The European Project: the future of the EU.

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).
 
well, the main result is that national politics still matter way more for your election choice than pan-european questions. Meaning it's hard to read causality into those trends (in total). The second take-away is fragmentation of the party landscape, way more than any win by Greens, Liberals or Nationalists.
 
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).

Yes, both.
And they have participated multiple times in the government, so they're serious.

If you want a non-serious party, look at "Die Partei" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_PARTEI .
 
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.
 
with the gunpowder clouds barely blown away from the battlefield, the next struggle has started: the election for the key official functions of the EU, like the successors for Juncker, Tusk, etc.

One of the things to keep in mind there is the new 7 year budget for the EU funds: the financial redistribution from richer members to less developed regions (90% of the total EU budget).
This budget is one of the prime EU bargaining processes where the new officials do play a big role.
Here an article summing up for the 28 full EU members the net contributions as amount, % of GDP and per citizen.
(Not mentioned by the BBC article are Norway, Switzerland, etc: for Brexiteers favoring the Norway model... if there are any left of them... Norway contributes roughly the same amount per citizen as the UK now).

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-48256318
 
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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.
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...
 
It's 5% in France, and probably a bit high. 5% means about 1 million people. But yeah getting 0.6% and a seat is definitely weird.
 
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?
 
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?

More loons can get in if there is a ridiculously low threshold for percentage of the vote. Eg now, with (if i understood correctly) the two nicely named SS german comedians.
Isn't "german comedian" a contradiction in terms in the first place? :)
 
For smaller states it's not needed, because you need like 5% to get a seat anyway under normal proportional representation. But if you have 90 seats like Germany, or 70 like a couple others, it becomes much easier for actual joke parties to get a seat.

Ninja'ed :(
 
Henning When has been pretty successful in the UK http://henningwehn.de/

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.
 
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.

You are not the only country without a threshold. But as @AdrienIer pointed out smaller states effectively have one. I do think any kind of threshold distorting a proportional system is bad for democratic practice.
 
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.

Probably why hes over here then
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.

Apparently its all down to language

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/may/23/germany.features11
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/12/whats-german-for-funny
 
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.
 
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.

With so much enthusiastic fragmentation on the socio-economic left, it will be difficult for any leftish coalition to take control of the government and pursue a coherent line of actions for many years deep.
Somehow an "inimicus" is a bigger issue than a "hostis".
(I have to translate that ofc: inimicus is ingroup enemy and hostis outgroup enemy)
 
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