Is the german green party supposed to be half-serious?
Wasn't it the party that had a former street-fighter as its leader, back in the early 2000s? (and iirc he got the position of german foreign-minister too at the time).
it is not so much because we are the largest country but because we are the only country not having a set threshold for winning seats. And the reason we do not have that is that because our constitutional court in a rather deplorably stupid decision decided 5 years ago that essentially that the EU parliament does not matter as much as say any state parliament and that the risk of having unstable majorities in the EU parliament was sufficiently remote that a threshold of any kind was unconstitutional. That judgement essentially said that unless the EU parliament breaks down for a lack of stable majorities for one term we should just let everyone in - since the EU parliament hardly matters anyways in the eyes of our constitutional court. Of course that same court thinks the same about town and city councils so that is were they think the importance of the EU parliament is: somewhere close to a town council...Apropos one-member parties, VOLT Europe got into the Parliament with one member, in Germany of course. Why of course? Since that's the largest country, it's easiest to get a seat. They needed just under one percent. So easy that the above mentioned PARTEI now has taken 2 seats, enough place for both comedians Sonneborn and Semsrott, the dreamteam of SS.
I don't see the point in introducing some kind of artificial minimum percentage of votes (beyond the number of votes to get one seat) for the European parliament. The political groups are a loose alliance of many parties anyway and can be joined by multiple parties from the same country. So why not let the people choose whoever aligns best with their views, when the faction-building needs to happen on the European level anyway?
Isn't "german comedian" a contradiction in terms in the first place?
Henning When has been pretty successful in the UK http://henningwehn.de/
it is not so much because we are the largest country but because we are the only country not having a set threshold for winning seats.
I actually have seen him a couple of times, in the HIGNFY tv show.
He is ok, but apparently not the typical german "humor", which is about as subtle or self-deprecating as the burning of an occupied village.
Yes, the need for a threshold depends heavily on the size of the electoral district. The smaller countries such as Estonia or Luxembourg have 6 seats which puts the threshold for them at 16 % for one seat. That's just about acceptable for electoral reasons which is why they probably set it up that way. Germany and France are on the other end of the spectrum which makes it easier to get a seat with or without the threshold (but of course I should've mentioned it ).
And there are lots of funny Germans, stop with the stereotypes please.
And there are lots of funny Germans, stop with the stereotypes please.
In the end Varoufakis' party got 2,99% The threshold here to have at least one mp elected is 3%, so it doesn't elect a euro mp.
Btw, even if he had elected an mp, it wouldn't be Varoufakis himself.
It will, however, be a big surprise if he doesn't get at least 3% in the national elections next month. So he will have a few mps in the local parliament. This probably will lead to Syriza disintegrating even faster, losing both to Varou and the old socialist (socialist in name only) party.
A problem with the pre-capitulation period Syriza mps (who were kicked out later) is that they failed to co-operate and form one party. So while their parties add up to 6%, not one managed to elect a euro mp, and more than likely only Varou's will enter parliament in the next election.