European Parliament elections 2009 (94): On Libertas

After a short discussion in the comments of a recent post of mine and yesterday's Congress, I wanted to write a post about the not-so-pan-European one-man-show Libertas.

But Ralf was quicker than me, and since I agree totally with his very pertinent questions and comments, let me just link the articles he wrote:

• Declan Ganley & Libertas: One big mess?
  
• For Libertas Brussels is Washington
  
• Libertas’s big catch: Lech Walesa
  
• Who are Libertas? And what?
  
• Declan Ganley & Libertas: A question of credibility
  

Let me also remind you about Dominika's article on Libertas in Poland, my recent post raising questions about the 80% myth that Ganley and others are using, as well as that there is a whole blog dedicated to anti-Libertas work (although I prefer the more reflected way that Ralf has chosen).

I appreciate that there is a development towards pan-European parties, I even have nothing against pan-European anti-EU parties, but from what I see and hear from Libertas, all that unites them is Ganley and his rejection of the Lisbon Treaty.

For me, Libertas is not a party, but an issue movement tied together by a single person that is not even elected, coveting for power it cannot get but by pretending to be pan- and pro-European, although not much speaks in favour of both of these claims.

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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.

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Federation of Young European Greens (FYEG) with new leadership

Last week, the Young European Greens (FYEG) have elected a new leadership team at their General Assembly in Maastricht.

The new team includes:

• Eline van Nistelrooij (The Netherlands) - female spokesperson
  
• Gordan Isabegovic (Bosnia and Herzegovina) - male spokesperson

• Battal Erdogan (Belgium) - re-elected treasurer
  
• Monia Franceschini (Italy) - fundraiser (re-elected)
  
• Marta Mendec (Poland)
  
• Catrinel Mocanu (Romania)
  
• Ivan Ninenko (Russia)
  
• Bruno Nicostrate (France) - Secretary General (remaining)
  

(Source: FYEG)

European Parliament elections 2009 (90): The "Euro Election Gang" in Germany kicks off

(Original post: Die "Eurowahlgang" der Politikfabrik für die Europawahlen 2009: Gelungene Kick-Off Veranstaltung)



On Sunday evening I went to the kick-off event of the "Euro Election Gang" , a campaign of the voluntary student initiative Politikfabrik in the House of Europe in Berlin.

The goal of the Euro Election Gang is to make young people all over Germany interested in and enthusiastic about these European elections, in particular through panel discussions in 80 German cities (which is why 80 young "Election Gangsters" have been recruited and trained as ambassadors for the campaign), but also through printed and audiovisual materials, which will be distributed all over Germany.

The event yesterday evening to start this campaign was a raving success!

The organisers had invited representatives of all five German parties represented in the European Parliament today.


From the left:

• MEP Alexander Count Lambsdorff (FDP/ALDE)
  
• MEP Dagmar Roth Behrendt (SPD/PES)
  
• Hajo Schumacher (Moderator)
• MEP and President of the European Parliament Hans-Gert Pöttering (CDU/EPP)
  
• MEP Gabi Zimmer (LINKE/UEL)
  
• MEP Rebecca Harms (Greens)

The atmosphere was excellent, and the mixture of probably more than 200 young people superb.

So you can say a lot of stupid and intelligent things about European elections, politics, and young people, but in this room I didn't see any lack of interest or enthusiasm nor disenchantment with politics.

If passion for European politics and the willingness to engage for a common cause brings together 200 young people, you can feel the spirit of Europe. And eurosceptics all around can jump up and down just as they like, they'll never be able to create such a good mood!

The candidates (and the moderator) seemed to feel good as well in a room full of young people enthusiastic for politics and Europe. The discussion was open, direct, and particularly European, and even though sometimes you could hear the typical politician breaking through, the five MEPs seemed to be able to adapt to this special audience.

Only EP President Pöttering wasn't at his best several times, chuntering in reaction to the Green Rebecca Harms, telling long stories to prove his political convictions (which were absolutely boring and sounded like standard stories) and he even cut short one of the people asking a question.

If there is one person I wouldn't vote for after this evening, it's Mr Pöttering!

I could tell a lot more about the event, but it would become too long, so here just a list of topics and questions that were raised by the audience to the candidates:

• Is low turnout the result of lack of information or lack of identification?
  
• Should the EU militarise?
  
• Should the EP have the right to initiate legislation?
  
• What significance does the German Parliament ('Bundestag') have compared to the EP?
  
• Different weight of votes in different EU countries
  
• Europe without nations - Europe of the regions?
  
• The role of religion in Europe
  
• Why is there so much conflict between politicians?
  
• Should Turkey join the EU?
  
• Reduction of agricultural subsidies?
  
• What about the Lisbon Treaty?
  
• Should there be referenda for Treaty changes?
  
• Length of ballot papers (quite long in certain German federal regions)
  
• How to secure wealth in Europe?
  
• How are political youth organisations' opinions taken into account by EP politicians?
  

Because of the large amount of questions, the five on the panel could pick the preferred ones, and so the answers were generally quite in their favour, which was appreciated by the audience with frequent but honest applause, no matter who was answering.

There is one thing that was highlighted cross-factionally: The special role of the individual deputy in the EP:

They all agreed that, different to national parliaments with their group discipline and governmental majorities, a deputy in the European Parliament has much more freedom when looking for political majorities, even across party lines, and even regarding the individual voting behaviour. For a politician, this seems to be a quite comfortable position, and non of the panellists made the impression that she or he would like to change the job in Strasbourg/Brussels against a seat in the 'Bundestag' or a regional parliament in Germany.

A successful evening, altogether, I had a lot of fun, and I can only hope that the 80 "Election Gangsters" will be able to bring this enthusiasm to the German "provinces" and will be able to motivate much more young people for Europe and for the European elections!

Thanks to the Election Gang and to the 'Politikfabrik'!

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PS.: In a previous post I have remarked that the information office of the European Parliament was not really dominated by the European Parliament elections.

However, the Commission representative to Berlin informed that since October almost all financial and human resources of the Commission were dedicated to the EP representation and the campaign aspects for the European Parliament elections. This means that even though I might not have remark a lot of visible elements at the time that nothing happens.

And, seeing the House of Europe from a distance (which I didn't at the time), it is at least hard to overlook that the elections are about to come, and when they will be.



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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.

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What was going on at the ECOSY Congress?

Last weekend, the Young European Socialists (ECOSY) gathered for their congress in Brussels, where a new leadership was about to be elected.

Looking on Twitter, I found the following messages:

• Ilia Markov (Bulgaria): "Back home from Brussels after a devastating ECOSY Congress. But it was interesting to witness such a historic event :)

• Villu Viidul (Estonia): "back in estonia after very strange ECOSY Congress in Brussels"

• Sebastiaan Van der Vliet (Netherlands): "Back from the (maybe last) ecosy conference in Brussels. Friday bizarre, but great weekend" (translated)

• Christophe Schiltz (Luxembourg): "elected vice-president of ECOSY - Young European Socialists at a messy congress in Brussels.

Couldn't find more on the web, so it would be interesting to hear what was going on?

Just the typical post lobbying or other things going on, too?

Update: According to letzi, "ECOSY is right now facing an internal clash between the social-democrats and the leftist parts."

Update 2:: Polish blog post on the Congress (Google translated)

European Parliament elections 2009 (84): Getting the tourist vote

I was walking around in central Berlin yesterday - heading towards the representation of the European Commission and the European Parliament in Berlin (more on this soon) - and seeing the groups of international tourist passing by I was thinking to myself:

"Wouldn't it be perfect if European parties (and/or their national member parties) would campaign at major tourist places all over the European Union, addressing EU tourists to vote for the European party's member party (or parties) in the country they come from?"

This would be a real chance for the European parties to put forward the European issues instead of leaving the campaign in the (nationally focused) hands of their members.

The campaigners would just need a list of all national member parties of their European party and they would need European campaign materials in as many languages as possible (at least in some major European languages), as well as some language skills to address possible voters from different countries.

That is a rather demanding campaign element, but I think this could result in very fruitful discussions, especially since EU citizens going to another EU country (even as tourists) might be rather interested in and open for European topics. This would also add to the European profile of the respective party and of the elections, because possible voters would see that there is a true European dimension in the campaign.

The parties could even use campaign exchanges to form these "Get the tourist vote" teams. A combined national and European campaign team would then be able to address national and international voters, and I suppose the dynamics following such projects would be very positive and more creative than a standard nationalised campaign.

Is any of the parties planning to do this?

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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.

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European Parliament elections 2009 (78): The positive effects of campaign exchanges

One word to start with: Do you have the feeling that the European Parliament elections are coming closer? For me it feels like they are further away than ever, that less is going on, that interest is shrinking ahead of June, not raising.

On the other hand, I can read very interesting things, like this PES post on campaign exchanges. I find this initiative excellent, and I would urge all European parties, and in particular their youth organisations which have called for a true European campaign recently, to foster those exchanges.

A campaigner from another country can significantly change the dynamics of street or door-to-door campaigning. Somebody asks a critical question about domestic politics - and the campaigner can argue that this is not about domestic issues but about European questions: "Look, we even have a friend from country XYZ with us, and together we fight for the cause ZYX [and then: The manifesto of the European party]." It can be easier to come into conversations with potential voters, because they might just be interested in the European foreigner, her/his motives etc. which will ease to pass the political message.

These exchanges will also help to shape the next European Parliament elections, because the experiences of common problems and different perspectives can be helpful design true European campaigns in the future, something which is only in its infancy today, no matter what the European parties are saying. My feeling is that so far the European campaigns are designed mostly from a Brussels perspective, they don't really seek the connection of the supranational level with the local campaigning, apart from some particular events which however seem to be designed to be visible in Brussels instead of being visible "on the ground".

Another argument, very campaign strategic, for having exchanges is mentioned in the PES article: Having exchange campaigners can be a good topic for the local press, both in the home area of the campaigner and on the spot where s/he is visiting. Since it changes the perspective of the campaign, local or regional press might become interested. This can help to shape a particular positive European profile on the local level, it might raise the perceived competence in European matters, and it raises credibility of statements on European issues because voters/readers will see that the respective party organisations does something practical and inherently European.

For me, Europe is about exchanges.

It is the exchange of friendship and opinions, of knowledge and experience, of solidarity and perspectives, an exchange over and across the formerly dividing concepts of "nation" or "culture". The European elections are a political manifestation of these (ex-)changes, and they should therefore bring changes: In style, in attitude, in human faces.

So exchange, campaigners - and change!

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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.

European Parliament elections 2009 (64): Main European youth organisations call for a true European debate during the EP election campaign

All major European youth organisations, including the

• European Youth Forum (YFA), 
  

the (party) political youth organisations

• Youth of the European People’s Party (YEPP),
  
• Young European Socialists (ECOSY),
  
• European Liberal Youth (LYMEC),
  
• Federation of Young European Greens(FYEG),
  
• Democrat Youth Community of Europe (DEMYC),
  
• European Free Alliance Youth (EFAy)
  

as well as the

• Young European Federalists (JEF)
  

have signed and published a joint declaration asking for a proper electoral EP campaign.

I will re-post their press release in the original form since I have nothing (or not much) to add:

EUROPE: GIVE YOUR IDEAS A FACE!

The European Youth Forum, the Party-Political Youth Organisations and the Young European Federalists ask for a truly European debate during the EP Elections Campaign in order to allow the citizens to choose their candidates to key positions in the EU.

As young Europeans, sharing a vision of Europe based on the values of democracy, peace, human rights, solidarity, freedom and sustainable development, we recognise the success of European integration, but we stress that we can successfully face future challenges only if the EU will be able to speak and to act as a real political Union.

In the pursuit of a more transparent Europe, the European Youth Forum (YFJ) the Party-Political Youth Organisations - Youth of the European People’s Party (YEPP), Young European Socialists (ECOSY), European Liberal Youth (LYMEC), Federation of Young European Greens (FYEG), Democrat Youth Community of Europe (DEMYC), European Free Alliance Youth (EFAy) and the Young European Federalists (JEF) hope that in due time before June 2009 the citizens should know names and faces of the candidates to the main political positions of the European institutions. In particular the composition of the Commission should reflect the results of the elections as indicated by the Lisbon Treaty which has to be ratified as soon as possible.

The European Parliamentary Elections, the renewal of the Commission and the subsequent legislative period present a unique opportunity in which the European citizens have a direct say on the policy development within the EU. Therefore it is important to make the elections a truly European affair, addressing issues that concern all EU citizens and not 27 Member States particular interests.

Hence, we believe politicising and personalising the EU policy-making is a natural step forward in European integration and the best way of guaranteeing a cross-border debate on issues affecting our lives and of getting young people and all citizens interested in voting at EP elections. In parallel, we also need to inform them in more simple words about the role of EU institutions: their complexity is indeed difficult to grasp for most citizens.

Too many European citizens don’t go to vote because they cannot put faces to European politics. Our generation is not afraid to bring the EU closer to its citizens and expects brave decisions from our national and European leaders and institutions; moreover, we want concrete benefits from the EU in our everyday life.

It’s time for a democratic election of the European leaders and institutions!

There is only one thing to add: I am glad that all these organisations found the will and words for this joint declaration!

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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.

What is Libertas?

Grahnlaw in a comment to another post in this blog:

According to England Expects media attention has brought down the membership of elected representatives of Libertas to less than seven member states (which is the quarter needed for funding), right after the European Parliament decided to approve Libertas' status as a political party at European level.

The quickest transition in EU history?

Have a look to other Euroblogs, I have seen that this story has been covered!

Fragment article: The role party politics in the European Union

Remark: I have started to write this article over a month ago and for some reasons never finished it. But I wanted to publish this as a fragment, at least.

I have promised some time ago to provide you with a number of interesting insights coming from the Journal of European Public Policy, Number 15, Issue 8 (December 2008) which is dedicated to European party politics.

Not all of the articles have proved interesting or providing results that are worth mentioning. I had hoped that this issue would be a bit more fruitful, but especially regarding the amount of empirical (= real-life) findings is quite limited.

The first article,"Party politics as usual? The role of political parties in EU legislative decision-making" by Björn Lindberg, Anne Rasmussen and Andreas Warntjen concludes that there are some hints that transnational European parties play a role in the European Parliament, but that is quite early to conclude on their true importance.

Some relevant quotes from this text:

• "[B]oth the EPP-ED and the Party of European Socialists (PES) group appoint rapporteurs with policy preferences close to the median position of their party groups" (p. 1117).

• "[S]tudies of voting defection indicate that when there is a conflict of opinion between the national party delegations and their EP party groups, MEPs tend to follow their national parties. Recent studies have also looked at the conditions under which MEPs follow the view of their national parties. An important conclusion from this work is that national electoral systems play a role. [...] if MEPs are elected under institutions that enable parties to exert a strong control over their appointment (such as closed lists, small district magnitudes and centralized candidate selection), their tendency to follow their national parties is stronger" (p. 1118)

• "In cases in which the EP rapporteur and the Council Presidency belong to the same party family, the chance of concluding early in the legislative process is increased" (p. 1120).
  

The sixth article, "Parties in the Council?" by Sara Hagemann and Björn Hoyland reports the following findings which are based on governments' votes on 1,477 legislative acts:

"[T]here is a clear, although weak, tendency of ideological coalition formation in the Council. Centre-left governments are, on average, more likely to vote together with other centreleft governments than with governments from the centre-right. Furthermore, when a new government enters the Council, it often finds that its closest coalition partners are not those of the previous government’s if the government change also meant a change in party political platform" (p. 1206).

End of fragment.

European Parliament elections 2009 (31): European parties and European journalism

The eToile blog has pointed to an interesting new website that takes a closer look at the European Parties:

The European elections of June 2009 advance with big steps, but nonetheless they don't seem to attract the masses! The estimations are announcing a quite low participation. There will thus be a double task for the political parties: make the citizens interested in the elections, and to profit from this interest, in order to politicise the Union.

The CUEJ (the "Centre universitaire d'enseignement du journalism" = "Centre for Higher Education in Journalism"), aware of these challenges, uses this opportunity to train the "cyberpens" of its upcoming journalists on a new website called "2009, le pari de l’Europe politique" ("2009, the bet of the political Europe"), devoted to the European political parties.

You can find there a lot of information about the 9 europarties, hardly known by the voters, thanks to info-graphics and other pedagogic animations.

(own translation)

It is a pitty that this page is only in French. For those of you able and willing to read in French, it is worth taking a look.

My personal favourite so far is the animation where you can see the distribution of power of the political parties throughout the European institutions and the member states. A beautiful little toy!

For the rest, we'll have to follow how much interesting journalistic activity (and quality) we will get from the next generation of (European?) journalists with regard to the 2009 EP elections - I will keep track, for sure!

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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.

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A glance at science: European party politics

The Journal of European Public Policy is dedicating its last issue (n° 8) of the year 2008 to European party politics.

The issue covers the role of parties with a specific look to different EU institutions, starting from Parliament and including also the Commission, the EU Council, as well as the European Council.

I don't have access to the full texts of the individual articles today, but as soon as I have I will give you a short insight into everything interesting. So far, let me list their titles so that you get an idea about what science is working these days:

• Party politics as usual? The role of political parties in EU legislative decision-making - Authors: Lindberg, Bjorn; Rasmussen, Anne; Warntjen, Andreas

• Who leads, who follows? Re-examining the party-electorate linkages on European integration - Author: Hellstrom, Johan

• Decision-making dynamics in the European Commission: partisan, national or sectoral? - Author: Wonka, Arndt

• Party soldiers in a non-partisan community? Party linkage in the European Parliament - Author: Rasmussen, Anne

• Are political parties controlling legislative decision-making in the European Parliament? The case of the services directive - Author: Lindberg, Bjorn

• Parties in the Council? - Authors: Hagemann, Sara; Hoyland, Bjorn

• Party politics in the European Council - Authors: Tallberg, Jonas; Johansson, Karl Magnus

• The party political make-up of EU legislative bodies - Authors: Warntjen, Andreas; Hix, Simon; Crombez, Christophe

• Towards a partisan theory of EU politics - Author: Hix, Simon

Without knowing the exact content of the issue it is hard to evaluate its pertinence or quality; however, taking into account the titles of the articles, I suppose that they will provide those of us interested in the backgrounds of European decision-making with a number of usefull insights for our practical work and our blogging activities.

If anyone of you has already read one of these articles, feel free to comment! If not, I will come back as quick as possible with my own remarks.

Read also the follow-up to this article with a discussion of some of the articles.

Tracking: EP elections 2009 (V)

The Party of European Socialists (PES) is discussing how to make use of members from national socialist/social democratic parties living abroad for the upcoming 2009 European Parliament elections.

Although this sounds like a very positive idea - and it seems as if in countries like Portugal with a non-negligible amount of expatriates from other European Union countries (in this case: Romanians) there is already some cooperation going on - I have my doubts that in practice this will be of real added value.

As far as I can observe, there won't be real European campaigns from the European parties, but at maximum coordinated campaigns, which in every country will be adapted to the national agendas. And national agendas can be very "particular". Not to forget that all European parties unite quite different national member parties, sometimes several in the same country.

The question is thus whether in those countries with a relevant amount of foreign party members one or several national parties will be able to motivate indirect members to really become active.

If I should estimate, the figures will be very low in the large majority of countries and low in a few other.

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Under the category "Tracking: EP elections 2009" am following up national and European activities on the path to the European Parliament elections 2009. So far: (4), (3), (2), (1).

Tracking: EP elections 2009 (III)

Looking at the time schedules of the European parties for the EP elections, I could find some indications on the planned timing:

European Liberals and Democrats

According to to a press release from April, "[t]he final ELDR electoral programme will be adopted by the ELDR Congress on 30 and 31 October 2008."

European Socialists

After the public consultations for the PES manifesto have ended, consolidation work is now under way. The manifesto-page tells: "The PES manifesto will be adopted by the PES Council - a mini-Congress with voting representatives from all member parties - in December 2008."

European Greens

Although I did not find any specific hints, the general schedule suggests that it might be decided at the party's Council meeting from 10-12 october 2008 in Paris.

European People's Party

I did not find any indication for the EPP schedule. (Anyone else?)

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Under the category "Tracking: EP elections 2009" am following up national and European activities on the path to the European Parliament elections 2009. So far: (2), (1).

Tracking: EP elections 2009

Please see the Overview Article for all articles in the series "Tracking: European Elections 2009".

For the most recent articles, please check the "Special Feature: Road to the European elections 2009" section in the sidebar!
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Next year, from 4 June to 7 June 2009 there will be the next elections to the European Parliament, no matter if the Lisbon Treaty will be ratified or not.

From today until June 2009, I will keep track of the political preparations for this huge transnational electoral process involving 27 member states of the European Union.

So far, the European parties represented in the Parliament are showing quite different stages of preparation with regard to their public websites' frontpages:

For the European Peoples Party (EPP), the elections do not yet seem a frontpage issue.

In contrast, the Party of European Socialists (PES) invites visitors of their website to go to http://manifesto2009.pes.org/ and have a say on the PES manifesto for the 2009 elections.

The European Liberal Democrats (ELDR) have no reference to the upcoming elections. In fact, on their frontpage we can still find the link to their 2004 manifesto.

Looking at the European Greens, we can only find a press release from April 2008 on the very bottom of the page. It is stating that the "European Greens Council makes great progress on preparation of 2009 European Parliament election campaign". (The release is likely to disappear in the near future.)

The United European Left/Nordic Green Left (UEL/NGL) as well as the Union for a Europe of Nations, which (as far as I know) both do not have fully fledged European parties behind them, do also not have any hints to the elections on their frontpages.

I am aware that frontpages are not the only measures for party activities. However, (not) putting up an issue like the EP elections is a quite good sign of how far the preparations have gone so far. And for now, eleven month before the elections, only the Socialists seem to be ready to inform and involve the public.

But let's see, how things will develop - I will keep track!