Overnight, we’ve had some of the results come in, and we’ll start with the bad news first, with none of our ALDE sister parties gaining seats in Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Malta or Portugal. We had only held seats in Portugal (two), but the combined vote of the three liberal parties totalled just 2.41%.
Little change in the Baltics thus far, although in Estonia, the opposition Reform Party gained voting share and won overall, retaining their two seats, whilst the Centre Party lost significant voting share having gone into coalition with the far-right and nationalists. They retained their solitary seat in the European Parliament.
Across the Gulf of Finland next, where Keskusta have lost a seat, whilst the Swedish People’s Party are confirmed as having held their one seat.
Next, to Denmark, and good news for ALDE member parties Venstre and Radikale Venstre, who’ve both gained a seat…
RESULT: National result for Denmark
See all European results: https://t.co/IuuSF0KtZ6 #EUElections2019 pic.twitter.com/WPigYvLVoy— BBC Election (@bbcelection) May 26, 2019
The Free Democrats have made minor gains in Germany, having improved their position from 2014, when they only just scraped back into the Parliament, wining five seats (up 2). They’ll be joined by the Free Voters, who have won two seats.
In Benelux, good news for the Democratic Party in Luxembourg, who’ve gained a second of the nations’s six seats on the Parliament, and for the VVD in the Netherlands, who have gone from three seats to four. Unfortunately, that’s balanced by two losses for our particularly close sister party, D’66.
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6 Comments
As we warned the LibDems when they entered the Coalition (to make a start with Climate Change-conscious policies with Ed Davies), a famous D66 saying is”Regeren is Halveren”: govern in a c oalition and you’ll get halved at the next election. So nothing out of the ordinary there.
VVD Prime Rutte is converting to a true blue Euro-Federalist on Security, Climate Change and other portofolios.
Meanwhile we have just succeeded to arrange the (two-stage) elections of the Dutch Senate so that we gained not 6, but 7 seats for the coming 4 years. That means that the government coalition has a minority in the Senatye, but that we have 3 opposition parties (Labour, Greens and Baaudets rightrwing populists) to make deals about pending bills in parliament.
And D66 has tabled parliamentary questions about the UK citizens in Britain who got robbed by procedural tricks of their European voting rights.
Delighted to see Naomi Long elected in Northern Ireland with over 170,000 votes.
That was after transfers, David, and with a surplus that was not redistributed because it was the last stage! Still a brilliant result.
It would be difficult for our sister party in Cyprus (EDI – United Democrats) to gain a seat as they did not field any candidates! (They are sadly a very small party)
However there was some good news from Cyprus in these elections:
1) Niyazi Kizilyurek is the first Turkish Cypriot to be elected an MEP, he is an Independent candidate elected on the left (AKEL) list. Cyprus uses a party list system that allows individual votes for candidates within a party list.
2) The far right ELAM party failed to win the last seat, which opinion polls suggested they would
3) Two hard line Greek Nationalists on the lists for centre-right parties also failed to get elected.
All and all a positive result for those supporting peace and reconciliation, and as reassuring for Cyprus as Naomi Long’s win was in Northern Ireland.
Steve Comer: Alliance has been saying for decades that peace is good for prosperity. As evidence of that we went to see the Giants’ Causeway. We do not have one in Kent.
There is a general election in Portugal on 6/10/2019, a Sunday of course.
According to the Sunday Times (World News page 22) the outgoing Prime Minister Antonia Costa is already celebrating, but may need different coalition partners. There is a new ‘Animal Rights Party’.
Matthew Campbell should distinguish between “winning” a general election and having an overall majority in parliament. (Maybe he will try reporting on Knesset coalitions.)
Sound money management has attracted inward investment.
Before enlargement we had tried to visit every country in the EU. With one foot in the Algarve we were not allowed to take a train to Lisbon which was flooded up to first floor level.