For earlier results, check out part 1…
First, an update. The BBC have got the Latvian result wrong, and our sister Party, Attistibai, have retained their seat. Unexpected that, the BBC getting it wrong…
Time to look at some of the bigger stories, and we start with Romania, where the USR have gained eight seats as the main element of the Coalition Alliance 2020. The collapse of the ruling Social Democrats has been followed almost immediately by the news that the Prime Minister, Liviu Dragnea, has lost his appeal against a prison sentence for corruption. He’s already been transferred into captivity…
#Romania's ruling party leader, Liviu Dragnea, to do jail time after he was sentenced on appeal to three and a half years in prison – Supreme Court pic.twitter.com/xs161YJakc
— Ionut Iordachescu (@ic_iordachescu) May 27, 2019
In France, President Macron’s Renaissance Coalition was narrowly beaten by Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National. The right wing are pretty excited about this, but their vote was no higher than in the 2017 Presidential election, whilst the pro-Macron vote fell by nearly 4%. Nothing really to see here, I’m afraid. But Renaissance have elected 21 MEPs, and will form the largest national group in the new ALDE coalition in the European Parliament.
Next, to Spain, where Ciudadanos have won seven seats. I have to admit that I’m not a huge fan, in that they’re centrists rather than liberals, and really more centre-right than centre. They have also appeared at anti-government rallies with Vox, the new reactionary right-wing grouping, and oppose Catalan separatism – their perceived influence on ALDE’s decision to expel its Catalan member party was not wholly appreciated.
Setting aside the resurgent Liberal Democrats, the other significant group in the new Parliament is ANO, from the Czech Republic, with six MEPs, up two from last time. The senior member of the Czech government, they have defied the usual effect of being in power and reaped the rewards.
The latest estimate for the size of the ALDE Group in the European Parliament is 109, from twenty-two Member States, broken down as follows;
- France – 21
- United Kingdom – 17
- Germany – 8
- Romania – 8
- Spain – 8
- Czech Republic – 6
- Netherlands – 6
- Denmark – 5
- Belgium – 4
- Bulgaria – 3
- Estonia – 3
- Finland – 3
- Sweden – 3
- Hungary – 2
- Lithuania – 2
- Luxembourg – 2
- Slovakia – 2
- Slovenia – 2
- Austria – 1
- Croatia – 1
- Ireland – 1
- Latvia – 1
The next few weeks are going to be interesting, as the main political groupings jostle for position, and for jobs in the new administration.
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5 Comments
I’ve never understood the process by which political parties decide which European political bloc to join; it seems that the blocs often contain parties with drastically different national policies. It’s potentially harmful for the Liberal Democrats to be part of a grouping that includes Ciudadanos (and probably isn’t that great for Ciudadanos either). Are there any sort of declarations that all the members of a bloc have to sign to? Or is it just self-designation?
@David-1
Googling this (and a little previous knowledge!). There are European Parties separate from the groups in the European Parliament of which individual national parties are members. Mostly the EP groups reflect the European Parties. So the Lib Dems (and APNI) and Ciudadanos are members of the ALDE European Party and the ALDE Parliamentary group. Parties can be thrown out of a European Party or leave of their own accord as Fidesz did of ALDE and joined the (mainstream Conservative) European People’s Party when it went to the right.
In general you get funding and privileges in the EP if you are in a group (and prob. if you are bigger group) so some independents etc. join EP groups – although there are some independents not in a group.
And a group has to have at least 25 members from at least a quarter of EU countries. So there is some pressure to be in a group and also be in a bigger group (that is consistent with your beliefs). I believe to that end, that En Marche will form an EM-ALDE group although it is not a member of ALDE European Party. EM couldn’t form a group on its own coming from just one country and the ALDE may gain from it being a bigger group with EM. The ALDE group in the EP in the last parliament also included members of the European Democrats Party and 5 unaffiliated parties.
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/about-parliament/en/organisation-and-rules/organisation/political-groups
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_groups_of_the_European_Parliament
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_political_party
The situation regarding Cuidadanos is one to which I have referred before. These people are NOT liberals. Mark says they’re center-right, and that’s about right, although they have slipped much further rightwards in recent months as they compete with the Partido Popular and the new neo-fascist Vox party for the right-wing votes. It seems that the party leader, Albert Rivera, has ruled out even talking to the center-left PSOE and is actively contemplating entering into agreements with PP and Vox across the country, and especially in Madrid city council and Madrid autonomous region. Cuidadanos gives liberalism a bad name and they should be thrown out asap…
Re Ciudadanos, don’t forget the Austrian neo-fascist Freedom Party was once FDP-type liberal, in theory at least.
As for Mark’s closing sentence – sounds just like Tendring District.
For that matter, I think that sharing a grouping with the FDP is rather questionable.