[Discussion] European Politics Discussion

European Politics discussion

Sounds like turnout is up.
A lot higher actually, 56 -> 66% here, it seems.

Looks like the Green Party is going to be the second strongest force in Germany after Merkel's CDU/CSU (Christian Democrats - a center-right), doubling their results from 2014 to now be at about 20.8%. The Greens have been soaring to ever new heights since the state and local elections last year.

The SPD (Social Democrats - center-left, and traditionally one of the two strongest parties in Germany along with CDU/CSU) lost a lot of seats, with some calling it a disaster. One prominent SPD politician stated that everybody's position in the party is in jeopardy, as now it's about the survival of the SPD.

Both CDU/CSU and SPD are now talking about making fighting climate change and other Green topics more of a focus of their platforms.

Interestingly, the ödp (Ecological-Demokratic party), which is in many ways very similar to the Greens, but has been very effective in forcing government action via petitions (direct democracy), also roughly doubled its results - from 0.6% in 2014, to about 1.1% now.

The AfD (far right) also gained seats, but not as drastically as some feared. They went from 7.1% in 2014 (pre migrant crisis of 2015) to about 10.8% now.

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Marie Le Pen's Front National apparently taking first place in France is...while perhaps not entirely unexpected, certainly disappointing though.

https://www.election-results.eu/denm...
I hope this stays true. Pretty much the best realistic result one could have hoped for.
Anti EU going from 5 to 3. Green/Red (Center-leftwing) doing reasonably well (+2 more than last time).
And one of the Anti-EU seats move from full-blown anti-EU to a little less Anti-EU.

Our main nationalist party lose nearly 50% of their voters. God I hope that also happens in the national election in a week.

The racist Vlaams Belang party won big in Flanders, the green Ecolo party won big in Wallonia. Flanders skews further to the right, Wallonia further to the left. Which will make for interesting coalition talks.

We had federal, state-level and European elections on the same date by the way.

The hell? The SPD is currently doing better than the AfD in Germany? I didn't have that happening.

You know what's great about the far-right nationalists getting elected? It only increases the influence the Greens have over the parliament. The EPP and S&D no longer have a majority which means they have to work closely with the Green and ADLE (Liberals). Worth remember that Macron is basically the leader of ADLE and they haven't done too badly.

As Elemia points out, Macron has not exactly covered himself in glory but at the very least his policies are pointing my political direction so I'll take it as a win for now.

The complete implosion of Social democrats in France is not news, but still crazy.

Prederick wrote:

The hell? The SPD is currently doing better than the AfD in Germany? I didn't have that happening.

I'd love to know more but turnout in Germany is up from 48% to 60%. I'd say a lot of Germans were voting for SPD, CDU and the Green if only to put AfD in fourth. Any German I know was certainly quite motivated to at least vote if nothing else.

Shadout wrote:

The complete implosion of Social democrats in France is not news, but still crazy.

That site could do with a swingometer. 6% is fringe territory. En Marche will cannibalise that party even more now.

For all wondering how an election with 19 candidates works in proportional voting you can get it here. The fourth seat is going to be fascinating race.

Edit: Should include a feature to see each count. Might see what the IT are doing.

Edit 2: No, they do. Perfect. This will be painstaking

Oh my god.
Results coming in.
Apparently things could get better. Instead of 5 --> 3 seats for anti-EU it shows as 2 seats. They are getting obliterated.
Thank you Farage?!

Sadly that extra mandate goes to the Liberals (ALDE) (center-right here), but I guess you can't get everything
Quite interesting that the Liberals are doing so well - better than polls expected. They lead our current government, but polls were indicating they would lose the national election next week. But now... who knows.

I'm convinced polling is not picking up a huge section of the electorate for several reasons. So much for Europe falling to pieces, eh? And by electorate I mean anyone below the age of 45.

Romania, you beauties.

Prederick wrote:

The hell? The SPD is currently doing better than the AfD in Germany? I didn't have that happening.

Unless we're talking about former East Germany (excluding Berlin), what gave you the impression that would be the case? The SPD (16-19%) has polled far weaker than in the past (23-30% and more. 38.5% in the 2002 election) and the AfD between 10-12 % consistently. AfD has been embroiled in some financing scandals lately (shadowy outside groups via Switzerland), not to mention some pretty racist and anti-semitic public statements, but it's unclear if that hurt them among the electorate.

AUs_TBirD wrote:
Prederick wrote:

The hell? The SPD is currently doing better than the AfD in Germany? I didn't have that happening.

Unless we're talking about former East Germany (excluding Berlin), what gave you the impression that would be the case?

Well, I'm a pessimistic American, so my news from Deutschland is largely filtered through A.) Fußball and B.) Sensationalist reports about the end of Merkel and the rise of the AfD, so this result genuinely came as a surprise for me.

Although I definitely feel like I can look forward to a visit to Hamburg sometime in the near future now.

I'm almost curious to see how the UK and US media are going to spin this as proof the EU is on the brink of collapse.

Axon wrote:

I'm almost curious to see how the UK and US media are going to spin this as proof the EU is on the brink of collapse.

The article "EU continues to buckle under economic strain of providing healthcare" was already written, it just needed a headline for which parties actually won to demonstrate that fact.

Yonder wrote:
Axon wrote:

I'm almost curious to see how the UK and US media are going to spin this as proof the EU is on the brink of collapse.

The article "EU continues to buckle under economic strain of providing healthcare" was already written, it just needed a headline for which parties actually won to demonstrate that fact.

Just good time saving practice there.

In other news, Austria's government is no more.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

New York Times went with European Election Results Show Growing Split Over Union’s Future

BINGO!

Axon wrote:

In other news, Austria's government is no more.

Ah. Got to savor the days of good news before we go back to our regular schedule of darkest timeline!

How will they be able to form a government after that election though...

Axon wrote:
Chairman_Mao wrote:

New York Times went with

BINGO!

Fixed the link for you

JC wrote:
Axon wrote:
Chairman_Mao wrote:

New York Times went with

BINGO!

Fixed the link for you

fixed in mine as well, thanks.

In case you were wondering about Greece...

The conservatives came in first, the current socialists in power came in second, and the neo-nazis went from ~14% down to 5%.

I watched for 20 minutes as every party (especially communists) tried to claim that THEY and THEY ALONE caused the drop in numbers of the neo-nazis ("golden dawn").

There will be new elections for prime minister in a month (which was going to happen in...October maybe?) which he promised to do if his party came in second. They definitely came in second.

This is not ideologically meaningful in Greece. The socialist/progressives had to implement all of the austerity and extra tax stuff that any party would have had to have done (sorry for the grammar explosion). People are pissed at the prime minister and use his name as a swear word for their extra taxes.

Meanwhile...all of the people who embezzled and committed tax fraud that caused Greece to go massively in debt...well, they're mostly from the conservative party and the old PASOK party (don't remember their flavor), NOT the new socialist/progressive people who had to clean up.

Yep.

Same story as usual. Right wing destroys the economy with trickle-down magic. Left wing comes in and clean up and gets the blame. Repeat.

(not 100% accurate of course, especially not in Greece, Pasok was social democrats? Not exactly inaccurate either)

Eh, in Portugal both the left and right destroyed the economy. That's equality for you.
PAN (greens) managed to elect 1. Great achievement for them.

Thanks for the update Roo.

Shadout wrote:

Same story as usual. Right wing destroys the economy with trickle-down magic. Left wing comes in and clean up and gets the blame. Repeat.

(not 100% accurate of course, especially not in Greece, Pasok was social democrats? Not exactly inaccurate either)

Well, don't forget that Syriza told the Greek public it could solve the problem without taking any difficult choices. Remember the referendum championed by Yanis Varoufakis which made about as much sense as Brexit?They built up expectations and I suspect they are going to face a serious collapse come the next election.

It has parallels here in Ireland were the Labour party did something similar and finds it's electoral prospects diminished after receiving a ground swell of support for policies that were never realistic.

Sure. Not trying to take away all responsibility from them. I truly do not like Varoufakis either way.
Just that we have seen irresponsible right wing parties, who claim they are all about being fiscally responsible, hurt our economies again and again. Then someone else are forced to do the clean up (true, they often claim that the clean-up wont hurt - but in the end they make those hard choices at least, acting more responsible), hence getting the blame when improving the economy hurts after all.
Much better than if they had stayed true to their ideological mumbo jumbo.

Don't disagree at all. I'm not running interference for New Democracy and Pasok at all. The deference the media in the Western world on both sides of the Atlantic show to right leaning politicians is nauseating. Their policies only work when fuelled by credit which ends up in global financial meltdowns that oddly enough benefit the well off but if you dare suggest that maybe we should live in a world where one income is enough to support a family you're some kind of weirdo.

Oh, and in other good news, Farage may never set foot in the European Parliament. Of course he will but a man can dream.

Arron Banks has said he had "willingly helped Farage and was honoured to do so", adding: "This was all designed to help Nigel get out of politics."

Amazing.
You need a large sum of money, to be compensated, when getting out of politics? That does not sound wrong at all.

I thought the way you did that, was by writing a book or getting a tv show.

This is what launched the investigation if you're curious.

And if you're wondering who Arron Banks is