA: Represented in 18 countries (not in Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus, Portugal). However iirc several green parties are having trouble, and the "EFA" countries aren't that big. Plus losing the SNP, Plaid and the Greens will hurt them.

GUE/NGL: Represented in 18 countries (not in Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, and literally all of former communist eastern Europe except the Czech Republic!). The far left is doing good, they will survive and rise. Their only UK representative was Sinn Fein with only 1 MEP, so it's not a huge loss (plus Sinn Fein will still have its Irish MEPs anyways)

EFDD: They are dead. They are represented in only 8 countries, of which 3 are just people who switched parties. The Sweden Democrats will join ENF or a successor, the Czech party will drop out of parliament, the Lithuanian party will join ECR and who knows with M5S. Since UKIP was almost all this was, they will be harmed by the UK leaving.

ENF: Represented in 9 countries but 3 are people switching parties. Still, they shouldn't have any trouble getting another party to join them, or maybe the German independent who left AfD will be reelected from BP. KNP in Poland might be toast though. Still, I think they will barely reach both thresholds. No UK representation here other than a UKIP "independent".

[Former President tack50]

On a sidenote, I wonder how will the nationalist parties do their alliances here in Spain. For almost all of them going alone is essencially suicide (they need 1.5% to get a seat, which is only really doable for the Catalan parties, and even they prefer coalitions)

For reference in 2014 the alliances were:

Coalition for Europe: Catalan CiU+Basque PNV+Canarian CC
The left for the right to decide: ERC (albeit endorsed by Mes in the Balearic Islands)
The peoples decide: Basque Bildu+Galician BNG
European Spring: Valencian Compromís + Equo (a national but tiny green party)

Considering the independence issue, it will be interesting.

As for which groups they'll join, the parties from "Coalition for Europe" will almost certainly join ALDE (unless a strong Cs blocks them. In that case I guess they could join G/EFA. For all what's worth PNV was part of EPP until like 2004).

Bildu will probably join GUE/NGL. The rest will join G/EFA.

[Former President tack50]

Ok, I'll take a look at Spain. Unlike in most elections, here we use pure proportionality and no threshold. Also worth noting that nationalist parties ally together.

First of all, the 2014 results

PP: 26.1% (16)
PSOE: 23.0% (14)
IU: 10.0% (6)
Podemos: 8.0% (5)
UPyD: 6.5% (4)
Coalition for Europe (CiU-PNV-CC): 5.4% (3)
ERC: 4% (2)
Cs: 3.2% (2)
The peoples decide (Bildu-BNG): 2.1% (1)
European Spring (Compromís-Equo): 1.9% (1)
VOX: 1.6% (0)
PACMA: 1.1% (0)

16 EPP
14 S&D
9 ALDE
3 G/EFA
12 GUE/NGL

Alliances

Both Compromís and Equo contested the 2019 general election alongside Podemos. Equo will definitely contest the European election with Podemos. There's a small chance of Compromís going alone though. If they do, their most likely ally is probably NC, a left wing Canarian party which didn't run in 2014.  However for the purposes of this I'll assume they just run with Podemos or don't run at all.

The Bildu-BNG alliance will probably continue. I don't think ERC will join them, Catalonia is big enough to go on its own.

The Coalition for Europe is tough. Not sure if the alliance will break up or not. For the purposes of this, I'll assume it doesn't. If it does break up though, it's probably because either CiU or CC left. If CiU leaves they will either run alone and get 1-2 seats and if CC leaves they will probably just not run at all, or maybe run alone and get a negligible amount of votes.

My 2019 prediction (59 seats)

PP: 27% (17)
PSOE: 22% (13)
Cs: 19% (12)
UP: 16% (10)
CEU: 5.7% (3)
ERC: 3.4% (2)
LPD: 1.3% (0)
VOX: 1.6% (1)
PACMA: 1.6% (1)

EPP 17 (+1)
S&D 13 (-1)
ALDE: 15 (+6)
GUE/NGL 10 (-2)
G/EFA 3 (-)
ENF 1 (+1)

I think both Vox and Pacma might make it in. Though this is a bold projection though. But I think that the lack of useful voting might help them here. Pacma already got 1.2% of the vote in 2016. And Vox might see a rise because of Catalonia, though it will depend a lot on how much the issue is noticed in May 2019. If other stuff is important then they won't make it in.

As for groups, I guess Vox joins ENF (though anything from ECR to ENF will be fine) and Pacma joins G/EFA easily

[Former President tack50]

And we have our first deal among nationalists!

http://www.laopinion.es/canarias/2018/03/16/coalicion-canaria-pnv-pactan-vez/860012.html

PNV and the Canarian Coalition have signed another deal to go together in the EU parliament elections, just like in 2009 and 2014. The question now is whether PDECat will join them as well or not. The thing is that CC has been very harsh against Catalan nationalism, to the point where they supported article 155. So a coalition will be hard but not impossible.

If they do, they will probably hold their 3 seats.

If PDECat doesn't join them it gets a lot more interesting. In 2014 most of their votes came from PDECat, but if you only take the Canarian, Basque, Navarre and Galician (because of a small party named CxG) votes they would have narrowly taken 1 seat. CC will go down but PNV will probably go slightly up or stagnate.

I also wonder if PDECat will join ERC in some sort of "joint Catalan list" or run alone (there aren't many other right wing nationalists) if they reject reediting the 2014 alliance.

My prediction would be:
With PDECat: 3
Without PDECat: 0-1

[Former President tack50]

Not sure if it even counts as a poll, but whatever. It's allegedly an internal poll from the Spanish government but it might be completely made up. In any case, if even remotely true, it's very surprising to say the least.

59 seats:

PSOE (S&D): 22% (14)
PP (EPP): 22% (14)
Cs (ALDE): 16.2% (10)
Podemos (GUE/NGL): 11.4% (7)
IU (GUE/NGL): 6% (4)
Vox (-): 4.2% (2)
Equo (G/EFA): 2.6% (1)
Pacma (-): 2.4% (1)
UPyD (ALDE): 1.8% (1)

Coalition for Europe (PDECat+PNV+CC) (ALDE): 4.6% (3)
ERC (G/EFA): 2.8% (1)
The Peoples Dedide (Bildu+BNG) (GUE/NGL-G/EFA): 2.4% (1)

http://electomania.es/filtracion-de-proyeccion-de-moncloa-para-europeas-empate-pp-psoe-entran-vox-equo-y-pacma/

Not sure what is less believable. PSOE being tied for first, Vox getting not just 1 but 2 MEPs, UPyD somehow still managing to survive or the fact that they polled Equo separately even though they almost certainly won't run alone (either they'll go with Podemos or do the "European Spring" coalition with Valencian nationalist Compromís again).

Worth noting that "The Peoples decide" coalition has 2 different EU parliament groups, but unless they unexpectedly have an amazing night, they'll only get 1 seat, which will belong to Bildu (GUE/NGL), the larger coalition partner.

In any case, in terms of the parties that don't have a group, PACMA will almost certainly join G/EFA. Vox will be interesting. They could join any of ECR, EFDD or ENF. I'd say they'd join the last one but they could join any of them. For now I'll give it to ENF.

So, that would leave an EU total of:

EPP: 14
S&D: 14
ALDE: 14
GUE/NGL: 12
G-EFA: 3
ENF: 2

Almost a perfect 4 way tie!

[Former President tack50]

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/985202225583566848

Granted, this won't be in place for the 2019 EU parliament election, but it would change a lot of stuff for 2024. Depending on where exactly they put the threshold, it might affect more or less (2% would have little effect, 5% would be a big deal) Looking at each country:

Germany: Pre-2014, they used a 5% threshold, like in national elections. In 2014 they had to ditch that and tons of small parties entered. The result of going back to a threshold would mean that most of those small parties woudl disappear (maybe with a 2% threshold some of them could stay, but most would be gone)

However the interesting thing would be the legal consecuences. The threshold was ruled unconstitutional in Germany, so if the EU decides to put one, then there will be a contradiction between the German constitution and EU election rules. No idea how it will be solved (maybe they just do a constitucional ammendment and that's it, maybe it goes to a court)

France: While they plan on going back to a single at-large constituency, they will put a 5% threshold anyways. So it won't have an effect. If the EU puts a lower threshold then we might see parties entering that might fail to do so in 2019 (EELV, UDI-Agir, etc)

Italy:: Italy already has a 4% threshold, so again, almost nothing would change. Maybe it could go down slightly (so, less need for coalitions), maybe it could go up slightly. But probably the least affected member state

Spain: Probably the most affected alongside Germany. Especially since Spain doesn't really use thresholds in any kind of national election. The changes a 5% threshold would bring would be massive. Tactical voting would be applied (so small parties would be harmed, no chance for random upsets like Podemos and Cs in 2014 or Ruiz Mateos in 1989). Until now the European elections were seen as the chance for small parties to shine and get surprisingly good results. People had nothing to lose.

Also, while under a very low threshold they might still be ok, with a 5% threshold nationalists would be toast. They would have to form quite broad alliances.

At least there won't be a constitutional contradiction unlike in Germany though

Poland: Poland seems to use a constituency based system. So while there might be a nominal threshold, it probably won't apply unless a party manages to get some sort of regional appeal (and thus gets a ton of votes in one constituency but nothing everywhere else, and ends up below 5% nationally). Since Poland doesn't seem to have such parties, it will probably be fine.

[Former President tack50]

Poland: Poland seems to use a constituency based system. So while there might be a nominal threshold, it probably won't apply unless a party manages to get some sort of regional appeal (and thus gets a ton of votes in one constituency but nothing everywhere else, and ends up below 5% nationally). Since Poland doesn't seem to have such parties, it will probably be fine.

No, you need 5% nationally irrespective of how many votes you might get in any particular constituency.

Fair enough. So even that "regional party" scenario is impossible nowadays? Then it won't be affected (other than possibly the threshold being lowered)

[Former President tack50]

what's the, umm, rationale for this? Of all the reforms the European parliament needs, I wouldn't have put thresholds at the top of the list

Honestly, I don't know either. Especially considering that as it is meant right now, it would only affect Germany and Spain.

The EU parliament needs a lot of reforms, but asking for thresholds is definitely not one of them

[Former President tack50]

Also saw this today:
https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/996765544459243520
Any other "eco-socialist" parties that could join them? I guess it's doubtful the Portuguese, Greeks and Danes make it in, though...

This must be the Varoufakis project, DiEM25. So his own new party, MeRA 25, will probably run with them as well, but I have no idea whether he will able to win a seat in Greece. I think the Czech Pirates is a part of it, and they would likely do very well. Barcelona mayor Ada Colau has been involved too, but I don't know whether any of the parties backing her could join. Unlike Eurovision, Australia won't take part, so I guess we won't see the Wikileaks Party

Colau's party will definitely not run outside Podemos in the European election. Especially since Colau herself will be up for reelection (the Spanish local elections are the same day as the EU ones). So I guess it depends on whether Podemos wants to join forces with Varoufakis or not. Probably not though.

If Compromís-Equo run alone again as "European Spring" instead of joining Podemos they would fit quite well as eco-socialist parties but again I don't think they will.

[Former President tack50]

In real life, what party will Kukiz and Razem join?.

In real life, what party will Kukiz and Razem join?.

Surely Razem would go in GUE and Kukiz in with whatever the FN group is calling itself? (There is also the matter of Korwin's new party...)

I am a member of Razem and this is a matter of some internal debate within the party. The issue is that nobody in the party really wants to join S&D, which is seen as having too moderate a profile and also contains SLD, which is a domestic opponent, but the obvious alternative is GUE and a lot of people are iffy about joining an EP group which includes open Communists and tankies as such an association might damage Razem's domestic electoral prospects. At the moment they are very much hoping that Varoufakis' thing actually takes off and spares them having to choose between S&D and GUE, but if it doesn't (and it is unlikely to), the approach seems to be 'we'll cross that bridge if/when we come to it (if/when we actually win seats)'.

Can't even imagine Razem in one faction with Linke or KSČM, but probably Crabcake was thinking about similarities with Podemos which might help start some sort of cooperation.

If they really don't want to be seen with Linke or KSCM, but also don't want to join S&D, I guess they could join the G-EFA group even though they aren't an explicitly green party?

[Former President tack50]

Decided to check current legislative opinion polls to see who was winning and see how the map would look like now. Obviously this is mostly just academic, as European elections =/= national legislative elections, we are still 1 year away from the election, etc. But still here it is:



Couldn't find any Bulgarian, Cyprus or Lithuanian polls, so I just took whoever won the most recient legislative election (GERB and DISY for the first 2, both EPP. Union of Farmers for Lithuania, G/EFA)

Also just for fun, with the new apportionment and a US style election the results would be (353/705 to win):

EPP: 219
ALDE: 195
S&D: 131
EFDD: 76
ECR: 73
G-EFA: 11

So it would go to a "contingent election". Since EPP won a lot more countries I guess they'd be the favourites but who knows?

In terms of pan-European results, not much other than the interesting EPP band going from Germany all the way to Greece and Cyprus through the former Yugoslavia. S&D performing well in Scandinavia. Though these takes are even more garbage than the map itself.

[Former President tack50]

Since we are talking about euroskepticism, here are 2 polls from Pew Research about EU favorability depending on age and on political views:

[Former President tack50]

PiS seems to want move to the EPP according to Polish media EU Observer is reporting

https://euobserver.com/tickers/142003

They have to outlaw PO first.

Well, if both the Catalan secessionist PDECat and the fervently Spanish unionist UPyD and Cs can be both in ALDE, I guess PO and PiS can also be in the same group

Though I guess for Poland it would make more sense if PO moved to ALDE if PiS moves to EPP?

[Former President tack50]

Well, we now have 2 more confirmed alliances in Spain although one of them is basically irrelevant.

The important one is that IU, Podemos and Equo will run in a joint coalition this time. Last time IU and Podemos ran separately and Equo ran as part of European Spring alonside Valencian nationalist Compromís.

This means we'll see a rerun of the Unidos Podemos coalition from the general election.

I don't know what Compromís will do though. They might join UP, or they might try to run without them. If they do run alone, their likely allies would probably be the same as last time: Coalición Caballas (Melilla) and Chunta Aragonesista (Aragon). Ideally they should also try to get New Canaries (Canary Islands), Més (Balearic Islands) and PRC (Cantabria) on board but those are less likely; none of them has ever run in an EU parliament election.


The irrelevant alliance is an alliance of far right parties: FE-Jons (literally Franco's party), DN, La Falange and AES. Yes, the Spanish far right has so many splitters it makes communists jealous with no less than 3 Falange parties XD. Adding them together they got 0.4% in the 2014 election. Which doesn't look like much but it would be a wonderful result for the Spanish far right.

Though in practice I guess many of those voters will go to Vox, which actually has a chance of doing something.

[Former President tack50]

Apparently Macron, Rivera and Renzi are planning on running under a common platform in 2019.

If they aren't going to join ALDE, they need 4 more countries to join them. Who else would?

[Former President tack50]

Apparently Macron, Rivera and Renzi are planning on running under a common platform in 2019.

Do you have a link for that? I remember that was rumored, but I never saw anything saying progress was made.

The only link in English I could find was this one.

 http://www.turkeytelegraph.com/politics/rivera-macron-and-renzi-negotiate-a-common-platform-for-the-european-elections-h18754.html

This one is in Spanish but seems much better

https://politica.elpais.com/politica/2018/06/25/actualidad/1529932425_945638.html

I guess they are working on it.

[Former President tack50]

If I had to guess the new ALDE-Macron split, my guess would be that ALDE proper gets the more euroskeptic elements and the Macron group gets the openly federalist parties for the most part. My guess of the parties already in ALDE would be:

ALDE

FDP (Germany) 3
FW (Germany) 1
Movement for Rights and Freedoms (Bulgaria) 4
ANO 2011 (Czech Republic) 2
Venestre (Denmark) 1
Centre party (Estonia) 1
Centre party (Finland) 3
UDI (France) 3
Fianna Fail (Ireland) 1
Union of Greens and Farmers (Latvia) 1
Labour Party (Lithuania) 2
VVD (Netherlands) 3
PDR (Portugal) 1
ALDE (Romania) 1
DeSUS (Slovenia) 1
PNV (Spain) 1
PDECat (Spain) 2
Centre Party (Sweden) 1

Total: Represented in 16 countries; 32 MEPs.

Macron Group

LREM (France): ?
Cs (Spain): 2
PD (Italy): 25

NEOS (Austria): 1
OpenVLD (Belgium): 3
MR (Belgium): 2
Civic-Liberal Alliance (Croatia): 1
Istrian Democratic Assembly (Croatia): 1
Radikale Venestre (Denmark): 2
Reform Party (Estonia) 2
Swedish People's Party (Finland): 1
MoDem (France): 2
Liberal Movement (Lithuania): 1
Democratic Party (Luxembourg): 1
D66 (Netherlands): 4
Liberals (Sweden): 2

Total: Represented in at least 13 countries, 50 MEPs as of now.

Of course there will be people from EPP and S&D defecting to either "Macron's group" or ALDE, and viceversa.

Seems like "Rump ALDE" might also have problems reaching the 25 MEP threshold.

[Former President tack50]

Will any of the euroskeptic groups (EFDD, ENF, ECR) or the far left GUE/NGL nominate anyone?

Apparently in 2014 the euroskeptics didn't nominate anyone while GUE/NGL nominated Tsipras.

[Former President tack50]

Projection from Instituto Cattaneo

http://www.cattaneo.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Analisi-Istituto-Cattaneo-Elezioni-europee-2019-Una-prima-simulazione-7-luglio-2018.pdf

EPP: 180 seats (25.5%; -6.5%)
S&D: 144 seats (20.4%; -4.5%)
ALDE: 72 seats (10.2%; +0.3%)
ECR: 49 seats (7%; -1%)
GUE-NGL: 45 seats (6.4%; -2.1%)
Greens-EFA: 33 seats (4.7%; -2.1%)
ENF: 51 seats (7.2%; +2.2%)
EFDD: 47 seats (6.7%; +3.2%)
NI: 6 seats (0.9%; -1.6%)
New parties: 78 seats (11.1%)

The percentages refer to % of seats in parliament, not to a hypothetical "EU popular vote"

Their analysis of the new parties claims that their political affiliations follow:

Left: 16 seats
Centre-Left: 0 seats
Centre: 32 seats
Centre-right: 2 seats
Right: 14 seats
"Other": 14 seats

They didn't do a country by country break up but they did do regional ones woth the shift in seats:

Southern Europe (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, Malta)

EPP: -12
S&D: -18
ALDE: -1
EFDD: +5
ENF: +20
ECR: 0
G-EFA: -6
GUE-NGL: -7
NI: -6
Not present: +42

Continental Europe (Germany, France, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands)

EPP: -4
S&D: -9
ALDE: +5
EFDD: +14
ENF: -1
ECR: -7
Greens-EFA: -2
GUE-NGL: +3
NI: -2
Not present: +7

Northern Europe (Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Denmark)

EPP: +1
S&D: +1
ALDE: +5
ENF: 0
ECR: -5
Greens-EFA: -2
GUE-NGL: 0
NI: -4
Not present: +3

Central-Eastern Europe (Romania, Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia)

EPP: -22
S&D: +1
ALDE: -2
EFDD: -1
ENF: 0
ECR: +11
Greens-EFA: -3
GUE-NGL: -1
NI: -2
Not present: +26

IMO the regional breakdown is very off. There aren't even 6 Southern European G-EFA MEPs to begin with for example!

[Former President tack50]

If LREM win 32 out of 78 French seats like they claim, I will eat a hat! They will win low twenties, won't they?

I guess there might be other "new centrist" parties? No idea who though

[Former President tack50]

How is ENF doing so well in Southern Europe? The only gains I can see from them are in Italy and Spain (since Vox is speculated to join it post-election). I would expect EFDD to be doing better, especially with M5S.

Or did M5S almost max out?

M5S probably maxed out slightly though I expect them to get more than +5

And ENF in southern Europe is almost just Lega, which has increased a lot since 2014 (plus the 1 Vox MEP if they get in)

[Former President tack50]

Seems like the Flanders N-VA might have a very interesting MEP next term. None other than former Catalan premier Carles Puigdemont himself!

Apparently he might be offered a spot on N-VA's list in the next election. From Puigdemont's point of view there are 2 main advantages: He gets to campaign for independence in the EU parliament itself and he also gains parliamentary inmunity so he can't be arrested (unclear if he can return to Spain though)

https://www.elperiodico.com/es/politica/20180802/nacionalistas-flamencos-estudian-ofrecer-puigdemont-listas-elecciones-europeas-6974068

https://m.hln.be/de-krant/wat-als-puigdemont-opkomt-voor-n-va~a9a0c074/

[Former President tack50]

Does that mean that both major Polish parties (PiS and PO) will be in the same Euro group? Or will PO have to move to ALDE?

In any case it's probably a good thing for them. Being in a major Euro group does give you more room to negotiate with the EU (Orban is generally treated better because he is in EPP I think)