Election-time is almost here and most people have probably narrowed their options down to one or two parties. For me personally this year has been an easy choice: in the Netherlands there is only one serious party that has an open-minded stance towards progressive improvements of Europe, the social-liberal D66, so that is where my vote will go.
If only it were that simple.
To me, the real implications of the party groups that are being formed in the EP are still unclear. I understand that if you want to achieve something in a political labyrinth with 736 voices and even more stakeholders you cannot do this alone. However, what I wonder: in what ways does this influence the political behaviour of the politicians we’re sending off to Louise Weiss and the Espace Leopold?
With regards to my vote for D66’s Sophie in ‘t Veld, I ask myself, and you:
“Who am I actually voting for?”
And this is not even the most extreme example. On a European level: currently the biggest party in the Netherlands, the moderately Christian CDA will probably be sharing lunch with Berlusconi’s PdL (no explanation necessary). The very Christian CU, being a part of the Independence/Democracy group, will as such be joining the League of Polish Families. A conservative Polish party that besides a whole array of other extremely enlightened ideals seems to be opposed to “the selling of land to foreign nationals (especially German Heimatvertriebene)”.
(6 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)
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Hmm, how abt Neweuropeans? I heard that they are very open-minded and aiming to young people as well.
I think you are right. However, I am generally not too fond of one-issue parties, which I consider them to be.
Furthermore, although they are running in these elections, I wouldn’t say they are really taking part. In the Netherlands it still is a very minor movement.
I was thinking along the same lines, Mats. We’re not just voting for a (local) party/person, also for the group that they belong to.
(BTW, you should be able to embed Slideshare shows in your post)
Could you tell me how? I wanted to post this a lot earlier, but didn’t because I was trying to find out how to embed it. I did not get an answer from the EJC, but could you tell me how to do it? Just using the embed-code does not work.
Tried it, but failed miserably. The settings on the server/CMS side are probably too tight for using embed-codes