5 ms·

The lack of Estonia seemed curious to me as well, given Estonia's voting history regarding Article 13. Then I looked up the voting history for all these countri

• Kurtz79 8y ago
  In Italy there has been a radical change in terms of governing parties/policy towards the EU over the last year. Right now the majority elected for the EU parliament does not really match the actual government's disposition.
• Tuna-Fish 8y ago
  What you are looking at are the views of the MEPs. MEPs represent specific people living in the country, not the country as whole. This statement was issued by the countries, meaning the representatives of the governments currently in power in those countries.
  • isostatic 8y ago
    Of the listed countries, 6 of the 8 - Netherlands, Finland, Luxembourg, Sweden, Estonia and Denmark - are all 1 constituency countries, so the MEPs represent the entire country MEPs may well decide different things to the government though, just as the U.S. House could have a different view to the Senate.
    • Tuna-Fish 8y ago
      Proportional representation. The MEPs don't represent the entire country, they represent the specific people who voted for them. The fundamental principle of who people represent under PR is very different from FPTP. Under FTPT, the people living in a certain area vote for a "winner", who then represents the entire area. If 51% of the people vote for candidate A, and 49% vote for candidate B, then the wishes of 49% of the constituency go unheard in the parliament. Under PR, the idea is not to pick a "winner" who takes all and then represents everyone in the parliament, the idea is to match everyone's vote to some candidate(s) according to their preferences, as best allowed by sizes of constituencies, so that as many people as possible have someone they voted for in the parliament. Then the people in the legislative body only represent the people who voted for them.
      • deleted 8y ago
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      • ameister14 8y ago
        So I vote for a party in the EU as a whole, and if enough people in my country or other countries do too, some candidate from some country gets elected?
        • jbarberu 8y ago
          No. For the EU parliament you vote for a representative (from your country, that usually belongs to some political party).
          • aukust 8y ago
            That is true, but in the EU parliament as in many other systems there is an incentive for representatives to vote in favor of the (EU) party they are in - as huge majority of representatives have on this case despite of their own governments showing displease to this particular ruling. I will not personally be voting for any of the representatives that voted for this particular ruling as none of them they gave no satisfactory explanation why they actually voted this way anything other than that their EU party wanted it to pass. My country being Finland, and we definitely have been opposed to this from the start.
        • isostatic 8y ago
          You vote for MEPs (I believe all EU constituencies are multi-member constituencies) Those MEPs are usually members of national parties, and members of groups of parties (and "eu party"). The latter would include EPP (conservatives), S&D (socialists), ALDE (liberals), ECR (eurosceptic conservatives), Greens, etc. (My descriptions are probably a bit simplistic) The makeup of the groups-of-parties at each election is shown at this picture https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/timeline/86b6bea58f11c021b70a110257250046.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/timeline/86b6bea58... The 750 MEPs in parliament then vote in the Commissioner. As no group of parties has an absolute majority, it requires pan-ideology agreement. The rule is that the commissioner candidate of the largest group gets the first shot, and the MEPs approve or reject him. In 2014 the EPP were the largest group, with 217 MEPs. S&D were next with 189. As such the EPP candidate - Jean-Claude Juncker (who was elected at an EPP conference in March 2014) - was the first in line. The EU Council (heads of state of the 28 countries) asked the leaders of the various EU parties if he'd do, and the EPP and S&D agreed. The EU Council then voted 26-2 to approve him and pass him, and his policies, to the MEPs to be approved. It's typical coalition building. Most proponents of FPTP don't like this sort of compromise (I.e. Juncker's policies had to not only satisfy the 29% of MEPs in his "party", but enough of the rest to maintain approval), but it's not an aberation. Then the MEPs looked at his policies, debated, then voted for or against him, and with 422 of 750 votes, he was approved. It might seem a little alien to those who are used to a FPTP system, or to a directly elected executive, but it's quite similar to the way the UK 2010-2015 government was formed.
    • yeahforsureman 8y ago
      I guess you must be talking about the JURI committee of the European parliament. Hell of a lot more MEPs in EP. Anyway, this topic isn't about EP really as this statement relates to an EU Council vote, i.e. involving member state goverments. Whole nuther organ.
    • mattmanser 8y ago
      What are you talking about? The Netherlands alone has 26 MEPs. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_(European_Parliament_constituency) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_(European_Parlia...
      • kosievdmerwe 8y ago
        As a guess, the MEPs are divided proportionally to parties based on the vote total of the entire country. Rather than say, splitting the country up into chunks and having each chunk selecting an MEP.
        • isostatic 8y ago
          Large countries are split into chunks - the UK comprises about 9 constituencies IIRC.
          • anoncake 8y ago
            It's up to each country.
            • isostatic 8y ago
              Sure, in general larger countries split (UK, France, Italy, Poland etc). Germany I think is the only >20m country that doesn't split.
      • isostatic 8y ago
        A single constituency, that represent everyone in the Netherlands regardless if they were eligible to vote, let alone if they voted for X
• jaabe 8y ago
  Italy is currently run by populist who dislike the EU, so you can say there has been a rather big change.