European Parliament Election 2009

Our day is on Sunday, they say my party loses 3 MEPs ah well, we shall see.

But the voting% seems to get better - I don't know is it because of young people (it's been 5yrs since last election) because I believe they are more familiar with EU than older folks and don't feel so passionate about it - especially against it

 

Sunday is our day for voting too.

And of course, I'll go vote. I picked which party but not sure who. In my own region I know hardly anyone. Tommorow someone will have luck if vote for him/her. I decided to vote for something which you can call... hmm... The Conservatives but for sure, it's not exactly that what you think. In Poland every party is just strange and hard to tell who is really conservative or liberal. I'm not EU enthusiast (even against the whole idea of EU) so I want the smalles influence of the EU on the country. And of course, bigger countries are kicking asses of the smallest ones - look now at Poland. I'm living in area which is close to Germany and few years back here was our Army station. And what now? National Armies can't have stations near to the other EU country border - minimum 60 km. It's one big crap 'cause here is a good place to hold army, but well, big great EU said no no for that. And all these stupid regulations from administration to kitchen... I'll stop being grumpy We don't have any celeb candidates, I think. I'm not sure but party for which I will vote are no one like that.

 

yeah, i think all the younger people i know are relatively pro-europe - i guess maybe it's just what we're used to. i don't really understand the euro-sceptics, how can it be sensible to avoid economic ties? all that will happen is we in the uk will end up stuck, alone and isolated on our crappy little island, with ireland to one side (which uses the euro already) and a huge landmass to the other which has excellent internal economic ties and doesn't want to trade anything with our archaic currency/monarchy/idiocy. we'll be screwed! mind you that's probably what the euro-sceptics want - britain for the british, the queen's picture on everything and all that crap.

sorry, that wasn't meant to be a rant! enjoy your voting tomorrow!

 

I'm young and euro-sceptic. We can't generalise that young people are always pro-EU 'cause it's not like that. I know many people in my age, a bit younger and a bit older, who are euro-sceptics. I started as a person who wanted country to be in EU. But let's face it - no one will help you with our own country, except yourself. National business etc. should be national, not others'. EU haven't helped and never will - Poland is still poor and have their own crisises. No one is helping and the money from EU are not going to, for example hospitals, but to someones' pockets. EU is not helping with our coruption which influnece on almost every side of our everyday life. There's no difference if we are in EU or not:lol: Ohh, if schools with name Acadamey are changing it into univeristy - they can get some extra money. I found a positive side:lol:

 

true true, i shouldn't have generalised, i usually hate that! i guess just all the youngish people i know tend to be pro europe. i don't know about the helping countries thing - i don't think a federalised eu would help anyone but i think as it stands now it probably does. i don't want it federalised because it's absolutely right that nations within it should have some autonomy - i just think the eu should be there for broader things, economic ties etc etc.

as for corruption i'm not sure - i think by bringing countries that weren't in the eu in there has to be a level of conformity with european standards and as a rule i think that helps get rid of corruption but the situation in the older members at the moment is so dire that it's not easy right now. i realise the situation in poland is pretty sticky as well, i hope it gets sorted out, it sounds pretty bad.

 

Well, I just went to the voting bureau
Here, we're obligated to vote (for the European elections, but also for the regional elections that are today).
As you probably may know, our political system (here in Belgium) is somewhat of a mess, so not not say completely screwed up. So I voted for a party I normally don't vote for, just because the three big parties ( the christian democrats, the liberals and the socialists) have had two years to show their capabilities and did scratch with it.
And of my friends is going for parliament, so I voted for him, obviously .

As for celebrities parties, there's one in particular (LDD, don't even get me started), which has been started by an ex-judo coach, and several other celebrities with him. His ideas are too populistic, anti-everything and never with a real answer to the question. Meh, not a fan.

 

Interesing topic.

i've voted this morning. I voted a party, although i thought about the candidate too, is a person that used to frequent some debate programs here so i know what his thoughts are about europe and our country.

I believe in the EU Parliament, is a project that has been working fine until now.

But also i think that many countries focus on themselves and not in the whole project, and that is causing problems since people don't see they get anything from the Parliament.
(that is not true because at least here many road, school projects have EU financial so we owe a lot to Euro project).

Celebrity candidates, we don't have that here. Just same politicians, and from time to time someone that is a public person (enterprise leader or media producer...) but no athletes here.

You have open lists there?
here you can vote just for a party, not for an individual candidate from the party list...
i think all Euro countries should have the same rules about that, don't you think?

And i agree with France and agriculture, but i also think that small countries should "create a force" among them to have the same opinion on those decitions.

 

yeah - have they got any closer to sorting that out yet? i really like belgium, i was there actually just after the government collapsed, it was a bit weird - it didn't have any effect on me but everyone was talking about it.

 

Seriously? We voted (actually, still voting, couple of minutes to go) for individual candidates, only one... but well, at the end they'll count votes on the particular parties.

That will never happen. Big countries want to be strong and they will. EU is EU but still, everybody cares only about themselves.

 

Well... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation - that kind of gives the votes to party but still...

I think we all have so different system that those are hard to chance. I like our system

So our 13 (used to be 14) MEPs come from 3 Conservatives (lost one), Centre Party 3 (lost one) Social Democrats 2 (lost 1) Greens 2 (gain 1),Swedish People's Party 1 (had 1), Christians 1 (gained 1 - they "teamed" [don't know the right word] with True Finns and that's how they got their place ) and True Finns 1 (gained 1) and Left Alliance lost their only place.

True Finns are going up, they are right-wing party with a very strong leader. They are getting more and more popular - we shall see how long it goes on.

 

that looks like it's happening in a few places - we've just got our first BNP MEP. what on earth were the people of britain thinking?! BNP?!!?!:scream::scream:

 

i'm really glad socialists lost. finally Europeans realize that, except in 2 places, Denmark and Sweden, socialist solutions to the economy are not working. i'm glad Europe turns right. i wasn't expecting that at all, tbh.

thing is, in Denmark and Sweden specific characteristics to those two societies allow for more government involvement and other socialist ideas to work. Danes and Swedes are more homogenous in terms of culture, and they are law-conscious. there is no corruption and everything is organized to a T. high taxes actually do translate to high benefits for everyone who pays them.

in countries like France, GB, or Germany it is a lot more difficult to run the countries in that way with such efficiencies that Denmark or Sweden have. first of all, there is a lot more people to take care of. second, the countries are more of a cultural mix. there is always going to be some level of corruption. bureaucracy is not a synonyme for good organization, more of an oxymoron really.

Americans love to point out that Europe is more socialist and US is more free. slowly, it's becoming less true. i'm glad Europeans turned to economically liberal politicians in yesterday's elections. it should be the perfect way to get out of the present crisis quickly. i'm thinking that with Obama leading America at the moment, US won't make as fast of a recovery as they normally would. but, time will tell.

 

I meant, obviously we know who the candidate is, but the vote is for the party (you vote for a party list, in which the candidate is the leader of the whole list/team party).

I've heard that in other European countries you can choose from the party list, who do you want to vote for exactly (e.g. the 3rd name listed on the party list), is that true or not?

Here results are:
PP (centre-right) 23 MEP
PSOE (centre-left) 21 MEP
other 3 parties.... 5 MEP (2, 2, 1).
^^ well those were the first results said yesterday night, may be it has varied a bit now, if some parties are "team" now or not.

seems that results here are similar than in Finland then.

 

^This was actually the only good news in our elections. Vlaams Belang ( an extremely right party, used to be Vlaams Blok, but were convicted of racism, and simply changed their names ) lost over 10%.
Other right parties did gain a lot though. N-VA (New Flemish Alliance) is now the 2nd biggest party here, which to me is a problem 'cause I don't Belgium to be split in two.