I’m not sure how to write this blog entry, for it relates to something that has been on my mind for a long, long time. Yet, unlike most of the things have have been on my mind a while, it is the first time I have blogged directly about this […]
Tag: European Parliament Elections
Duff’s EP reform proposals prioritise institutional change over real leadership – misguided
The Constitutional Affairs Committee of the European Parliament yesterday backed Andrew Duff‘s report (PDF here) that proposes reforms to the way MEPs are elected. Most controversial is the proposal to create a Europe-wide list of 25 MEPs, essentially a transnational list, that would give European Parliament elections a truly transnational […]
Socialist Group rebrands as ASDE, not to be confused with ASDA or ALDE
Britain has ASDA, a rather lousy supermarket chain owned by Wal-Mart. Now Brussels has ASDE, the new name for the Socialist Group in the European Parliament. The name stands for the Alliance of Socialists and Democrats. Which means the name is not too far away from ALDE, the acronym for […]
Introducing the Gabon Coalition
One of the great things about the Twitter is that it allows you to be rather silly and flippant about serious topics – just look what we managed with @AtheistBus. But this post is about EU politics. For today, in a discussion with @JulienFrisch, @spiller2 and @kosmopolit, I managed to […]
Rebuilding the European left
The European Parliament Election results on Sunday were not good for social democratic and labour parties across Europe, polling 3% less than at the elections in 2004. PES President Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, posting at Labourlist, states rather blandly that “We need more PES, not less PES” so as to do […]
EP elections – thoughts on the first results
Results – all unofficial at the moment – are staring to drift in, and things are looking quite terrible for the left across Europe. So far the left is only up in Malta, Slovakia and Greece (with a decent result also expected in Ireland), and behind elsewhere – poor results […]
Stupidity and the EP’s 4-day election
So the European Commission is asking The Netherlands for ‘clarification’ of why results from Thursday’s EP poll there have been released already. Supposedly results are only allowed to be released once the polls have closed all over Europe – Sunday evening. I’ve been debating this on Twitter with @julienfrish, @kierancotty, […]
Silvana’s internet Koch-up
Just a few days before the European Parliament elections in Germany (polling day there is Sunday 7th June) there’s an interesting story brewing about the liberals’ (FDP) lead candidate Silvana Koch-Mehrin – I’ve posted a little about this before. It’s one of those interesting cases where a politician getting things […]
Tech, the EP elections, and Norway
Bente and I have just given a presentation at the Norwegian Mission to the EU about the use of technology for politics. The slides we used are below, and here are a few links to some other things we mentioned – there are more in the slides: Fix My Street […]
Libertas: we want some of the politics of anti-politics too
Today’s Libertas e-mail states “we rolled out a video that’s flying around the blogosphere” – well 324 views is not exactly flying, and that’s how many people have seen the video as I write. You can view it below. My own anti-UKIP effort is doing better at the moment, with […]
Ireland – the referendum, EP elections and the Commission
The European Parliament has had to make one formal adjustment for June’s elections – as opposed to the 750 MEPs foreseen in the Treaty of Lisbon (rejected by the Irish), 732 MEPs will instead be elected. A few countries get a few less MEPs. Easy. Well, perhaps not… The first […]
Is Anna Diamantopoulou going to be the PES Commission President candidate?
OK, I am putting 2+2 together and making 10, but if I get this one right then you heard it here first! 😉 Andy Carling, a regular commenter on this blog, stated that he had heard Poul Nyrup Rasmussen say at a press conference that the PES does have a […]