Not to mention they were kicked out of the Nazi group, because THEY WERE TOO EXTREME FOR THEM.
Wake me up in 5 years when we can hopefully stop this...
Not sure if we should call them Nazi, as they kicked out the German Nazis, as explained in other comments.
Maybe call them nationalists or ultra nationalists?
They kicked out the German Nazis because they celebrated the SS, which is a no-go for French Nazis. Doesn't make them less Nazi, just the French kind that doesn't like to be killed by German Nazis
ECR is shit, they're a bunch of eurosceptic, anti-immigration, libertarian conservative nationalists, but they don't hold a candle to ID, who are that, but on steroids.
I think the most important topic right now is confronting the climate change and the problems it is going to cause, on every level local, regional, national and international. This looming crisis is going to affect everything and everyone on an existential level, and requires every of these government levels, even every individual, to fucking work and to fucking stand together.
Climate change is literally on position 4 out of 5 for voters. People are absolute fucking morons and at this point I think we should just go extinct. This is ridiculous.
If you can't afford your bills you don't care about climate change.
Edit: I know, that climate change will only worsen your financial situation, but a lot of people don't see the long term effects on them and the economy.
Yes but have you considered that brown people are to blame for all these things? And that they are also fictional lies by The Left (tm) to scare you away from the horrible brown people?
Also, it's clearly way more important that we let Chinese Intelligence Operations in broad daylight tell our youths to vote for nazis to destabilize the regions rather than peacefully coexist and solve our problems. After all, how else will we get communism if not that? /s
I'm literally crying looking at this. People are mad that there are 8.6% of nazis, meanwhile, over here in Russia, there's like 7.8% reps in the upper house and <4% in the lower who might secretly NOT be a nazi. The rest are pretty open about it.
Well you thought wrong. What even gave you that idea?
Recent and older scandals have proven, that the authoritarians in Austria, Czechia and Germany (probably elsewhere too) are receiving money and orders from Putin. They're not even nationalists in that sense, they just love fascism. Even trump with all his "America first" bs loves Putin. All enemies of democracy will work together to dismantle it.
That's the thing, you think that because they keep saying they like their country more than the others, a foreign leader who hates and want harms to their country would be their enemy.
The truth is (1) they get a boner for the authoritarian way Putin leads Russia and (2) Putin treats them well because he knows that strengthening those parties weaken the country they're in.
Also Putin hates EU, and they hate EU. The difference is that Putin hates EU because he knows that European countries are stronger together.
This is, traditional conservative parties starting to talk about cooperation with the far right, rather than with centrists. If you thought far right euroskeptics were cringe, just you wait to see the far right that wants to remodel the EU to their taste - and are capable of passing reforms.
While I am all for laughing at the 'Muricans for making themselves out to be the prime democratic nation on the planet while having the choice between a conservative and an ultra-conservative party only, this time, we cannot indulge in this kind of thing to feel superior. We need to make sure we actually stay superior now, which… isn't a given anymore.
As a latent American, apparently, I also struggle to make sense of it (I'm planning to research those parties, but haven't gotten to it yet)
Also, naming of parties seems often misleading, maybe even on purpose
Could you recommend some resources I can use for a crash course on who's who in EP, or maybe someone can summarise the projected results and what are the expected problems?
These political groups are formed by members elected by national voters. A group can be formed as long as they have at least 25 members from at least one quarter of EU countries. They're pretty much analogous to a party, they work in broadly the same way. In the Image above they're broadly organised from Left to Right politically:
The LEFT group is, well, pretty left. They include Communists and Socialists, and in their own way can be a bit eurosceptic, although they typically want to reform or replace the EU rather than just disbanding it.
The GREENS are also pretty left, with a focus on Climate, Animal Rights, Income Equality, Feminism, that sort of thing. They are generally pro-Europe.
The S&D group are center left. Members tend to be from say, the Labour party of various countries. They want things like fairer employment and more regulated market. They were the largest party in the EU until 1999, now the second largest.
RENEW are Center, pretty Liberal (in the Phil Ochs sense). They're pro-business and want a strong economy, but they at least talk up things like civil rights and social welfare (I don't know enough about them to judge how well they do in practise). They're very pro-EU, and have billed themselves as 'the Pro-European political group'.
The EPP are center-right, pretty conservative. Lots of 'Christian Democratic' representation. Neoliberal, want more defence spending, pro-Europe, pro-Ukraine. They say they're focused on the climate, but the Greens say that that's a lie. They've been the biggest group since 1999.
The ECR calls itself center-right (but is really a bit right-er), and 'soft-eurosceptic'. This Eurosceptism is their main thing: They support the idea of the EU, so they say, but they want to prevent it from going 'too far', with too much oversight, integration, and immigration. Some members are your standard conservative types, some are far-right.
The ID group is far-right. They don't like the EU, and are opposed to it interfering with the 'sovereignity' of States. Anti-immigration, anti-'islamisation', pro-nationalism.
Nonaligned (technically 'non-inscrits') are just that - they haven't joined with any of the above blocs.
These projected results broadly show increased support for the right over the left, but more sharply show gains for the Eurosceptic ID and Non-Inscrits (who often are Eurosceptic, but not always and I don't actually know the individual cases here) at the expense of the pro-EU Greens and Renew. So it doesn't look great for fans of the European Left.
Traditionally, the EU has been governed by an informal coalition of the two largest groups/parties, centre-right EPP and centre-left S&D, both being pro-EU. After the last election where they underperformed, they were joined by the third largest group, centrist, pro-EU Renew.
This election, pro-EU groups collectively have lost a lot of seats while right-wing EU-sceptic groups gained seats. The most radical of these groups, ID, made the biggest gains. This will make coalition building and therefore governing way more complicated.
European parties are alliances of national parties from various member states. Those representatives elected to the European Parliament for the national parties form so called groups. Typically, these groups correspond to the European parties. Usually, it makes more sense to talk about the groups rather than the parties.
Oh they absolutely could and would but they know "solving" it would expose them for the fascists they are (case in point there have been several "isolated cases" of AfD politicians behind closed doors literally demanding migrants be shot at the borders)
Can someone knowledgeable here explain this projection in relation to green policies and carbon goals?
I assume they are now (even) less likely to be in form of mandates and we are moving towards 'capitalism (with a lil stimulus push here and there) will solve the problem it created'?
Tho maybe nuclear energy could also get a little bit more (re)renewed traction?
Also, the whole internet surveillance isn't going away now, is it?
With the German Pirate Party loosing its seat a strong voice against surveilance is lost.
They also supplied NGOs with information directly from the legislative process, allowing them to act faster (and sometimes you have to be very fast to comment on minor changes with great effect) I hope somebody else at least partly takes on this role.
The parties consistently voting in favor of green policies were Greens, Left and Socialdemocrats, with Liberals and independents varying wildly. Some decarbonization goals are still in place, but the new equilibrium may vote to revoke some of them and the actual laws to enforce them for good will likely not be passed.
The EU past a lot of actually good policy in the last term. Namely ban of fossil fuel cars 2035, limiting certificates for the EUs carbon market, new carbon market for transport and housing and a bunch of other laws, which actually have some positive impact. For the most part the EU parliament was not only in favour, but activly pushing for it being one of the most pro enviromental policy parliaments in the world. That is probably going to stop and they likely try to kill some of the laws passed. So the key in the future will be defence for most enviromental groups. The laws which have been passed will lower emissions, but not fast enough.
As for nuclear the EU is so far this year at 73.2% clean electricity. The large countries with a lot of fossil fuels are Poland, Italy and Germany. Of those only Poland is activly pushing for nuclear. The EU parliament is not able to force the other two to do that.
I think it is clear for most people that nuclear is not sustainable and only a short term solution. Now is actually a great opportunity to push for renewable energies also because it is important to get a foot into the market before China takes it all.
Can we take a moment to consider that everything is the fault of the Italians. The Italians, and only the Italians:
Why the hell are your polling stations open until 23:00? Who the hell votes at that time? Is it one of those "not cappuccino after 11 -- no voting before dusk" kind of superstitions? You're the reason we don't have proper projections yet!
I was just in Rome, and when I started getting hungry there was still an hour left until most restaurants even opened (19:30). Pure insanity to my Scandinavian habits.
Considering the next elections one should form a national party to expand pause times to multiple hours as well, so that we can bear 35 degree celcius in april 2029.
Either spains siesta approach or adapting italias layed-back attitude both sounds promising!!
Are the non-aligned a "party"that would rather not be named (on the right wing of things) or are they actually non aligned and would be better represented as being in the middle of this chart?
Different fractions, some of them are not aligned yet because they are new. However, for the biggest groups: 17 MEPs are the German AfD that was kicked out of the right-most group for being too Nazi, 11 MEPs are Fidesz (Orban) which is right-wing and the list goes on, so for the most part the position is mostly correct.
Young voters did this, ironically enough, according to BBC World News. Young people struggling to get jobs after graduation think that right wing parties will fix that.
So as older generations are trying not to hand-off a burning planet to the young, the young are signing up for a burning planet under some delusion that right wingers will get them jobs. Schools have apparently failed to teach kids that the jobs they get under conservative governance are shit jobs -- lousy pay and lousy benefits.
The Nazi Party’s popularity increased in the early 1930s partly because of its pledge to do what no other political party had been able to accomplish: pull Germany out of the Great Depression and put Germans back to work.
What unsettles me that the EPP plus everything right of it have a majority. The right have a majority in the parliament, and the EPP's centrism is the only think saving us from it.
The 8 groups of colors you see on the graph are actually dozens and dozens of parties who group themselves into more compact coalitions depending on their broad ideology. This is actually no issue to get shit done and pass plenty of legislation.
What we actually don't like is that the far right groups (Conservatives and Reformists, and Identity and Democracy, and a third secret option) are growing even a little bit more, which increases the possibility of them actually passing the laws they want.
It's far from perfect, but the European parliament is vastly more functional than the American Congress, just based on the amount of legislation that is crafted, compromised on, and passed. These laws, which have to be adopted by all the countries in the EU, are the most prosocial and environmental in the world.
With these elections increasing the size of conservative coalitions, there will be more of a push against things like green regulations, immigration quotas, and support for Ukraine.
More conservatives are being elected because right-wing nationalist/populist parties across Europe are fanning the flames of anti-immigrant hate, the burden of inflation, and EU regulations that might squeeze the ability of farmers (or other laborers) to make a profit, in order to sell their Make (insert country name here) Great Again rhetoric and whatever religious/corporate/fascist power dynamics that rhetoric conceals.
Comedic answer: In the same way, “Republicans” are standing for "State's Rights" instead of the rights of the Federal Republic: By name only.
Real answer: It's all around the idea that to keep the EU “in check” and nation states sovereign (which is their main deal, aside from 'controlled immigration' as they call their specific flavor of Xenophobia), the EU needs to be reformed into a more powerless organization basically.
You could have told me this is is the current layout of Israel's Knesset and I would have believed you.
Proportional representation only looks good from the perspective of a spreadsheet. As soon as power dynamics enters the picture it doesn't look so good anymore.
The biggest problem with "first past the post" is the name. Politics works when people are able to compromise. Requiring that a representative is at least able to compromise enough to get the majority of votes in their community is useful for weeding out the weirdos who are incapable of compromise. Any democracy can become two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner, but in a proportional representation this result is significantly more likely. There's no one in a the "Identity and Democracy" that has to compromise to get a few more votes to get past that post, right? Just as the Left and Green parties can have 100% uncompromising dedication to the causes they care about, so can the other side. And if that side forms a coalition, the concerns of minorities won't be addressed as minorities have zero power when not in the coalition.
Well, you never know... whatever coalition that forms after you vote might not be be as extreme right as the one that formed in Israel. Cross your fingers, and hope for a good outcome from the backroom deals to form a coalition that you have no say over. And if the worst happens and you have a far right coalition running the EU, at least the numbers line up on the spreadsheet and you got to vote for a niche party that didn't have to compromise!
I think that the difference between PR and FPTP (or other majoritarian systems) is that in the former, compromise happens on the floor of the parliament, whereas in the latter, compromise happens in voters' minds.
In PR the compromises all happen in the backroom deal to form a coalition. After that they have the votes they need and don't really need to care about anyone that's outside the coalition.
In FPTP I can call my MP and complain. I'm not one out of tens of millions of votes, I'm one out of thousands of votes. A small group of people in a riding can make the MP pay attention because they could lose their job if they don't. We influence the MP, the MP influences the party. And the party needs to listen to the MP because the seat doesn't belong to the MP, it belongs to the MP. The MP could cross the floor, go independent, or even join another party, and the party loses a seat. The power dynamics flow up from the people. The people can remove the MP and the MP can take away a little bit of power from the party.
In PR, the MP exists only for show. After the election that party has X% of the vote and has X% of the seats. The job of the MP is dependent on sucking up to the party leadership. They will vote for or against what they're told to by the party leadership, so what's the point of them? Just have the party leaders there and when they vote for, X% of the vote is for the legislation. Or conducts it like a courtroom, the parties hire the best advocates they can find to read the rationale for voting for against a piece of legislation.
PR has legislative assemblies only to provide a show of representation, put people in those seats don't represent anyone except their party.
The proof is in the pudding. Israel, EU, both PR systems, both susceptible to far-right coalition politics. The UK on the other hand will soon have a center-left government while the rest of Europe will be under the far-right influence of the EU parliament. A hard Brexit was a mistake, but what's going on now only has the EU proving idiots like Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage to be right. I mean Nigel Farage ever being a MEP only proved what a clown show a PR parliament is.