[EU]ropean democracies thread

Aldo

The European Parliament (EP) elections will be held between May 23 and 26 across all 28 member states. More than 512 million people are represented in this parliament of 751 members. Not enough people vote in these elections, yet the influence of the EP is big and there is a lot at stake.

This thread is a branch off of the Hiberno-Brittanic Politics thread, which focuses on all issues on that weird bunch of islands off the coast of proper Europe. They’re a hoot and a half, but there is a lot more going on in Europe.

I will use this OP to explain what we’re voting for and why that’s important, but the scope of this thread is a bit larger, as national affairs can also be brought up here. Do keep in mind the following:
1. This is an English-speaking forum, non-English sources are fine, but please provide a summary or provide additional English sources.
2. The intricacies of every country’s democracy are lost to nearly everyone on here. Expect all news about specific countries to be treated with a round of “huh, did not know anything about that subject”.

So the EP, is that like the House of Commons of the EU?
No, not exactly. The MEPs are directly elected by all EU-citizens and have three main roles: they legislate, they supervise all other EU institutions and they establish the EU budgets. Their stuff is then implemented by all 28 members of the EU, which are still fully functioning democracies of their own and can interpret the EP legislation to fit with whatever they’ve got going on. That means that the EU laws are not exactly the same as the laws of every individual country.

Who am I voting for?
This is the oddest thing: every country has their own list of people and parties you can vote for. This will mostly be the same parties you know from your national politics, but there are some specific EU parties and even some pan-European parties to choose from. All of that doesn’t really matter, though. Every politician that gets elected in a specific country is part of a political group. These are formed around a common ideology. For example, the ALDE are all the liberal parties and the Greens-EFO contain all the Green parties. This is quite awkward when there are two liberal parties in your country that oppose each other, yet in the EP they are part of the same party.

[urkl=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_European_Parliament_election#Parties_and_candidates]So always look into where your vote is actually going. [/url]Maybe the party that annoys you in national politics is actually part of a political group that you would want to vote for. Some parties work with Spitzenkandater to stick a face to the group you’re voting for. These candidates will also be the most likely to become the next EP President. The current president is Jean-Claude Juncker, but he is not up for re-election. It is very likely that the German Manfred Weber will be the next president. He is a Christian Democrats from the EPP, which is the largest party in the EU by far.

Is the EU cool?
God no.

Is the EU good?
Could be better.

Is the EU important
Yeah, European countries work together in it and form a political bloc in international affairs. Then there are consumer protections in place, to name a few:

• Unified minimum safety standards on nearly all consumer products, ranging from surge protection in electronics to lead in toys.
• Various rules against acrylamide in food.
• Roaming data costs slashed within the EU, making it easy to call your mom or browse Penny Arcade when you’re travelling.
• When paying with a card or withdrawing money from an ATM in a different EU country you will not be charged extra by your bank.
• European-wide monopolies are broken up and companies like Google have had to pay huge fines for violating the rules.
• More elaborate privacy protections in the EU.
• Net neutrality is solidified in law.
• An upcoming law will ensure every consumer the right to generate, store and sell energy back to the grid. This law will also ensure that companies are not allowed to make the administrative process annoyingly difficult.
• Eco-labels on consumer goods have encouraged manufacturers to reduce the amount of energy your home electronics use.

Obviously, there’s more. And obviously, every point on this list is not perfect (yet). Take for instance imported electronics: the person or company that imports the product from abroad is responsible for the quality of the product, but not everything is checked before it enters the EU market. The market is still flooded with counterfeit mobile phone chargers and unsafe battery packs.

Couscous

Do any of the parties care to do anything about parts of the EU backsliding when it comes to democracy?

Aldo

So there you have it. an EU thread. I hope it takes off and we can have some great discourse like we have in the UK Pol thread.

To kick things off, there's something I'm not quite clear on, but that did sound hilarious: new Facebook rules make it so that no foreign groups can influence national elections through Facebook. What they didn't consider was that the European political groups are not official parties in the upcoming elections, so the Facebook page for - for instance - PES is not allowed to pay for ad-space, but instead all 28 individual socialist parties need to buy ad-space to all share the same article. This change in the rules came hot on the heels of the EU lambasting Facebook for privacy bullshit, so it kind of felt like a punishment for the EU.

What I don't get is whether this is actually a sensible rule by Facebook, or if they should keep a closer eye on what groups are actually democractically A-OK and which groups are not? I can understand that they just don't want to deal with another round of Russian influence on democratic elections and would rather inconvenience European Political Groups.

Excerp from the linked article:

Under new rules, which came into force this week, the social media giant requires all advertisers to register in the country where they wish to purchase political advertising, as part of an effort to limit foreign influence in national campaigns.

But the rules as currently established are not suited to the European election system, as they prevent parties and institutions from running legitimate cross-border campaigns within the EU, according to the letter, addressed to Facebook's head of global policy Nick Clegg and signed by the secretary-general of the European Commission, Martin Selmayr, as well as his counterparts from the European Parliament and Council of the European Union.

"Facebook's policy would prevent European political actors from using Facebook, Facebook Messenger and Instagram for their EU-wide paid communication campaigns," reads the letter, dated April 16. "This policy would put EU political actors at the same level as foreign entities attempting to interfere in the EU elections. This is not the case with other social media platforms."

For those of you coming from the UK, wasn't Nick Clegg a UK politician? He's now high in the hierarchy with Facebook. Guess he used his charisma to convince Zuckerberg to give him a chance.

WotanAnubis

Couscous wrote: »

Do any of the parties care to do anything about parts of the EU backsliding when it comes to democracy?

Kind of? I know one of the European parties kicked a party out of their coalition for getting a bit too dictatorial.

But as a whole, I don't think the EU can really do much.

Aldo

Couscous wrote: »

Do any of the parties care to do anything about parts of the EU backsliding when it comes to democracy?

Glad you asked! They say they do and they are very concerned with what is happening in Hungary. Frans Timmermans, for example, decided to visit the country in February as part of his campaign.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hungary-eu-timmermans/european-commissions-timmermans-meets-hostile-reception-in-hungary-report-idUSKCN1QB1ZV

Frans Timmermans, of the Party of European Socialists, is broadly disliked by nationalist parties in Eastern Europe, including in Hungary. He was confronted throughout his visit by antagonistic media outlets who somehow knew his schedule, including parts which had not been made public, the paper said.

Timmermans, a Dutchman, is also vice-president of the European Commission and his commission tasks include promoting adherence to the rule of law, an issue that has led to friction between the EU and leaders in Hungary and Poland.

I don't know what the other main political groups have said about these issues, as a Dutchman I just get a lot of Timmermans-updates.

Tastyfish

Guardian has some interesting things that are linked here, about Populism across Europe (and the rest of the world) and some peculiar trends, particularly in the way far-right and far-left politicians see the world. Whilst both would seem to describe the modern political situation as the people vs a corrupt elite, neither thinks moving away from Democracy is the answer, and whilst the right leaning ones trend very much towards conspiracies (even apolitical ones like the antivax movement), the left ones don't.

Some very nice graphics too, that lets you drag datasets through the last 20 years to see trends, but apparently around 1 in 4 Europeans support populist groups.

Aldo

https://twitter.com/guyverhofstadt/status/1125510836225748992

Verhofstadt is one of the leaders of the liberal ALDE group.

@Couscous you asked about backsliding democracies. Although Turkey isn't a EU member, they are supposed to be an ally, they adhere to a lot of EU regulations so as to easily export goods to the common market and they have a large migrant population in Germany and The Netherlands.

The latest elections (that were considered a-ok by observers) resulted in a huge loss for Erdogan’#s AK Party. So a new secular mayor got installed and now Erdogan cancelled the election results and new elections need to be held. Currently peaceful protests going on in Istanbul with the defacto dethroned mayor promising new elections.

European leaders are not amused and with elections in just 2 weeks they are eager to express their opinion in Tweets.

Aldo

Surprising twist, Facebook to allow European political groups to allow political ads for this election.

https://www.politico.eu/article/facebook-allows-eu-wide-political-ads-for-european-parliament/

The company has now granted and implemented temporary exemptions for the main Facebook pages of the European Parliament, European political groups and European political parties.

The exemptions apply to about 40 Facebook pages, including those of the European People's Party, the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. They are applicable as of Wednesday until the end of the election, on May 26.

Aldo

One of the main players in Europe is French president Macron, whose party En Marche crushed right through the establishment in the last French elections, but who has since then been in stormy weather. WaPo has a long write-up on his European position published yesterday. It also describes his odd position with the political group ALDE. Not even 24 hours later he declares that En Marche, along with 5 other parties are starting their own group. The news is so fresh I can't even find English articles on it and instead will link the Dutch public broadcasting group's NOS https://nos.nl/l/2284203

It is weird that this move happens only 2 weeks before the election and that the two Dutch liberal parties are joining him. The Netherlands is often at odds with France and the main liberal party is aiming to move current PM Rutte to a strong role in Europe after he can no longer be re-elected in The Netherlands.

It all sounds like a guaranteed failure for the liberals in Europe.

WotanAnubis

Aldo wrote: »

One of the main players in Europe is French president Macron, whose party En Marche crushed right through the establishment in the last French elections, but who has since then been in stormy weather. WaPo has a long write-up on his European position published yesterday. It also describes his odd position with the political group ALDE. Not even 24 hours later he declares that En Marche, along with 5 other parties are starting their own group. The news is so fresh I can't even find English articles on it and instead will link the Dutch public broadcasting group's NOS https://nos.nl/l/2284203

It is weird that this move happens only 2 weeks before the election and that the two Dutch liberal parties are joining him. The Netherlands is often at odds with France and the main liberal party is aiming to move current PM Rutte to a strong role in Europe after he can no longer be re-elected in The Netherlands.

It all sounds like a guaranteed failure for the liberals in Europe.

According to the NOS they want to put an end to the hegemony of Christian-Democrats and Social-Democrats and bring some new ideas to the EU? Because, yeah, if there's one theory of political thought the European Union is entirely unfamiliar with it's neoliberalism.

Oh well. Isn't going to change my vote any. Though I'm all in favour of the right fracturing itself.

Aldo

I suppose ALDE is too friendly with the Christians and Socialists, but both Macron and Rutte are about as centrist as you can imagine. Rutte, for example, has formed governments with both PvdA (SocDem) and is currently in one with CDA (Christian/Con) and ChristenUnie (Christian/leftish).

Are we missing out on some exciting European Liberal drama??

honovere

Ah, German FDP are also part of this. Makes sense, their leader is about twice as douchey as Macron.

This was one of his posters from the last election here

Digital First. Concerns second.

daveNYC

honovere wrote: »

Ah, German FDP are also part of this. Makes sense, their leader is about twice as douchey as Macron.

This was one of his posters from the last election here

Digital First. Concerns second.

Is there some context that makes that poster less vacuous? What are they promising, free Spotify accounts or something?

honovere

I think he just wanted to give tech companies free reign to do whatever.

honovere

Austrian right wing vice chancellor has been secretly from filmed offering a Russian investor incentives in return for help with the last elections in 2017.

Only on German Süddeutsche and Der Spiegel so far. Gonna look for English articles.

Aldo

It's amazing how shitty Austrian politics is, especially considering how lovely Vienna is and how every Austrian I know is a super cheerful fluffball.

Jazz

A couple of esteemed BBC political reporters, Laura Kuenssberg and Katya Adler, completely lose it while trying to discuss a Danish politician who's been advertising on Pornhub (video, fairly SFW, only contains suggestive innuendo):

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48310912

Orca

Taking a stab at which thread this belongs in but it seems pretty damned important.

Persons unknown setup a sting for Heinz-Christian Strache, the head of Austria's right-wing populist FPÖ party and part of the ruling coalition back in July of 2017. These recordings were eventually provided to Der Spiegel and the SZ, who authenticated the people involved and are now reporting on it.

Caught in the Trap

Heinz-Christian Strache, the head of Austria's right-wing populist FPÖ party, met with a purported Russian multimillionaire on Ibiza in July 2017. She offered him campaign support in exchange for public contracts. What he didn't know was that the entire exchange was being recorded by hidden cameras.

I's an incredible video. It was created at the end of July 2017, three months before Austria's general election that October. Following the election, Heinz-Christian Strache would rise to become the country's vice-chancellor.

The video shows Strache, leader of the right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), and fellow party member Johann Gudenus, deputy mayor of Vienna at the time, meeting with a woman in a luxurious holiday villa on the Spanish island of Ibiza. The elegant, svelte woman with long hair and dressed in a black designer dress and high heels was introduced to them as Alyona Makarova, the purported niece of Igor Makarova, a Russian oligarch close to President Vladimir Putin. Extremely rich, of course, and able to conduct business practically anywhere she wanted because she was also in possession of an EU passport from Latvia.

It goes on extensively, and is incredibly damning. It also raises the question in my mind of who else in or close to power in western democracies is willing to be bought this way, if they haven't already been bought?

https://projekte.sueddeutsche.de/artikel/politik/caught-in-the-trap-e675751/

WotanAnubis

Wha...? Right-wing populists taking Russian money to help them in their elections?

How... terribly, horrifyingly predictable.

Orca

In this case there was no money and there were no Russians--but Strache seems quite happy and eager to take their money if it had been on offer for real.

Aldo

Wow, what a read. I can totally see other politicians doing this. Europe has a surplus of overconfident, upperclass men running populist parties. I am annoyed that they couldn't figure out who the "Russians" were. Perhaps it was to be used as blackmail later. The Russians are quite fond of their kompromat. I wonder what the political fallout will be, I can only hope it'll be the end of FPÖ and a wake-up call for the electorate that these kind of people shouldn't be in government.

Dizzy D

Was happy to see that stemwijzer.nl* explicitedly had a question on Russia and sanctions against it in it. Helped to weed out a couple of parties (not that they wouldn't be on my list anyway), especially when you see their hilarious explanations why. One party had "We shouldn't be following Trump and instead remove all sanctions against Russia". Which is ...what? Have you even been paying attention?

*= dutch independent website that helps you compare all political parties before an election by comparing your stance on various issues to the parties stances (they each have to give at least some motivation why they think so. With at least 16 parties in this election, it kinda is necessary for us.

[Expletive deleted]

The Strache thing made Norwegian news, too. In his defense, he says he didn't do anything illegal.

Perhaps not.

He's just caught on tape enthusiastically and at length talking about all the illegal stuff he would really like to be doing.

Jazz

From the Guardian:

Austria’s vice-chancellor has resigned after a video appeared to show the far-right politician promising public contracts to a fake Russian backer in return for campaign help.

In a press conference in Vienna on Saturday, the Freedom party (FPO) leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, said he had been the victim of a “political hit-job” aimed at breaking apart Austria’s governing coalition, and insisted the full video would show he had done nothing wrong.

Of course it would.

Orca

Jazz wrote: »

From the Guardian:

Austria’s vice-chancellor has resigned after a video appeared to show the far-right politician promising public contracts to a fake Russian backer in return for campaign help.

In a press conference in Vienna on Saturday, the Freedom party (FPO) leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, said he had been the victim of a “political hit-job” aimed at breaking apart Austria’s governing coalition, and insisted the full video would show he had done nothing wrong.

Of course it would.

I would love to see the full video with a running translation.

Aldo

So, Strache resigned and the coalition fell apart. The Chancellor has issued new elections, saying something about how trust needs to be restored. This was pretty much expected, but it is great to see that the political consequences are severe, I hope other politicians will be more careful in the future about who they hang out with on Ibiza.

Jazz

And now Austria's interior minister, Herbert Kickl, has been fired. In response, the remaining FPÖ ministers resigned, including the ministers for defence, work and transport. The coalition government has collapsed.

I'm just impressed this hasn't yet been called "Ibizagate". (Maybe it has, and I haven't seen it.)

Prohass

its kind of heartening in a world of "yeah im corrupt so what what are you gonna do about it?" actually seeing some consequences for corruption

Trace

Austria is one of the countries flirting with right wing nationalism right?

Tastyfish

Trace wrote: »

Austria is one of the countries flirting with right wing nationalism right?

We all get one do-over, surely?

Aldo

Trace wrote: »

Austria is one of the countries flirting with right wing nationalism right?

"Flirting"?? FPÖ made up half the government. And as the Ibizagate showed those guys loooved Orbán and hated free press.

Bogart

Austria has been flirting with far right nationalism for a very long time. The Freedom Party's first leader was a former SS Officer, and Jörg Haider was the poster boy for European far right scumbags for the eighties and nineties.

Fiendishrabbit

Bogart wrote: »

Austria has been flirting with far right nationalism for a very long time. The Freedom Party's first leader was a former SS Officer, and Jörg Haider was the poster boy for European far right scumbags for the eighties and nineties.

Last time I visited Tyrol they had some really creepy Tyrol First political posters.

The Fourth Estate

I drove past Jörg Haider's shrine in carinthia, he is still fondly remembered there. (The part where he died after crashing his speeding car whilst pissed on his way back from a gay bathhouse gets glossed over, oddly).

Phoenix-D

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/05/us-political-parties-are-better-at-security-but-still-have-problems/

Ignore the title for a moment, the thing that caught my attention was this part:

In fact, the researchers discovered active malware running on infrastructure associated with the European Union, which is in the midst of parliamentary elections. The malware, identified as Gamarue (also known as Andromeda), is Windows-based malware that acts as a backdoor to infected systems, allowing keystroke logging, data theft, and remote control of PCs. The Gamarue/Andromeda botnet network was disrupted by Microsoft, ESET, and law enforcement organizations in 2017, and one of the operators of the network was arrested in Belarus. But the malware is still present and beaconing from EU-associated IP addresses.

That seems uh, bad. I hope that's just the front facing web servers that don't do anything important..

Aldo

Voting booths are opening up this morning, so get yer vote in while they're still fresh.

honovere

Over here the vote is on sunday. Ironically the UK is the first country in the EU to vote.

Mojo_Jojo

As the final polls don't close until Sunday evening does that mean there's an EU wide newsban on the topic until then?

Or is that just something the UK does?

Honk

Mojo_Jojo wrote: »

As the final polls don't close until Sunday evening does that mean there's an EU wide newsban on the topic until then?

Or is that just something the UK does?

Not here anyway we're in the thick of it.

WotanAnubis

Right. I've perpetrated a democracy.

Think I'll spend the rest of the day doing some laundry and maybe playing some Monster Hunter or something.

Nyysjan

My election day strategy:
Woman > Man
Young > Old
Minority > Majority (race/ethnic/religious group)

Does not really matter much, we have list elections, but i hope it sends a message on who to run in the party list and maybe even ever so slightly pulls power away from old white christian men.
And always vote left and pro EU/integration parties.