The EU in German blogs (6): A slap in the face of Silvana Koch-Mehrin

Der Spiegelfechter wrote in his article "A slap in the face of the FDP showgirl" on the election result of Silvana Koch-Mehrin during the EP bureau elections (own translation):

"There is room for 14 vice presidents in the European Parliament - this year, there were 15 candidates for this rather unimportant honorary post. So one of the 15 candidates had to miss out.

Admittedly, this over-supply of candidates wasn't planned - in the last moment the British MEP McMillan-Scott used the opportunity to run as an additional candidate for the eurosceptic ECR. Thereby, he expressed his protest against the British Tories who were participating in this group for the first time.

In the first round, Silvana Koch-Mehrin received only 148 of 683 votes - by far the worst of all results and thus a resounding slap in the face of the blonde hope. In the second round, Koch-Mehrin also received the worst of all results. In the third and last round it was finally all about whether Koch-Mehrin or the eurosceptic, far-right Michał Kamiński would fail - and Koch-Mehrin, by the skin of her teeth, could capture penultimate place.

This result is a clear vote of the MEPs against the liberal showgirl."

Since major German news services like Spiegel.de or Sueddeutsche.de are reporting on this catastrophic result for Ms Koch-Mehrin, I expect more German blogs to report about it tomorrow.

I will add their links to this post as soon as I see them.

Here we go: Robin Haseler, mediaclinique, Ruhrbarone.

PES becomes ASDE

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Update (17 June 2009): See new developments that indicate "ASDE" might not be the final word.
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(Via The Lobby, confirmed by Italian news sources)

In a strange move that is just done to please the Italian Partito Democratico, the PES group in the European Parliament will be re-branded into ASDE, the Alliance of Socialists and Democrats.

I think this will ruin any move to brand the term "PES" which until now was both, the name of the party and of the political group. It will make future campaigning more difficult, and it will also make it more difficult for people in the member states to recognise the differences between the parties and the politics.

Having the "Alliance" and "Democrats" in ALDE and ASDE will for sure lead to confusions and to misunderstandings, not to mention that the EPP also has an "-ED" in its parliamentary group.

This will blur the lines and the concepts, and this can only be bad for the European democracy that is already in bad shape today.

So I think the re-branding as ASDE is wrong, even if it will bring 21 additional seats to the Socialist group, wrong for the socialist group and wrong for the European Parliament in general.

Update 2: Since ASDE sounds pretty much like a UK/Ireland-based supermarket chain called ASDA, Jon Worth was again able to prove his marvellous graphical skills by bringing ASDE and ASDA together.

Update 1: Interview with PES/ASDE member Robert Goebbels on EuroparlTV

Will there ever be a "Gabon Coalition"?

Jon Worth has come up with a new term for the usage in the context of European Parliament politics:

"The Gabon Coalition".

On Twitter, we were discussing possible options for a European Parliament majority for the next European Commission president, and one possibility mentioned - although still hypothetical - was the "Gabon Coalition" formed by the EPP (colour blue), ALDE (yellow), and the Greens (colour self-evident), a combination of colours that you find on the flag of Gabon.

This discussion is linked to a similar discussion in Germany in 2005, when a hypothetical combination of the Christian Democrats (black), the Liberals (yellow) and the Greens (that never happened) was named "Jamaica Coalition".

The Gabon option is very unlikely for the European Parliament, but you never know - so please use this term whenever you combine EPP, ALDE, and Greens!

German MEP on EP secretariat members: "Apparatchiks"

German liberal MEP Silvana Koch-Mehrin commented in her "blog" ('Eurofighter') on last week's visit of Hillary Clinton (widely discussed in the EU blogosphere), complimenting the multicultural and gender-balanced message sent out by the composition of the participants.

She finishes her article with the following remarks (own translation; link by me):

I was sitting in the second row of the fully occupied hall, directly behind the Chief-Apparatchiks from the General Secretariat of the EP who occupied the first row. There were only men.

Sounds like Ms Koch-Mehrin has a high opinion of her administration.

Quick news: Irish MEPs change from UEN to ALDE

According to EUobserver, MEPs from Fianna Fail, the Irish ruling party, will change their affiliation from United for Europe of the Nations to the liberal ALDE group after the European Parliament elections - a move which I would interpret as quite pro-European (pro-EU).

(via europolitweeter)


Read also: nwyth's appraisal of Fianna Fail's move. And Jon Worth's argument that Fianna Fail would better fit into the EPP-ED group, but can't because the main Irish opposition party is already part of this group.

European Parliament elections 2009 (44): European Liberals hope for around 100 seats

In an interview with EUobserver, Graham Watson, leader of the Liberals (ALDE) in the European Parliament, and their candidate for EP president, has said that he hopes that his group will have at least 100 seats (=13.6% of all 736 seats) after the 2009 elections, equalising the score of the last polls (103 seats = 13.1% of all 785 seats).

Sounds rather modest for someone, who wants to be EP President, doesn't it?

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Under the category "European parliament elections 2009" I am following up national and European activities on the path to the European Parliament elections 2009.

For an overview over all articles in this category have a look at the overview article.

For the five newest post see also the sidebar.

EP Elections 2009 (34): European Liberals (ALDE) want British Graham Watson to be the next European Parliament President

They don' see the chance to get the post of the President of the European Commission. But now they have found something new.

The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) in the European Parliament has announced in a press release that it wants its group leader Graham Watson to become the next President of the European Parliament.

In fact, this is truly the only major EU post that is exclusively chosen and elected by the European Parliament, so there is some sense in running for this post. It is also the only realistic chance for ALDE to get a major post at all.

But who is this Graham Watson?

I have to say that I saw him some two years ago during a conference in the European Parliament, but he did not leave a particular impression on me, which might not be his fault since I was in a rush and he seemed in a rush, not the perfect occasion to leave an impression. I think I have seen him at another event somewhere in the Union, but I don't remember him particularly.

So let's have a look at we can get about him:

• He is English (i.e. British).
  
• He is a liberal.
  
• He is in the European Parliament for 15 years (three periods).
  
• He has some kind of blog and some kind of videoblog (also published on Youtube).
  
• He was the Chairman of the EP's Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.
  

I think that is enough about him. He has not been particularly interesting for the European public, I suppose, but he's better than nothing.

The youth wing of the European Liberal Party (called LYMEC) not surprisingly supports this initiative, especially since they have demanded a personalisation of the European election process.

To be honest: Watson's chances are pretty low, taking into account that the Socialists and Conservatives (i.e. the PES and the EPP) will most probably make the same deal as last time sharing the position of the EP president between these two major groups during the next five years. Yet, Pat Cox proved that it is not impossible for an ELDR politician to get into this position, so campaigning for Mr Watson is at least a sign of some kind of ambition.

Nevertheless, it is rather a lack of ambition by the Liberals not to put forward an own candidate for the next European Commission presidency, an opportunity lost at the last Congress of the European Liberal Party.

Taking Mr Watson as candidate for EP presidency is just a small sign of politicisation of the European elections, not more and not less.

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Under the category "Tracking: European parliament elections 2009" I am following up national and European activities on the path to the European Parliament elections 2009.

For an overview over all articles in this category have a look at the overview article.

For the five newest post see also the sidebar.

Explaining ALDE ads (discussion on Jon Worth's euroblog)

A short but interesting discussion has evolved on Jon Worth's blog around the financing of ALDE advertisements on the web and in the city of Brussels as well as on the editorial independence of of EUobserver and The Parliament.

If you can contribute, please join!

The UK's negative approach to free movement in the European Union - and the Commission criticising member states

In a draft proposal for the European Union Council conclusions on the assessment of the state of free movement in the European Union, the main concern of the United Kingdom delegation is: Crime.

The proposed wording by the UK delegation can be summarised by the last paragraph of the document:

"The Council asks the Commission to bring forward an interpretative statement, providing guidelines on the operation of Directive 2004/38/EC and any appropriate proposals to combat abuse, misuse or crime. These guidelines would reflect the Council’s Conclusions and support Member States’ efforts to safeguard their fundamental interests and prevent abuses of free movement.

If this is the main isue with regard to free movement, then I feel sorry for the UK.

I would rather stick to the remarks made in an ALDE press release, stating that "Europe [is] still far off genuine guarantee for free movement of its citizens", related to an EU Commission report (see also an article by EUobserver) on the state of the implementation of the free movement directive. This report tells that most member states have failed to fully implement the directive, which makes the goal of free movement within the EU still more a vision than a reality.

It is nice that the United Kingdom cares for the "special needs" of criminal minority, but maybe it should work harder on the free movement of the majority of citizens - an appeal that actually all member states should take into due account.

European communication (III): Euro-speak

Through Euractiv I have found a new European initiative called "The Simple Language Campaign", which aims at reducing "Euro-speak" in favour of a more understandable European administrative language.

The campaign has been launched by the the Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) in the Committee of the Regions of the European Union. On the campaign's website you can fill in a phrase in Euro-speak and below enter the same sentence/phrase in a citizen-friendly version.

It's a nice little toy, but I suppose that the results will contain as much nonsense as we can find in the European Union's language. The number of results is still limited, but as soon as "some" people will have discovered the page, it will be spammed as so many sites before.