30 thoughts on “Euro elections”

  1. Can’t vote in the EU election this time around. Although, unless the Vlaams Blok gets its way, I’ll have to next time. Belgium is a mandatory voting country.

  2. Probably the Soldiers of Destiny; they’re cocking up on the software patents issue and they’re in government with Michael McDowell, but that doesn’t make me like the others any more. Except maybe Proinsias de Rossa.

  4. Labour, probably, albeit out of habit. I’ve been too distracted by American politics to pay close attention to the Euro campaign in the Netherlands, which had pretty low visibility anyway, so I’ll vote out of habit.

    (The site stemwijzer.nl tells me I should vote for D66, which probably means that I’m a waffling flip-flopper with no real or consistent opinions. I think I’ll ignore that advice)
    My studio-mate plans to vote for the Partij voor de Dieren, which I blogged about a few days ago. They could deliver an electoral surprise because quite a few people will vote for them for a laugh or because the other parties seem unappealing. We need a European MRLP…

  5. (i’m french and living in France)
    I will vote UDF, quite certainly. Here in France campaign has been really one of the worst I have seen. The Parti Socialist and UMP have been little if ever present in the media… PS is focusing on his left side, and shares many of its program with the trotskist alliance. UMP is profoundly unsincere and divided..
    Bouh.

  6. Hard to say… The Liberal Folkparty, perhaps, in so far they may be the Swedish party that is the most interested in the EU. Still, the aura of cluelessness that they emit makes me fear them a bit… In fact, not just a bit, but a lot…

    Let’s see, who else is available… The evil barbarians of the Greens and the Left Party? I don’t think so… The non-enties in the Centrist Party and Christian Democrats? Not really tempting… That leaves the Social Democrats and the Moderates (who, funnily enough considering their name, are found the farthest to the right on most issues. I’m not sure if that’s an indicator of anything…). And damn it if I can stand for either of those parties any more…

    Maybe I should just not vote at all… I predict that the abstainers are going to be the single largest voting block, perhaps even the de facto majority, and who doesn’t like to throw their lot with a winner?

  7. Scott,

    no, you won’t, unless you have the Belgian nationality by then. The immigrant voting rights are only for municipal elections. EU citizens can vote in European elections though I think.

  8. Scott,

    To be allowed to vote for the European Parliament or for local elections, you have to a citizen of one of the Union member states. (unless you’re planning to apply for Belgian citizenship)

  9. Spanish.

    I’d probably vote Socialist. They’re not doing a great job in office but at least don’t follow the always-grumpy-faced message of the Conservative guys, whose campaign, BTW, is awful and just based in terrorism, the corruption scandals which happened long long time ago under a Socialist government, and the promise to be “strong in Europe”. Heh, I don’t understand their meaning of being “strong” when you lose 10 seats (and 5 more for next elections) at the Europarlament thanks to their negociations.

    Not to mention the biggest point: the March 11th bombings. Few people in Spain have forgotten the misinformation about who to put the blame on (ETA or Al-Qaeda?), which was the prime reason of their defeat last March 14th. The Conservative Party (PP) is now trying to make us believe it was the Socialist who lied and spread false propaganda the day before the election, and they’re taking the 13th poll as a rematch. They’ll certainly lose.

    So… if I don’t get asleep too late this Sunday, I may vote Socialist. 🙂

    Of course, the big winner on these elections sure will be (again) the abstentionist. Bad for Europe.

  10. I stand corrected, only a couple of months ago, the Belgian federal parliament, after much debate, has voted a law allowing non-EU citizens to vote for local elections. So, regardless of your citizenship at that time, you’ll be able to vote for the municipal elections in 2006.

  11. How a left wing Eurosceptic ended up posting his vote for the Lib Dems is a long and curious story, and one I’m still puzzled about, even though that person is me.

    Probably the decisive factor is that there’s so much demagoguery around over Euro politics that I thought it best to vote for a party that at least takes the EU seriously, though I dont agree with most of its ideas.

  12. Whistleblower Paul van Buitenen, sorry you can’t vote form him unless you have the Dutch nationality.
    He has already showed he is able to withstand the complete commission.
    Besides that he is pragmatic, anti-ideology he has no charisma or sex-appeal and is honest.

  14. In a similar position to JR, I think my vote will go to the socialists of Spain (PSOE)

    DSW

  19. Almost-Final results for NL

    Besides Paul van Buitenen’s magnificent victory another interesting result is that the Party for the Animals (Partij voor de Dieren), founded as a protest-party for animal rights seems to have got 3,2% of the votes, just 0,5% short of a seat. If you had translated it to seats for the dutch lower chamber it seems that that would be 4 seats of the 150.

  20. I just posted the results of the Dutch euro-elections with 99.9% of all votes counted on my blog. Paul van Buitenen and his Europa Transparant got two seats. The Partij van de Dieren did not make the cut, but at least it topped the LPF. I am so glad a large enough number of my Dutch compatriots had the good sense to vote Van Buitenen in office.

  21. “I am so glad a large enough number of my Dutch compatriots had the good sense to vote Van Buitenen in office.”

    All of us who are EU citizens should be grateful for the good sense of the Dutch electors. It is one of the few reassuring signs nowadays that democracy in the good, old fashion sense is still functioning in the new Europe.

  22. Voted LibDem. Turnout definitely seemed considerably higher than recent local or European elections here in Central London. I was interviewed for French TV going into vote – ooh exciting!

    We had Mayoral and London Assembly elections yesterday as well.

    Glad to see van Buitenen got elected.

  23. What would we say about a major multinational company where the auditors refused to endorse the company accounts for nine years in succession?

    “The [UK’s] National Audit Office has vowed to increase its scrutiny of EU spending after Europe’s own financial watchdog failed to approve euro accounts.

    “The NAO stressed that problems in the management of the EU’s funds were a matter of concern, especially in view of worries over enlargement costs.

    “Its head Sir John Bourn said it was hard to tell if matters were improving.

    “The EU’s Court of Auditors failed to approve the EU’s accounts in November for the NINTH year in a row.” – from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3688241.stm

  25. Surpising no one, I voted Liberal Democrat, though do wish we’d adopted STV as our voting system here as I’d have liked to also vote for Martin Bell, who was standing in my region.

  26. Am I the only one to find those elections rather pointless until we have European parties or coalitions with EU-wide campaigns and EU-wide debate? National agendas hijack the election. The whole thing only underlines how insular most political parties and the media are in Europe.

  27. Olivier, the same can be said about local elections. I can’t remember that i voted ever on a local issue with the local election while i got a European reason for voting for the party i voted for

  30. Ref: Europa Transparant – Mr. Paul van Buitenen contact

    Dear Sirs, dear Mr. Paul van Buitenen,

    I am a former employee of the EC and tried to correct during my job as the EC-Delegation?s Infrastructure Project Manager for Aruba and Netherland Antilles, wrong doing/corruption in an ?M14 Aid-Project (EDF) for a sewerage project on Bonaire (Netherland Antilles).

    Unfortunately, I had similar problems within the EC-system like Mr. Paul van Buitenen.

    Kindly send E-mail-address of EUROPA TRANSPARANT. The web-page is not functioning. http://www.europatransparant.nl

    Thanks in advance.

    Best Regards,
    Detlef SCHWAGER
    MSc. Tropical Water Engineering

    former Infrastructure Project Manager for Aruba and Netherland Antilles

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