Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.
Display:
The European Parliamentary Elections 2009 | 41 comments (41 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)
Re: The Big Picture (none / 1)
Do we have access to any figures on which countries swung right? Is it an even swing across Europe or concentrated in particular areas?
by Metatone (metatone [a|t] gmail (dot) com) on Fri Jan 16th, 2009 at 01:00:05 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: The Big Picture (4.00 / 2)
Theoretically we should have access. There are records somewhere! Wait...

Or not. Only online for 1999 and 2004 apparently. See here.

by nanne (zwaerdenmaecker@gmail.com) on Fri Jan 16th, 2009 at 01:27:32 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: The Big Picture (none / 1)
Hmm, if I have time I'll dig through it, although the difference between 99 and 04 is smaller - and some of it just related to the rise of Eurosceptics who presumably in some countries have a constituency on the left.
by Metatone (metatone [a|t] gmail (dot) com) on Fri Jan 16th, 2009 at 02:19:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: The Big Picture (4.00 / 2)
Most of the increase among the liberals and some of the decrease among the social democrats, greens and far left will, without doubt, be due to the new Member States.

On the other hand, we've also been observing domestic electoral trends in the old Member States. Aside of increasing fragmentation and an increasingly drifting electorate, the overall trend has been to the right.

...

Which is another thing that needs to be communicated. The Council is heavy on the right. Migeru once coloured in a map of that (which, however, didn't account for coalition governments). But it should be made clear how many Council votes are effectively on the EPP's side. A few hours work of looking around on wikipedia and entering the stuff in an spreadsheet, I'd guess. If it can't be found online.

by nanne (zwaerdenmaecker@gmail.com) on Fri Jan 16th, 2009 at 06:24:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: The Big Picture (4.00 / 2)
I remember counting the seats before and right after the 2004 election and the win/loose percentage for the party groups were all very small, most lost about 1% of the seat percentage, except for the Independents that gained quite a lot. A couple of months later ALDE had picked up most of those independents turning a small election loss into a mayor gain (the eurosceptics also increased their post-election share).

So what does this mean? In general that it was not represented parties that increased, but new parties that entered made the swing in seats. For clarification, the new member states were represented in the EP in april-may 2004, and I assume they were represented by the parties present in their national parliaments.

A detailed analysis of the parties that entered in 2004 and needed a new group would perhaps yield interesting results, but that is beyond the scope of my investigation. I would assume there was new entries in both old and new member states, but more from the new ones, but that is just a guess.

Safe to say, this at least supports the later part of nannes working thesis:

nanne:

My working thesis is that low saliency elections can amplify the drifting of the electorate and are ideal for breakthroughs of new parties.


Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se
by A swedish kind of death on Sat Jan 17th, 2009 at 01:03:05 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: The Big Picture (4.00 / 4)
I went on a google-trip and found my old numbers.

A swedish kind of death:

I crunched some numbers after the last european parliament elections, frustrated by not finding the relative increases and decreases totally anywhere. Just a lot of reporting on local changes. Thought you could use it if planning a series. Anyway, dug it up and here it is:

Before 2004 elections (seats):
EPP 294
PES 232
ELDR 67
EUL 55
GREEN 47
UEN 30
EDD 17
No-group 44
Total 786

After 2004 elections (seats)
EPP 276
PES 200
ELDR 67
EUL 39
GREEN 42
UEN 27
EDD 15
No-group 60
Total 732

And percentage of the seats:
old * new
EPP 37,4 -> 37,7
PES 29,5 -> 27,3
ELDR 8,5 -> 9,2
EUL 7,0 -> 5,3
GREEN 6,0 -> 5,7
UEN 3,8 -> 3,7
EDD 2,2 -> 2,0
No-group 5,6 -> 9,0

The numbers on the new parliament is from june 2004, I believe it has changed some since. I think the ELDR swallowed a lot of the new in the no-group group when they changed name in the autumn of 2004.

Anyway what was most striking to me at the time was (except the lack of reporting on the election results instead of reporting on which local representatives will go to Brussels) how little changed. Lots of local changes but in total very constant.

Swedish wikipedia was kind enough to indicate how much bigger ALDE became when it united ELDR and EDD.

Alliansen liberaler och demokrater för Europa - Wikipedia

88 (EP-valet 2004)
101 (nuvarande)

("Nuvarande" means present, so an increase from 88 to 101.)

Mucking about at wikipedia I also came across this chapter:

European Parliament election, 2004 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

European Parliament Election 2004: Estimated Notional Results, January 2007

That is the estimate gains or losses during the post-election period. It would appear that the post-election swings for most party groups are larger then the election swings.

And aditional note from swedish wikipedia:

Europaparlamentsvalet 2004 - Wikipedia
Som ett resultat av valresultatet fortsatte Europeiska folkpartiet (kristdemokrater) och Europademokraterna att samarbeta med socialdemokratiska gruppen i Europaparlamentet, eftersom liberalerna och de konservativa tillsammans endast besatt 49 % av parlamentets mandat.As a result of the election EPP returned to cooperate with PES as ALDE and EPP only held 49 % of the seats.

This would indicate that the real election result in 2004 - real in terms of political effect - was a failure of the pre-2004 rightwing (ALDE+EPP) coalition to hold their mayority and thus a return to a previous grand coalition. If that and the nominal position of the partygroups (PES to the left of ALDE) is to be trusted, then the political result of the 2004 election was a drift to the left.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Sat Jan 17th, 2009 at 02:08:32 PM EST
[ Parent ]

The European Parliamentary Elections 2009 | 41 comments (41 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
Display: