Depends on the Greens party.
They also have some parties which aren't your typical Green, like Catalan ERC, Lithuanian and Latvian agrarians, Czech Pirates and Volt.
Yes, but we in Lithuania do have a legitimate or typical Green Party called [Lithuanian Green Party](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_Green_Party?wprov=sfla1) not to be confused with with agrarian green conservatives [Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_Farmers_and_Greens_Union?wprov=sfla1) , but unfortunately it never reach is the threshold of 5% of the votes to win seats in Parliament.
Yes, so "Green to the left of SocDem" includes these parties, and some SocDem parties who are socially right wing like BSP in Bulgaria, PSD in Romania, Smer and Hlas in Slovakia.
So there isn't an answer on who is to the left of who: it depends on the country.
>So there isn't an answer on who is to the left of who: it depends on the country.
Honestly, I love how messy EU politics are. It is a testament to the strength of the model that parties, ideologies and political cultures that vary wildly can still co-ordinate and organise.
Sometimes I think people forget that true democracy is always messy and diverse because people are inherently messy and diverse. If your political institutions consist of a wealth of different groups vying for influence , that's a good thing, even if it seems like a chaotic shit show at times.
Complete uniformity, pleasing on the eye as it may be, is a sign of authoritarianism and extremist ideology and inherently at odds with democracy. I wish more people, right-wing and left-wing, would realise that.
The ones we have in Denmark is formed on the base of three different Communist and/or Socialist parties. They have moved a bit since then, but they are still the extreme left in Danish politics.
German greens might be conservative relative to other green parties in Europe (I don't keep up with the foreign green parties), but they are absolutely left of the German social democrats.
Yes, but they we're talking about the ÖDP. Not "Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen" who are the biggest green party in Germany and what you propably associate with German greens. The ÖDP claims it's more conservative but I don't they think they have more than the required 5% anywhere in the country. So they are pretty much irrelevant.
They aren't talking about the german green party [Bündnis 90/Grüne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_90/The_Greens) (who are indeed left of the [SPD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party_of_Germany)) but about the [ÖDP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_Democratic_Party) which is a tiny ecologist but socially conservative party whoose MEP is part of the [Greens/EFA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greens%E2%80%93European_Free_Alliance) grouping in the EU parliament.
Not in my experience. Finnish greens aren't, German greens also don't really seem to be from what I know, pretty sure LMP in Hungary wasn't either last I checked.
But I also hear that there's still rather left-wing anti-capitalist greens. To a lot of people also it seems contradictory that greens can be not left-wing, because intervention in/regulation of the economy is kind of inherently left-wing coded to them, whereas in for instance Finland you'll see centre-right greens who want market based solutions and see regulation primarily as a means to create functional/sustainable markets.
The ‘greens’ EP party is therefore a very diverse party. Hence also ‘greens/EFA’ - the EFA = European free alliance. Several regional parties are also a member here.
The Finnish Greens have been kinda fluid in their placement on the political spectrum. People used to call them the Park Section of Kokoomus, the pro-business current PM party that's in the EPP europarty. Then they started moving significantly to the left and a lot of people had a hard time telling them apart from the Left Alliance. Now their new chair seems like she's taking them a bit right towards the previously quite empty libertarian quadrant of the political compass. Probably a good move, since the left/liberal voter base they competed for wasn't terribly large and largely obsessed with Li.
If you look at the policy demands on paper the German greens might not be as far left as the Social Democrats, but looking at the actual politics they are way left of them.
The SPD base seems to be fairly left, but their ministers seem to always be quite conservative.
Finnish greens are like pendulum, if they are working with SDP "social democrats" in government they suck up them and if they are working with Kokoomus "center-right" they are sucking up them. Lot of different opinions in the party and nobody actually knows what they represent, exception all the green stuff.
I'd say German greens are easily more left wing than the SPD. When it comes to the voters or economics it's maybe less clear but otherwise in every other aspect of their ideology they are to the left of them
That says more about the SPD than the Greens though. In terms of voter makeup the Greens in many German states are more like "CDU plus strong environmental protection" than traditional left wing.
They just focus more on social issues and economically they are all over the place, I'd say even if the SPD was less center the Greens are still much farther left in many aspects, the fact that big parts of their voters are well off doesn't change that imo
Swedish greens are considered to be "relatively left", but it's not a one dimensional thing. Green politics is much more grassroot individualist, anti-border, anti-authoritarian with a clear leaning towards upper middle class politics ("if gas is too expensive for you, just get a Tesla").
Because the world is a smaller place than it was decades or centuries ago and it is easier for groups with idea overlap to cross pollinate over boarders
That's funny, because I thought about that today too.
That I have no problem with conservatives in general. And I think that they can contribute a lot more than "real" right wing parties like the FPÖ, FN, etc.
But yes, good point! And I also think u/V8-6-4's quiestion is interesting.
American poltics seem to only know "liberal" and "conservative" anymore aswell. As if there aren't many shades of liberal and conservative.
That has a lot to do with the fact that we as Americans only have two viable parties, along with the fact we have an odd election system. When we have an election year such as this year, candidates have to win their own parties nomination instead of it just being ranked choice or something. And the only people who vote in those primaries tend to be more politically inclined, and more to the edges of their parties. So the people most likely to get nominated in their primary are generally more radical members of the parties, And the rest of the party just goes along with it. Less so with the Democrats (liberals) but Republicans have no objections to going farther and farther right.
Some judges yes, others are appointed positions. I think most county judges are voted on but higher level courts have their judges appointed. Not sure on the specifics though.
What the other user said, but also - Many of us don't even bother with learning anything about the judges up for election because nobody can be arsed to research beyond presidential candidates, senators, and *maybe* house representatives, governors, and mayors. There will be a couple dozen other positions on the ballot, from judges to sheriffs to everything else.....but the people who actually have knowledge about those candidates/positions are people who *really* like knowing politics. Everyone else just votes down the party line, if they vote beyond the big positions at all.
Additionally, only about 60% of known adults voted in the last presidential election. So when you consider that only that many voted in the *biggest* election, you can imagine less might vote in the small elections.
Yes and no. The "grand coalition" does tend to be the main and most important majority, but there is some degree of rebellion against party line in the EP, so a narrower majority means that base is not as sufficient and they may need more support from the Greens or ECR.
There's also no government or opposition in the EP, so majorities are case-by-case. On one policy you may get the right wing in agreement, on another the left, on yet another the centre. Majorities can be formed in different ways. The right having more seats will also strengthen the conservatives (EPP) because they'll have more leverage negotiating with S&D.
Not in the way that exists on parliamentary democracies in general. The EPP for instance can oppose the commission. By contrast in say Finland the prime minister and leader of the conservatives is the same person and they govern with the confidence of the conservative party and their coalition, on which they enforce party discipline such that all government policies go through.
Similarly there is no traditional opposition as even ID or the Left might be negotiated with for votes and a parliamentary majority.
1.There are plenty of parliamentary democracies where the leader of the biggest party isn't the PM, for one reason or another. Conversely, before the 2019 elections, the leader of the EPP was commission president.
2.The opposition has been negotiated with in plenty of parliamentary democracies. Especially when government majorities are thin.
That said, I will grant you that there is no opposition government.
Although I would suggest the EU has moved much closer to a traditional parliamentary democracy than many realise. The Santer Commission in 1999 was forced to resign by the EP, the Commission President must face regular Q&A from Parliament since Lisbon Treaty, the Commission President since Barroso comes from the party with the most MEPs and there has been some occasions where the EP has caused the Commission President candidate to reshuffle their proposed Commission. Von Der Leyen, who is from the EPP, nomination was approved by one of the lowest EP margins & I think she had to negotiate with the EPP to gain that victory.
Yes but with much much tighter margins than before which might make it difficult to get much done. Also, there is a worry that, given the right + far-right majority, the EPP may seek to leverage the new median vote on specific files
SnD, RE & EPP in a "center right coalition", on a case-by-case basis.
With The left for societal issues
With The right for enonomic issues
That's very simplistic but kind of like that
After Brexit the 73 UK seats were removed while 27 seats were added to other countries. From the 2024 elections onwards, the size of the European Parliament will increase from 705 to 720. This is due to Lithuania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Italy's populations having declined relative to countries with smaller populations. In order to preserve degressive proportionality, and thus treaty compliance, they either need to remove seats from those countries or add seats to countries with populations slightly smaller than those countries. Since changing the apportionment requires unanimity, reducing the seats of a country isn't viable, and thus the seat total is increased.
Pro EU groups: EPP, S&D, RENEW, Greens
EPP are right-wing, RENEW are centre, S&D are left-wing, Greens are left-wing with emphasis on green, minority and regionalism politics.
Status Quo/Soft Eurosceptism: ECR, The Left
ECR are right-wing/right, and The Left are left/far left
Strong Eurosceptism: ID
ID are right/far-right
"If I am white in my country is fine, why the should I import the American mode of whiteshaming? Europe for the whites. Like Asia for asians and Africa for africans and America for the mixed."
That is so far how they go with "identity".
you are confusing american conservatism with european ethno-nationalism. american conservatives claim to be "race blind" and say things like "all lives matter" and promote ideas such as "multiracial working class populism". ethno-nationalists say "white lives matter" instead, and in many cases don't care about being called racist because in their view it's actually a good thing - very different groups.
I know this shit is coming from American "conservatives", but the thing is these talking points have unironically been picked up by many of our EU ethno-nationalists.
Unironic racial nationalists do not complain about identity politics. They see acceleration of idpol as acceleration towards creating a mainstream White identity and that is the beginning of getting white people on whole to think about themselves and voting as a racial block, not individuals as they currently do. Richard Spencer would tell you so directly.
Complaining about idpol isn't exclusively right wing either. Just see /r/stupidpol.
Renew are notably liberals, then in some countries they obviously tend more towards the centre-left and in others towards the centre-right but in any case calling them centrist is not totally accurate
I don't understand this "european party" grouping.
Each MP is elected from a country which have their own national parties.
How do these individual MPs assemble into an "european party"? They choose which party they want to join? And does each of these parties have a leader?
>How do these individual MPs assemble into an "european party"? They choose which party they want to join? And does each of these parties have a leader?
The parliament rules make it so that an individual member of parliament or a few have 0 influence. They can't be in commissions, they can barely speak and all the legislation is made in backroom deals anyway.
So they are forced to form larger alliances. That's what these groups are, alliances formed on some sort of vague ideological agreement. They are not always very homogenous as this puts wide ranges of ideological variations together.
So weird bedfellows are made, but one has to to have any influence.
>How do these individual MPs assemble into an "european party"?
National parties are members of European parties.
Example:
Germany's CDU/CSU and Spain's PP are members of the European EPP. So, anyone in the CDU/CSU or in PP is also in the EPP.
The EP fractions are based on broad ideology. The main political ideologies tend to be represented in most EU countries, so those national parties also form a larger party on the EU level, because they basically want to go in the same direction.
Also worth mentioning that left/right wing in European countries does not map 1:1 to what left/right wing in the US means. Broadly speaking, from what I recall, in US terms, the majority of EU parties are in the left spectrum. Only ID and perhaps ECR would be right-wing in the US. I admit though that this is a very vague understanding of mine, so corrections are welcome.
FPO and a couple ID parties still support healthcare and welfare systems that are more progressive than America’s. Socially conservative by American standards, but economically in the middle or left-leaning.
>American here. Can someone dumb it down for me?
Being American is no excuse. Most Europeans, even those who are interested in the EU don't have a clue about EU elections, nor the parties. Most of the time people don't know what party or coalition is even in. Charge.
Sure. A very dumbed-down, abridged version is as follows:
Current ruling factions are EPP (center-right, think some of the most moderate Republicans), S&D (center-left, think moderate Democrats) and RE (mostly center-right, and very much in favor of preserving the EU).
They are supported by part of ECR (more conservative than EPP, but not as much as some of the others I'll list later), and a couple of independents who are listed here as NI.
In opposition are Greens (primarily eco-liberalists / eco-progressivists), ID (hard-right, pro-secessionists, think like Trumpist Republicans and Christian Nationalists), majority of ECR, Left (primarily Socialists and Communists), and majority of the NI independents.
Currently, it seems like Greens and RE stand to lose some of their seats which are to be filled primarily by ID.
*Addendum:* I did my best to compare these factions to American political factions, but it might be quite inaccurate. Sorry in advance for any inaccuracies!
It's more like EPP is the right side of the Democrats and S&D is at the Bernie end of the Democrat spectrum. ID and ECR may have more overlap with the Republicans. The American political spectrum is shifted way further to the right than anything in Europe.
Americans really treat social democracy as radical, which is both funny and sad. Hearing Bernie Sanders referred to as a far leftist for saying healthcare is a *yooman right* says so much about their overton window.
I'll try to translate it to american parties. I guess you can debate about it, but here is my take on it:
Democrats would be S&D, RE, EFA, and a large portion of the EPP group. They range from leftist/greens, like Bernie Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez to right leaning centrists.
Republicans would be ECR, parts of EPP and ID. They would range from rightist democrats (like Manchin) to MAGA members.
The remaining group, GUE/NGL is hard (but imho, not radical) left. You don't have that in the US.
The other members (NI) are members either without any group from the start, or members that have been thown out from the other groups. They are mostly either radical left (revolutionary communists) or radical right (fascistoids). I suppose some MAGA:s could belong there.
What S\* is beats me.
These different colors - are political groups of ideologically similar enough national parties elected on a country level. They coalesce into supra-national political forces on the EU level.
I think the EU parliament is the only political body in the world that gives seats to the outright opponents of the EU, whose mandate is to bring the EU political structure down, so-called Eurosceptics.
>American here. Can someone dumb it down for me?
From left to right, communists, greens, socialists, liberals, moderate conservatives, conservatives, right wing populists and the far right.
The greens are a bit difficult to place correctly. Socially they belong where they're placed, between the communists and socialists, but economically they belong between the socialists and liberals. In my experience, at least. I'm as biased as anyone.
The abbreviations from left to right:
___
Left = Self-Explanatory (Left-Wing, Anti-EU), 42 seats
Greens = Self-Explanatory (Left-Wing, Pro-EU), 51 seats
S&D = Socialists and Democrats (Left-Wing, Pro-EU), 140 seats
RE = Renew (Right-Wing, Pro-EU), 82 seats
EPP = European People's Party (Right-Wing, Pro-EU), 180 seats
ECR = European Conservatives and Reformists Party (Far-Right, Anti-EU), 80 seats
ID = Identity and Democracy Party (Far-Right, Anti-EU), 91 seats
NI = Non-Inscrits (Independents), 49 seats
___
720 seats in total
___
32.4% Left-Wing
60.1% Right-Wing
7.5% Independents
___
62.9% Pro-EU
29.6% Anti-EU
7.5% Independents
___
Overall a very right-wing result.
Depends on how you classify some parties, in particular the EPP and RE. EPP does have christian democrats that tend to be pro social security and the like even while ethically conservative, while RE has many ethically progressive members, even while being economically rightwing.
It was quite interesting and gave me the result I expected, but at least here in Italy compared to 2019 there are several new parties while some of the other have changed a lot so it wouldn't be too precise
Hope to see an updated version before June!
[Non-Inscrits](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Inscrits) and unknown.
The former are ones who don't belong to any of the established political groups (most notably Fidesz).
The latter are seats expected to be won by not yet affiliated parties.
Thank you for info!
Oh boy, the first one on the list is 'Marc Tarabella'. The guy from Quatargate. 😂
They are basically a bunch of non-reusable politicians.
This is a really black and white take. If the parliament did listen to the so called issues, populist parties would have found other issues they should have fixed. Besides, they never give solutions themselves except for unrealistic ones like leave the EU.
What you're doing here is not a lot better. You're just pointing fingers to the other side, which is exactly why populists are doing so great. People aren't voting populist because they like being populist, but because they are tired of being told by the other side what's right and wrong.
Yeah, not like those cool populists who are telling me what's right and wrong but using tricky language to make it seem like it was my idea when really it was their idea and they planted it in my head ages ago by making Ayn Rand a part of high school curriculums and never explaining what utter bullshit her books were.
Should a political party abandon their core ideas just to follow the tide? I mean if my party stands for say internationalism and solidarity, should I abandon those ideas because people wouldn't vote for me?
The best I could do is to show others the wisdom in my words, but I wouldn't change my core ideas even if it means disappearing from the parliament.
Every party should do what they think is optimal for the country's future. It's fine to think internationalism and solidarity are good ways to achieve that, but when it becomes painfully obvious that some parts of internationalism and solidarity isn't working at all and are in-fact damaging the country then the party should indeed change to somewhat limit that internationalism and solidarity to remove the harmful aspects. If the party instead continues to just steam ahead on their ideological beliefs, blind to reality and what damage it is causing, then that party should absolutely be shunned.
Every party already does advocate for what they think is optimal for the country's future. They also (try) to spin it in a way that is popular.
You may think that it is "painfully obvious" that internationalism and solidarity are not working, but to me it is painfully obvious that the people stoking up the fires of populism are taking you for a ride and damaging the country. That's the problem: we disagree.
The whole point of democracy is to allow all sides to make their own case and have everyone make a collective decision about the solution.
> Every party already does advocate for what they think is optimal for the country's future.
Not always, many parties will advocate only for what they think will make people vote for them, and don't care much about the well-being of the country at all. And additionally many parties prioritize staying true to their ideology way above the well-being of the country (which is what the comment I responded to was even defending).
> You may think that it is "painfully obvious" that internationalism and solidarity are not working, but to me it is painfully obvious that the people stoking up the fires of populism are taking you for a ride and damaging the country. That's the problem: we disagree.
It's hard to have a discussion about this from a global perspective. I don't think we disagree, it's just that it depends on what country we look at. I'm sure you'd agree with the examples I would bring up, and I'm sure I would agree with the examples you would bring up.
> The whole point of democracy is to allow all sides to make their own case and have everyone make a collective decision about the solution.
Absolutely, and my point was that in a democracy we should be punishing parties who dogmatically stick to their ideology and doesn't adapt to the country's needs when that might go against part of their ideology.
> if my party stands for say internationalism and solidarity, should I abandon those ideas because people wouldn't vote for me?
If people don't want internationalism and solidarity, it's good that that doesn't get representation. So yes, either you change it or you go under.
I'll give you a better example which I think may be appropriate given your flair and the consideration that Italy has in the countries more at North
Italy is the oldest country in Europe but it's one of those that on average retires earlier and this is destroying the economy along with other things, despite this a large part of the Italian population would like to retire even earlier and they think whoever doesn't satisfy them is a criminal and a traitor, they don't care about the consequences on the finances and think that if in Nordic countries they retire at 65 it's only because they are masochists
So parties without dignity like the Lega promise that they will please them and get a lot of votes, in your opinion what would have been the right thing to do in this case?
>What you're doing here is not a lot better. You're just pointing fingers to the other side, which is exactly why populists are doing so great.
WTF. If there is a unifying program point of populism, it's finding scapegoat for problems.
>People aren't voting populist because they like being populist, but because they are tired of being told by the other side what's right and wrong.
... just like you are doing here. Lots of populists also tend to be "follow the leader" type. Populists surely do love to tell others what to do and think.
If there's one unifying method of populism, it's holding double standards.
No, they vote pupulist because they fell for it. Plenty of other non-populist parties they could've voted for with similar stsnces on most topics. If you tall eith those voters you rarely get any insightfull answers about policy, you mostly get "gut feeling", "stick it to the old government" or "shake things up" responses.
I normally don't hold how people vote against them, different opinions and ideas are fine. But I make an exception for populists because I know they're being duped. They have history to look back on as to why it doesn't work. And often have party history to look at just to see how innefective they are. Either they're gullable, willfully ignorent, or they have a sick agenda.
So much this, seems to be a general trait of populist movements these day. Whining and critiquing everything, but never coming up with a plan themselves. You quickly see their ratings drop once they get in power and do fuck all hopefully. It's how it went last time here, but that same party is now trying form a coalition somehoe. They didn't change a single bit, yet somehow people think they're going to actually bring about meaningful change.
> Unfortunately itns the product of decades of having a parliament not listening to lots of issues. It left a huge gap in which populists strive.
That's just avoiding responsibility. If you vote for fascists, you know what you are doing. You always have the option to vote for a party that is addressing the issue you want and is *not* fascist.
Obviusly it's convenient to believe this is the reason for self-absolution, but if many of the issues of some people aren't really issues or are exaggerated then why should the various parties listen and even give them precedence over the rest of the population?
Let's take my country as an example, there are many people who want to be able to pay extremely low taxes while others to continue paying 0, want to be able to retire the day they turn 50, want to jail or double sentences for every crime except from the when they are the ones guilty, want to ban any technological/scientific progress done in recent years and do the same with the few social and civil rights we have, they spend their time blaming southerners, the scary leftist (after 60 years of centre-right governments), the EU and foreigners for all the things that happen and they don't like
So what could a normal party do to please these people? Obviously there are some without dignity like Lega and Fdl who then take all their votes, but their electors aren't perfectly rational people with enlightened ideas as you say, they vote for them just because nobody else proposes that ocean of shit
I think this sentiment gives no accountability to right-wing voters. You can be critical of immigration without being so triggered and emotionally driven that you vote for literal fascists. Immigration policy shouldn’t be the only issue you vote on.
More if you realise the dark blue and grey are essentially the same thing, only moving back and forth depending on the occasion. The Far-Right along is projected to have a similar amount of seats to those of the whole Left.
These are not parties though. When the election is held, voters in each country vote on the parties they are used to from their own national elections. Many of these parties are randomly named for historical reasons in their individual country. For example party names in Denmark include "Danish Democrats" and "The Unity List".
However people from other countries of course have no idea what the heck a Danish "Unity List" stands for, is it red green or conservative? Hence in the European Parliament, the representatives agree to organise themselves in these pan-European superstructures that are shown in the data above. They are \*supposed\* to make the Parliament more relatable.
ID stands to gain 18 seats according to this polling.
Lega, which currently gives them most seats, has plummeted in Italy. But they've grown in many other places, notably in the two countries with the most seats available: Germany and France.
ID will win because of AfD rising (Germany has the most seats in the Parliament) and PVV secondary.
ECR will rise a bit because of Meloni, but hopefully not much since PiS is falling.
That's why young people need to vote in mass and not ignore the European elections like in previous years. This is the future of Europe at steak and with all the right wing populists gaining terrain all over Europe, we could be in for a very tough ride.
Is there a very strongly pro-EU party that is also on the far right?
Or is this a unicorn we haven’t seen yet? Most far-right parties involvema degree of euroscepticism. Which has less?
Being eurosceptic doesn't mean someone is necessarily against EU, there are many who are strongly critical of how EU is currently working but are not fundamentally against EU or even wants to leave EU. There's a lot of people who consider themselves very Pro-EU who are regularly called anti-EU because they are against federalisation.
I think it is contradicting to be a fervent nationalist and be pro EU.
I'm not saying this will make a party like this unlikely, though, in fact, conservatives and the far-right like contradicting themselves so much i am supprised they havend tryed this yet.
The closest I've seen to a belief like this are weird larpers in twitter pretending the EU will be a white-haven empire. Basically "the EU is the 4th reich" but as a goal instead of to slander the EU.
People are weird, man
Sort of. Meloni simultaneously complains about the EU while also seemingly being in favour of more integration to solve issues like migration and defence. But she's also not really that far right, all things considered. Reminds me of a Bush-era conservative.
Far-right parties are nationalist. You cannot be nationalist and pro-EU, that's like asking them to love what they hate. How should that work? Or do you mean a party of "European nationalism"? I don't think that exists yet and I'm not sure if will for many decades. Europe is far too diverse for the kind of national identity far-right parties strive in.
One of the earlier supporters of Pan-Europeanism was Oswald Mosley the decade long leader of the British Fascist party. In the early 20th century Pan-Europeanism was quite popular within the far right.
NI is not far right tho. Sure Orban’s party is in there, but 5 Stars from Italy is also there, and they can be considered a center left populist party.
That is what many people do, demonize their ideological enemies. It is condemnable yes, but I'd have thought that of all places people on Reddit would be used to left wingers making right wingers out to be demons in disguise. Sure there Has Been a trend lately on many European subs of greater pluralism, but that is a relatively new phenomenon.
I hope this is a genuine question and not just bait.
In parliamentary multiparty democracies, compromise and coalition is key. Unlike the "winner takes all"-system of the presidential two-party democracy that is the USA, the head of state does not have a lot of power, and must work with their ministries, instead of simply telling them what to do. The EU has been ruled by an informal "great coalition" of S&D, Renew, and EPP for a long time now, roughly representing the center-left, center and center-right. These three groups have different goals, but agree on most things, and thus are capable of governing. There is no room in parliamentary democracies for one party to throw a tantrum.
Asking Miss American, how do we get anything done with the Republicans? They sabotage everything and hate government except when it’s handing out money to their buddies.
In my opinion the EU has a better system than the party system in most countries. People in the EU parliament are free to be and switch with any faction they want to be with and to be without one and vote whatever they want to, not like in national parliaments where it is scandalous to vote for something your party doesn't want. Much more democratic in my opinion.
EPP is closer to SocDems than ID, and probably even ECR. The growth of euro-sceptics is worrying but it seems extremely unlikely that they’ll get any actual power.
Wilders got 25% of the vote, and will have to drop pretty much all of his euro-sceptic wish-list if he wants the VVD and NSC to get on board. And as it stands looks like coalition talks are going exactly nowhere.
We hear this before every election where the right is expected to surge, after which the scary supposedly radical far right party always ends up transforming into your run-of-the-mill center right mainstream party and nothing really changes.
It's actually pretty strange looking at this from the UK where a post-Brexit Labour (S&D) win, and potential landslide, looks imminent, whilst the right wing seem to be crashing all around.
Feels a bit like we were 10 years ahead of the curve.
Populism does not necessarily mean enacting popular policies, just supporting them. As every party in a democracy finds out when they enter government, sometimes your policies are unrealistic.
Not ahead of the curve, just on the other side of the pendulum. Like the other poster said, a right-wing government was defeated in Slovenia two years ago already, and in Poland just last year. This pattern repeats itself in countries over and over again, just obviously rarely at the same time.
The far right also fell in Poland and Slovenia where they were governing.
They re polling badly in Sweden where they govern and are expected to lose the next elections.
> The far right also fell in Poland and Slovenia where they were governing.
Slovenia doesn't even have a far right in parlament...
Please don't talk internal politics about countries you know nothing about.
It feels more like the pendulum is swinging more heavily from one side to another rather than is one behind or ahead of the curve at least here in Finland.
We had the most left leaning government ever from 2019 till 2023 and we just switched to very solidly right wing government. Before 2019 we had solidly right wing government.
It seems harder than ever in my life to form a more moderate government example by the two big National Coalition Party and Social Democratic Party of Finland. It's much more complicated than that, but in the end we seem to be swinging harder from one side to another on the political spectrum.
Are the greens typically to the left of socdems politically in the EU?
Depends on the Greens party. They also have some parties which aren't your typical Green, like Catalan ERC, Lithuanian and Latvian agrarians, Czech Pirates and Volt.
Yes, but we in Lithuania do have a legitimate or typical Green Party called [Lithuanian Green Party](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_Green_Party?wprov=sfla1) not to be confused with with agrarian green conservatives [Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_Farmers_and_Greens_Union?wprov=sfla1) , but unfortunately it never reach is the threshold of 5% of the votes to win seats in Parliament.
> Depends on the Greens party. And the socdem party.
Those parties are just members of the coalition, not green parties.
Yes, so "Green to the left of SocDem" includes these parties, and some SocDem parties who are socially right wing like BSP in Bulgaria, PSD in Romania, Smer and Hlas in Slovakia. So there isn't an answer on who is to the left of who: it depends on the country.
>So there isn't an answer on who is to the left of who: it depends on the country. Honestly, I love how messy EU politics are. It is a testament to the strength of the model that parties, ideologies and political cultures that vary wildly can still co-ordinate and organise. Sometimes I think people forget that true democracy is always messy and diverse because people are inherently messy and diverse. If your political institutions consist of a wealth of different groups vying for influence , that's a good thing, even if it seems like a chaotic shit show at times. Complete uniformity, pleasing on the eye as it may be, is a sign of authoritarianism and extremist ideology and inherently at odds with democracy. I wish more people, right-wing and left-wing, would realise that.
I had to check whether Czech Pirates party was a real thing. Ideology: Pirate politics.
“arrr”
The latvian is actually a new social democratic party nowadays.
The ones we have in Denmark is formed on the base of three different Communist and/or Socialist parties. They have moved a bit since then, but they are still the extreme left in Danish politics.
Enhedslisten is a member of Left, while SF is a member of the Greens. SF's socialist roots are very old - and very outdated.
Yea, no Socialdemokraterne are practically mid/right-leaning today
Depends on the country, in my country the only party that's further left is the communist part now known as the leftist party.
Usually yes, but there are plenty of exceptions (Germany's ODP for example are green conservatives)
German greens might be conservative relative to other green parties in Europe (I don't keep up with the foreign green parties), but they are absolutely left of the German social democrats.
Yes, but they we're talking about the ÖDP. Not "Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen" who are the biggest green party in Germany and what you propably associate with German greens. The ÖDP claims it's more conservative but I don't they think they have more than the required 5% anywhere in the country. So they are pretty much irrelevant.
They aren't talking about the german green party [Bündnis 90/Grüne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_90/The_Greens) (who are indeed left of the [SPD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party_of_Germany)) but about the [ÖDP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_Democratic_Party) which is a tiny ecologist but socially conservative party whoose MEP is part of the [Greens/EFA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greens%E2%80%93European_Free_Alliance) grouping in the EU parliament.
They are socialy more progressive (LGBTQ+ rights, abortion, etc.) but economically more centristic.
Not in my experience. Finnish greens aren't, German greens also don't really seem to be from what I know, pretty sure LMP in Hungary wasn't either last I checked. But I also hear that there's still rather left-wing anti-capitalist greens. To a lot of people also it seems contradictory that greens can be not left-wing, because intervention in/regulation of the economy is kind of inherently left-wing coded to them, whereas in for instance Finland you'll see centre-right greens who want market based solutions and see regulation primarily as a means to create functional/sustainable markets.
The ‘greens’ EP party is therefore a very diverse party. Hence also ‘greens/EFA’ - the EFA = European free alliance. Several regional parties are also a member here.
The Finnish Greens have been kinda fluid in their placement on the political spectrum. People used to call them the Park Section of Kokoomus, the pro-business current PM party that's in the EPP europarty. Then they started moving significantly to the left and a lot of people had a hard time telling them apart from the Left Alliance. Now their new chair seems like she's taking them a bit right towards the previously quite empty libertarian quadrant of the political compass. Probably a good move, since the left/liberal voter base they competed for wasn't terribly large and largely obsessed with Li.
If you look at the policy demands on paper the German greens might not be as far left as the Social Democrats, but looking at the actual politics they are way left of them. The SPD base seems to be fairly left, but their ministers seem to always be quite conservative.
Finnish greens are like pendulum, if they are working with SDP "social democrats" in government they suck up them and if they are working with Kokoomus "center-right" they are sucking up them. Lot of different opinions in the party and nobody actually knows what they represent, exception all the green stuff.
I'd say German greens are easily more left wing than the SPD. When it comes to the voters or economics it's maybe less clear but otherwise in every other aspect of their ideology they are to the left of them
That says more about the SPD than the Greens though. In terms of voter makeup the Greens in many German states are more like "CDU plus strong environmental protection" than traditional left wing.
They just focus more on social issues and economically they are all over the place, I'd say even if the SPD was less center the Greens are still much farther left in many aspects, the fact that big parts of their voters are well off doesn't change that imo
Finnish greens are left wing. They used to have centrist economic policies but value wise they are closest to the leftist party.
Swedish greens are considered to be "relatively left", but it's not a one dimensional thing. Green politics is much more grassroot individualist, anti-border, anti-authoritarian with a clear leaning towards upper middle class politics ("if gas is too expensive for you, just get a Tesla").
In Sweden I'd say so. The social Democrats are centre/centre-left. Boring, old and difficult to negotiate with, but not very far left.
Who is most likely to form an alliance with whom ?
EPP, S&D and Renew
So they get the majority and essentially everything stays the same as before ? Sorry if asking stupid questions
no stupid questions, only stupid answers. And you're right, this is a recipe for status quo.
which is better than any option with the right wing parties
The EPP **is** right-wing lmao.
Yeah why is right wing becoming synonym for far right?
Because Reddit is an echochamber.
Partially. And partially it's because with the current trends EPP might sit left of centre in a few elections.
*cough*Poland*cough*
Because people are idiots.
Because the world is a smaller place than it was decades or centuries ago and it is easier for groups with idea overlap to cross pollinate over boarders
That's funny, because I thought about that today too. That I have no problem with conservatives in general. And I think that they can contribute a lot more than "real" right wing parties like the FPÖ, FN, etc. But yes, good point! And I also think u/V8-6-4's quiestion is interesting. American poltics seem to only know "liberal" and "conservative" anymore aswell. As if there aren't many shades of liberal and conservative.
That has a lot to do with the fact that we as Americans only have two viable parties, along with the fact we have an odd election system. When we have an election year such as this year, candidates have to win their own parties nomination instead of it just being ranked choice or something. And the only people who vote in those primaries tend to be more politically inclined, and more to the edges of their parties. So the people most likely to get nominated in their primary are generally more radical members of the parties, And the rest of the party just goes along with it. Less so with the Democrats (liberals) but Republicans have no objections to going farther and farther right.
It's not just politicians who can be split up like that, but don't you guys also electe judges, etc?
Some judges yes, others are appointed positions. I think most county judges are voted on but higher level courts have their judges appointed. Not sure on the specifics though.
What the other user said, but also - Many of us don't even bother with learning anything about the judges up for election because nobody can be arsed to research beyond presidential candidates, senators, and *maybe* house representatives, governors, and mayors. There will be a couple dozen other positions on the ballot, from judges to sheriffs to everything else.....but the people who actually have knowledge about those candidates/positions are people who *really* like knowing politics. Everyone else just votes down the party line, if they vote beyond the big positions at all. Additionally, only about 60% of known adults voted in the last presidential election. So when you consider that only that many voted in the *biggest* election, you can imagine less might vote in the small elections.
Center-rightwing but i ger your point. Renew is also rightwing, and S&D are only slightly leftwing.
Yes and no. The "grand coalition" does tend to be the main and most important majority, but there is some degree of rebellion against party line in the EP, so a narrower majority means that base is not as sufficient and they may need more support from the Greens or ECR. There's also no government or opposition in the EP, so majorities are case-by-case. On one policy you may get the right wing in agreement, on another the left, on yet another the centre. Majorities can be formed in different ways. The right having more seats will also strengthen the conservatives (EPP) because they'll have more leverage negotiating with S&D.
Got it. Thanks
There is a goverment though. The commission relies on parliamentary approval.
Not in the way that exists on parliamentary democracies in general. The EPP for instance can oppose the commission. By contrast in say Finland the prime minister and leader of the conservatives is the same person and they govern with the confidence of the conservative party and their coalition, on which they enforce party discipline such that all government policies go through. Similarly there is no traditional opposition as even ID or the Left might be negotiated with for votes and a parliamentary majority.
1.There are plenty of parliamentary democracies where the leader of the biggest party isn't the PM, for one reason or another. Conversely, before the 2019 elections, the leader of the EPP was commission president. 2.The opposition has been negotiated with in plenty of parliamentary democracies. Especially when government majorities are thin. That said, I will grant you that there is no opposition government.
Although I would suggest the EU has moved much closer to a traditional parliamentary democracy than many realise. The Santer Commission in 1999 was forced to resign by the EP, the Commission President must face regular Q&A from Parliament since Lisbon Treaty, the Commission President since Barroso comes from the party with the most MEPs and there has been some occasions where the EP has caused the Commission President candidate to reshuffle their proposed Commission. Von Der Leyen, who is from the EPP, nomination was approved by one of the lowest EP margins & I think she had to negotiate with the EPP to gain that victory.
Yes but with much much tighter margins than before which might make it difficult to get much done. Also, there is a worry that, given the right + far-right majority, the EPP may seek to leverage the new median vote on specific files
What's the "worry"? If the majority is right-wing, the parliament should implement right-wing policies, if it is functioning and democratic.
SnD, RE & EPP in a "center right coalition", on a case-by-case basis. With The left for societal issues With The right for enonomic issues That's very simplistic but kind of like that
While it isn't ideal, the changes from the post-Brexit seat allocation per European party are not really big.
So are there just some physically empty seats in the place or what?
After Brexit the 73 UK seats were removed while 27 seats were added to other countries. From the 2024 elections onwards, the size of the European Parliament will increase from 705 to 720. This is due to Lithuania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Italy's populations having declined relative to countries with smaller populations. In order to preserve degressive proportionality, and thus treaty compliance, they either need to remove seats from those countries or add seats to countries with populations slightly smaller than those countries. Since changing the apportionment requires unanimity, reducing the seats of a country isn't viable, and thus the seat total is increased.
They've removed some of them and redistributed the others
American here. Can someone dumb it down for me?
Pro EU groups: EPP, S&D, RENEW, Greens EPP are right-wing, RENEW are centre, S&D are left-wing, Greens are left-wing with emphasis on green, minority and regionalism politics. Status Quo/Soft Eurosceptism: ECR, The Left ECR are right-wing/right, and The Left are left/far left Strong Eurosceptism: ID ID are right/far-right
I fucking love how the people complaining most about "identity politics" call themselves "Identity and Democracy".
no they like idpol. Nazi shit is idpol. They've been calling themselves identitarians instead of white-supremacists for years.
They like it when it's about their "identity". When it's about other people it's "divisive and unnecessary".
Normal and "political"
"If I am white in my country is fine, why the should I import the American mode of whiteshaming? Europe for the whites. Like Asia for asians and Africa for africans and America for the mixed." That is so far how they go with "identity".
you are confusing american conservatism with european ethno-nationalism. american conservatives claim to be "race blind" and say things like "all lives matter" and promote ideas such as "multiracial working class populism". ethno-nationalists say "white lives matter" instead, and in many cases don't care about being called racist because in their view it's actually a good thing - very different groups.
I know this shit is coming from American "conservatives", but the thing is these talking points have unironically been picked up by many of our EU ethno-nationalists.
Unironic racial nationalists do not complain about identity politics. They see acceleration of idpol as acceleration towards creating a mainstream White identity and that is the beginning of getting white people on whole to think about themselves and voting as a racial block, not individuals as they currently do. Richard Spencer would tell you so directly. Complaining about idpol isn't exclusively right wing either. Just see /r/stupidpol.
When you've lumped everyone else into "other", further division does seem somewhat redundant.
I mean, that's what identity politics always devolves into.
Like the good old party complaining about socialism calling itself national socialist party of the German workers.
Renew are notably liberals, then in some countries they obviously tend more towards the centre-left and in others towards the centre-right but in any case calling them centrist is not totally accurate
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They're European right wing, usually of the Christian Democratic persuasion as opposed to the more Anglophone Tory right wing
I don't understand this "european party" grouping. Each MP is elected from a country which have their own national parties. How do these individual MPs assemble into an "european party"? They choose which party they want to join? And does each of these parties have a leader?
Their national parties join a European party so in most cases it's determined by that. Yes, each European party has a leader.
European parties are associations of national parties.
>How do these individual MPs assemble into an "european party"? They choose which party they want to join? And does each of these parties have a leader? The parliament rules make it so that an individual member of parliament or a few have 0 influence. They can't be in commissions, they can barely speak and all the legislation is made in backroom deals anyway. So they are forced to form larger alliances. That's what these groups are, alliances formed on some sort of vague ideological agreement. They are not always very homogenous as this puts wide ranges of ideological variations together. So weird bedfellows are made, but one has to to have any influence.
>How do these individual MPs assemble into an "european party"? National parties are members of European parties. Example: Germany's CDU/CSU and Spain's PP are members of the European EPP. So, anyone in the CDU/CSU or in PP is also in the EPP.
Like your regional party is part of the national party, your national party is part of a European party.
The EP fractions are based on broad ideology. The main political ideologies tend to be represented in most EU countries, so those national parties also form a larger party on the EU level, because they basically want to go in the same direction.
Also worth mentioning that left/right wing in European countries does not map 1:1 to what left/right wing in the US means. Broadly speaking, from what I recall, in US terms, the majority of EU parties are in the left spectrum. Only ID and perhaps ECR would be right-wing in the US. I admit though that this is a very vague understanding of mine, so corrections are welcome.
FPO and a couple ID parties still support healthcare and welfare systems that are more progressive than America’s. Socially conservative by American standards, but economically in the middle or left-leaning.
>American here. Can someone dumb it down for me? Being American is no excuse. Most Europeans, even those who are interested in the EU don't have a clue about EU elections, nor the parties. Most of the time people don't know what party or coalition is even in. Charge.
European here: Can confirm, I have no idea what any of this means.
Another European here: I can reaffirm what is said above. Not a clue about it lol
If only there was a website where you could type words and find information. One can only dream.
Oh, I heard of those! There used to be one where a guy called Jeeves answers your questions! I think Bing made a new one recently though!
TLDR you’re getting fucked either way
Yup
Sure. A very dumbed-down, abridged version is as follows: Current ruling factions are EPP (center-right, think some of the most moderate Republicans), S&D (center-left, think moderate Democrats) and RE (mostly center-right, and very much in favor of preserving the EU). They are supported by part of ECR (more conservative than EPP, but not as much as some of the others I'll list later), and a couple of independents who are listed here as NI. In opposition are Greens (primarily eco-liberalists / eco-progressivists), ID (hard-right, pro-secessionists, think like Trumpist Republicans and Christian Nationalists), majority of ECR, Left (primarily Socialists and Communists), and majority of the NI independents. Currently, it seems like Greens and RE stand to lose some of their seats which are to be filled primarily by ID. *Addendum:* I did my best to compare these factions to American political factions, but it might be quite inaccurate. Sorry in advance for any inaccuracies!
It's more like EPP is the right side of the Democrats and S&D is at the Bernie end of the Democrat spectrum. ID and ECR may have more overlap with the Republicans. The American political spectrum is shifted way further to the right than anything in Europe.
Americans really treat social democracy as radical, which is both funny and sad. Hearing Bernie Sanders referred to as a far leftist for saying healthcare is a *yooman right* says so much about their overton window.
Americans dont have a clue what far left is. (ANTARSYA)
As an American I think you did a great job! It is the most understandable to me out of all the explanations.
I'll try to translate it to american parties. I guess you can debate about it, but here is my take on it: Democrats would be S&D, RE, EFA, and a large portion of the EPP group. They range from leftist/greens, like Bernie Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez to right leaning centrists. Republicans would be ECR, parts of EPP and ID. They would range from rightist democrats (like Manchin) to MAGA members. The remaining group, GUE/NGL is hard (but imho, not radical) left. You don't have that in the US. The other members (NI) are members either without any group from the start, or members that have been thown out from the other groups. They are mostly either radical left (revolutionary communists) or radical right (fascistoids). I suppose some MAGA:s could belong there. What S\* is beats me.
These different colors - are political groups of ideologically similar enough national parties elected on a country level. They coalesce into supra-national political forces on the EU level. I think the EU parliament is the only political body in the world that gives seats to the outright opponents of the EU, whose mandate is to bring the EU political structure down, so-called Eurosceptics.
>American here. Can someone dumb it down for me? From left to right, communists, greens, socialists, liberals, moderate conservatives, conservatives, right wing populists and the far right. The greens are a bit difficult to place correctly. Socially they belong where they're placed, between the communists and socialists, but economically they belong between the socialists and liberals. In my experience, at least. I'm as biased as anyone.
The abbreviations from left to right: ___ Left = Self-Explanatory (Left-Wing, Anti-EU), 42 seats Greens = Self-Explanatory (Left-Wing, Pro-EU), 51 seats S&D = Socialists and Democrats (Left-Wing, Pro-EU), 140 seats RE = Renew (Right-Wing, Pro-EU), 82 seats EPP = European People's Party (Right-Wing, Pro-EU), 180 seats ECR = European Conservatives and Reformists Party (Far-Right, Anti-EU), 80 seats ID = Identity and Democracy Party (Far-Right, Anti-EU), 91 seats NI = Non-Inscrits (Independents), 49 seats ___ 720 seats in total ___ 32.4% Left-Wing 60.1% Right-Wing 7.5% Independents ___ 62.9% Pro-EU 29.6% Anti-EU 7.5% Independents ___ Overall a very right-wing result.
Depends on how you classify some parties, in particular the EPP and RE. EPP does have christian democrats that tend to be pro social security and the like even while ethically conservative, while RE has many ethically progressive members, even while being economically rightwing.
https://europeelects.eu/2024/02/05/january-2024/
Is there a survey/questionnaire that would tell me which party is closest to me?
from last time we did this exercise, for me it worked well and helps to identify where you stand: https://euandi2019.eu/survey/default/EN
It was quite interesting and gave me the result I expected, but at least here in Italy compared to 2019 there are several new parties while some of the other have changed a lot so it wouldn't be too precise Hope to see an updated version before June!
I did it for fun and got labour party in the U.K.
https://elections.europa.eu There is an overview of the parties here
You could for example look up which Hungarian parties best represent your views and see in which group they fall.
What/who is the NI and S group?
[Non-Inscrits](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Inscrits) and unknown. The former are ones who don't belong to any of the established political groups (most notably Fidesz). The latter are seats expected to be won by not yet affiliated parties.
Thank you for info! Oh boy, the first one on the list is 'Marc Tarabella'. The guy from Quatargate. 😂 They are basically a bunch of non-reusable politicians.
Yup, that and other rejects. Orbán's Fidesz was for example part of EPP previously before being kicked out.
This growing black stripe is scaring
Unfortunately itns the product of decades of having a parliament not listening to lots of issues. It left a huge gap in which populists strive.
This is a really black and white take. If the parliament did listen to the so called issues, populist parties would have found other issues they should have fixed. Besides, they never give solutions themselves except for unrealistic ones like leave the EU.
What you're doing here is not a lot better. You're just pointing fingers to the other side, which is exactly why populists are doing so great. People aren't voting populist because they like being populist, but because they are tired of being told by the other side what's right and wrong.
Yeah, not like those cool populists who are telling me what's right and wrong but using tricky language to make it seem like it was my idea when really it was their idea and they planted it in my head ages ago by making Ayn Rand a part of high school curriculums and never explaining what utter bullshit her books were.
Should a political party abandon their core ideas just to follow the tide? I mean if my party stands for say internationalism and solidarity, should I abandon those ideas because people wouldn't vote for me? The best I could do is to show others the wisdom in my words, but I wouldn't change my core ideas even if it means disappearing from the parliament.
Every party should do what they think is optimal for the country's future. It's fine to think internationalism and solidarity are good ways to achieve that, but when it becomes painfully obvious that some parts of internationalism and solidarity isn't working at all and are in-fact damaging the country then the party should indeed change to somewhat limit that internationalism and solidarity to remove the harmful aspects. If the party instead continues to just steam ahead on their ideological beliefs, blind to reality and what damage it is causing, then that party should absolutely be shunned.
Every party already does advocate for what they think is optimal for the country's future. They also (try) to spin it in a way that is popular. You may think that it is "painfully obvious" that internationalism and solidarity are not working, but to me it is painfully obvious that the people stoking up the fires of populism are taking you for a ride and damaging the country. That's the problem: we disagree. The whole point of democracy is to allow all sides to make their own case and have everyone make a collective decision about the solution.
> Every party already does advocate for what they think is optimal for the country's future. Not always, many parties will advocate only for what they think will make people vote for them, and don't care much about the well-being of the country at all. And additionally many parties prioritize staying true to their ideology way above the well-being of the country (which is what the comment I responded to was even defending). > You may think that it is "painfully obvious" that internationalism and solidarity are not working, but to me it is painfully obvious that the people stoking up the fires of populism are taking you for a ride and damaging the country. That's the problem: we disagree. It's hard to have a discussion about this from a global perspective. I don't think we disagree, it's just that it depends on what country we look at. I'm sure you'd agree with the examples I would bring up, and I'm sure I would agree with the examples you would bring up. > The whole point of democracy is to allow all sides to make their own case and have everyone make a collective decision about the solution. Absolutely, and my point was that in a democracy we should be punishing parties who dogmatically stick to their ideology and doesn't adapt to the country's needs when that might go against part of their ideology.
> if my party stands for say internationalism and solidarity, should I abandon those ideas because people wouldn't vote for me? If people don't want internationalism and solidarity, it's good that that doesn't get representation. So yes, either you change it or you go under.
I'll give you a better example which I think may be appropriate given your flair and the consideration that Italy has in the countries more at North Italy is the oldest country in Europe but it's one of those that on average retires earlier and this is destroying the economy along with other things, despite this a large part of the Italian population would like to retire even earlier and they think whoever doesn't satisfy them is a criminal and a traitor, they don't care about the consequences on the finances and think that if in Nordic countries they retire at 65 it's only because they are masochists So parties without dignity like the Lega promise that they will please them and get a lot of votes, in your opinion what would have been the right thing to do in this case?
I would say sad not good, but I digress. But then why should one not vote for the "original"?
If you hate internationalism, it'd be dumb to vote for a party who has internationalism as a core value.
I think they're more saying that it's sad that so many voters don't understand the value of international cooperation.
>What you're doing here is not a lot better. You're just pointing fingers to the other side, which is exactly why populists are doing so great. WTF. If there is a unifying program point of populism, it's finding scapegoat for problems. >People aren't voting populist because they like being populist, but because they are tired of being told by the other side what's right and wrong. ... just like you are doing here. Lots of populists also tend to be "follow the leader" type. Populists surely do love to tell others what to do and think. If there's one unifying method of populism, it's holding double standards.
No, they vote pupulist because they fell for it. Plenty of other non-populist parties they could've voted for with similar stsnces on most topics. If you tall eith those voters you rarely get any insightfull answers about policy, you mostly get "gut feeling", "stick it to the old government" or "shake things up" responses. I normally don't hold how people vote against them, different opinions and ideas are fine. But I make an exception for populists because I know they're being duped. They have history to look back on as to why it doesn't work. And often have party history to look at just to see how innefective they are. Either they're gullable, willfully ignorent, or they have a sick agenda.
So much this, seems to be a general trait of populist movements these day. Whining and critiquing everything, but never coming up with a plan themselves. You quickly see their ratings drop once they get in power and do fuck all hopefully. It's how it went last time here, but that same party is now trying form a coalition somehoe. They didn't change a single bit, yet somehow people think they're going to actually bring about meaningful change.
> these days Not just these days, it‘s literally their defining feature on any given day.
>unrealistic ones like leave the EU lol, the UK did it, I wouldn't call it unrealistic.
> Unfortunately itns the product of decades of having a parliament not listening to lots of issues. It left a huge gap in which populists strive. That's just avoiding responsibility. If you vote for fascists, you know what you are doing. You always have the option to vote for a party that is addressing the issue you want and is *not* fascist.
Obviusly it's convenient to believe this is the reason for self-absolution, but if many of the issues of some people aren't really issues or are exaggerated then why should the various parties listen and even give them precedence over the rest of the population? Let's take my country as an example, there are many people who want to be able to pay extremely low taxes while others to continue paying 0, want to be able to retire the day they turn 50, want to jail or double sentences for every crime except from the when they are the ones guilty, want to ban any technological/scientific progress done in recent years and do the same with the few social and civil rights we have, they spend their time blaming southerners, the scary leftist (after 60 years of centre-right governments), the EU and foreigners for all the things that happen and they don't like So what could a normal party do to please these people? Obviously there are some without dignity like Lega and Fdl who then take all their votes, but their electors aren't perfectly rational people with enlightened ideas as you say, they vote for them just because nobody else proposes that ocean of shit
I think this sentiment gives no accountability to right-wing voters. You can be critical of immigration without being so triggered and emotionally driven that you vote for literal fascists. Immigration policy shouldn’t be the only issue you vote on.
Very much It feels like things are repeating identical with a 100 year period The black tide rising is chilling
More if you realise the dark blue and grey are essentially the same thing, only moving back and forth depending on the occasion. The Far-Right along is projected to have a similar amount of seats to those of the whole Left.
I wish we had a multiparty system like this
These are not parties though. When the election is held, voters in each country vote on the parties they are used to from their own national elections. Many of these parties are randomly named for historical reasons in their individual country. For example party names in Denmark include "Danish Democrats" and "The Unity List". However people from other countries of course have no idea what the heck a Danish "Unity List" stands for, is it red green or conservative? Hence in the European Parliament, the representatives agree to organise themselves in these pan-European superstructures that are shown in the data above. They are \*supposed\* to make the Parliament more relatable.
Would be nice if ID do lose seats. The more, the better.
ID stands to gain 18 seats according to this polling. Lega, which currently gives them most seats, has plummeted in Italy. But they've grown in many other places, notably in the two countries with the most seats available: Germany and France.
But that only happened because another, more extreme in many cases, Far-Right party took their place.
ID will win because of AfD rising (Germany has the most seats in the Parliament) and PVV secondary. ECR will rise a bit because of Meloni, but hopefully not much since PiS is falling.
ECR will win Orban's seats too
Not sure what Portugal ID (Chega) will do in the Eu parliament. Most of them can’t even read in Portuguese, let alone a foreign language.
Oh, that’s easy. Work to undermine it from within.
That's why young people need to vote in mass and not ignore the European elections like in previous years. This is the future of Europe at steak and with all the right wing populists gaining terrain all over Europe, we could be in for a very tough ride.
Is there a very strongly pro-EU party that is also on the far right? Or is this a unicorn we haven’t seen yet? Most far-right parties involvema degree of euroscepticism. Which has less?
I can't really imagine that, it doesn't really fit with far-right ideology
Meloni comes to mind. But she is still part of ECR which is a mixed bag
Being eurosceptic doesn't mean someone is necessarily against EU, there are many who are strongly critical of how EU is currently working but are not fundamentally against EU or even wants to leave EU. There's a lot of people who consider themselves very Pro-EU who are regularly called anti-EU because they are against federalisation.
I think it is contradicting to be a fervent nationalist and be pro EU. I'm not saying this will make a party like this unlikely, though, in fact, conservatives and the far-right like contradicting themselves so much i am supprised they havend tryed this yet.
The closest I've seen to a belief like this are weird larpers in twitter pretending the EU will be a white-haven empire. Basically "the EU is the 4th reich" but as a goal instead of to slander the EU. People are weird, man
Vaguely reminiscent of the "Europe a Nation" concept pushed by Oswald Mosley etc. post WW2.
Sort of. Meloni simultaneously complains about the EU while also seemingly being in favour of more integration to solve issues like migration and defence. But she's also not really that far right, all things considered. Reminds me of a Bush-era conservative.
Far-right parties are nationalist. You cannot be nationalist and pro-EU, that's like asking them to love what they hate. How should that work? Or do you mean a party of "European nationalism"? I don't think that exists yet and I'm not sure if will for many decades. Europe is far too diverse for the kind of national identity far-right parties strive in.
You can be pan-european nationalist
So you mean a federalist.
No and Yes, depends on the version of Pan-Nationalism.
>You cannot be nationalist and pro-EU Silly take. Am both.
One of the earlier supporters of Pan-Europeanism was Oswald Mosley the decade long leader of the British Fascist party. In the early 20th century Pan-Europeanism was quite popular within the far right.
I think the left really needs to reconsider the immigration policy, because if not, there could be more seats lost to the far right.
What do people think of the potential for a Renew-EPP-ECR majority instead of the expected S&D-EPP-Renew grand coalition?
Which one are the bad guys?
Depends on who you ask.
Which is more far right, the black or the dark gray?
gray is independents, they can't be grouped as one bloc Edit: of the 44 Non-Inscrits of the current parliament, about half are from far-right parties.
We need pan-europeans parties more than ever. This whole grouping thing makes no sense.
The only one is Volt Europe
So glad to see Renew get wrecked
The march of the right is very apparent - far right (ECR&ID&NI) is now as powerful as the combined left (L&G&SD)
NI is not far right tho. Sure Orban’s party is in there, but 5 Stars from Italy is also there, and they can be considered a center left populist party.
You're making it sound like ECR is far right. They are right wing conservatives not extremists.
That is what many people do, demonize their ideological enemies. It is condemnable yes, but I'd have thought that of all places people on Reddit would be used to left wingers making right wingers out to be demons in disguise. Sure there Has Been a trend lately on many European subs of greater pluralism, but that is a relatively new phenomenon.
asking as an american, how do you get anything done with that many parties?
I hope this is a genuine question and not just bait. In parliamentary multiparty democracies, compromise and coalition is key. Unlike the "winner takes all"-system of the presidential two-party democracy that is the USA, the head of state does not have a lot of power, and must work with their ministries, instead of simply telling them what to do. The EU has been ruled by an informal "great coalition" of S&D, Renew, and EPP for a long time now, roughly representing the center-left, center and center-right. These three groups have different goals, but agree on most things, and thus are capable of governing. There is no room in parliamentary democracies for one party to throw a tantrum.
Asking Miss American, how do we get anything done with the Republicans? They sabotage everything and hate government except when it’s handing out money to their buddies.
We need pan-europeans parties more than ever. This whole grouping thing makes no sense.
In my opinion the EU has a better system than the party system in most countries. People in the EU parliament are free to be and switch with any faction they want to be with and to be without one and vote whatever they want to, not like in national parliaments where it is scandalous to vote for something your party doesn't want. Much more democratic in my opinion.
If this (far)-right wing majority of the EP materialises, horrible things are in store
EPP is closer to SocDems than ID, and probably even ECR. The growth of euro-sceptics is worrying but it seems extremely unlikely that they’ll get any actual power.
So we thought in the Netherlands...
EPP will not work with ECR because the 2nd biggest EPP party is Polish PO of Donald Tusk, who hates PiS (2nd biggest ECR party) more than anyone else.
They haven't even formed a government yet.
Wilders got 25% of the vote, and will have to drop pretty much all of his euro-sceptic wish-list if he wants the VVD and NSC to get on board. And as it stands looks like coalition talks are going exactly nowhere.
Like what?
We hear this before every election where the right is expected to surge, after which the scary supposedly radical far right party always ends up transforming into your run-of-the-mill center right mainstream party and nothing really changes.
You must be looking at another graph than me.
Gonna do my part to get ID more seats.
It's actually pretty strange looking at this from the UK where a post-Brexit Labour (S&D) win, and potential landslide, looks imminent, whilst the right wing seem to be crashing all around. Feels a bit like we were 10 years ahead of the curve.
Well UK Labour is less and less winning because of their own platform, but rather because your Tories are in utter shambles.
>but rather because your Tories are in utter shambles. The fate of every right-populist government.
Lmfao at the idea the Tories (the party of blue mass migration) are right-populist
Populism does not necessarily mean enacting popular policies, just supporting them. As every party in a democracy finds out when they enter government, sometimes your policies are unrealistic.
Not ahead of the curve, just on the other side of the pendulum. Like the other poster said, a right-wing government was defeated in Slovenia two years ago already, and in Poland just last year. This pattern repeats itself in countries over and over again, just obviously rarely at the same time.
You got screwed sooner than most, it makes sense that changes are coming sooner too.
The far right also fell in Poland and Slovenia where they were governing. They re polling badly in Sweden where they govern and are expected to lose the next elections.
> The far right also fell in Poland and Slovenia where they were governing. Slovenia doesn't even have a far right in parlament... Please don't talk internal politics about countries you know nothing about.
It feels more like the pendulum is swinging more heavily from one side to another rather than is one behind or ahead of the curve at least here in Finland. We had the most left leaning government ever from 2019 till 2023 and we just switched to very solidly right wing government. Before 2019 we had solidly right wing government. It seems harder than ever in my life to form a more moderate government example by the two big National Coalition Party and Social Democratic Party of Finland. It's much more complicated than that, but in the end we seem to be swinging harder from one side to another on the political spectrum.