Is it important to vote in the European Elections ?

ewan whose army

I live in Ireland after moving here from the UK, due to the rules I have to vote for the parties in the area where I live. So I don't understand what all of the parties are offering (its hard to get anything from these lot) and in my last UK constituency Nick Griffin got elected which makes me question why should I get involved with something so broken.

oscarBravo

Why did Nick Griffin get elected?

Because not enough people voted for candidates other than Nick Griffin.

How do you help prevent a Nick Griffin from getting elected?

Vote for someone other than Nick Griffin.

That's why you should get involved.

ewan whose army

But then who should I vote for.

I don't know much about the Irish parties, which is kinda shocking since as a UK citizen I can vote in the Diál as well

Agent Smith

Vote or Die....

keeponhurling

eh, read up about them?
Look at their websites, watch tv, read election literature etc. See what European grouping they join.
When I read the thread title, I thought your point would be what's the point cos they don't do anything in Europe anyways.
I think from that point of view you're right, whoever is MEP for your area makes f*ckall difference.

Did Nick Griffin being elected in your (previous) local area make any difference at all to anything?

ewan whose army

keeponhurling wrote: »

eh, read up about them?
Look at their websites, watch tv, read election literature etc. See what European grouping they join.
When I read the thread title, I thought your point would be what's the point cos they don't do anything in Europe anyways.
I think from that point of view you're right, whoever is MEP for your area makes f*ckall difference.

Did Nick Griffin being elected in your (previous) local area make any difference at all to anything?

No he just got on TV and heckled more..

We need to get rid of these groups in the EU parliament and have EU parties instead. I mean its like voting for a MEP to end up with someone like Barrosso

At least pan-EU parties that Irish, UK, French parties endorse and allow members to stand for would make the EU Parliament a lot easier to understand

oscarBravo

ewan whose army wrote: »

We need to get rid of these groups in the EU parliament and have EU parties instead. I mean its like voting for a MEP to end up with someone like Barrosso

At least pan-EU parties that Irish, UK, French parties endorse and allow members to stand for would make the EU Parliament a lot easier to understand

What's the difference between a group and a party?

ewan whose army

oscarBravo wrote: »

What's the difference between a group and a party?

Well the party has a better identity, so you would be voting for EPP instead of voting for Fine Gael who is part of EPP.

I just think it will make it more transparent, your average punter may have no idea on the relationship

oscarBravo

ewan whose army wrote: »

I just think it will make it more transparent, your average punter may have no idea on the relationship

Your average punter has a duty to inform him- or herself before casting a vote.

I know, I know, it's unfashionable to think that way.

keeponhurling

Is there a party whip in the European parliament, or can the Irish MEPs vote as they like?

Manach

Writing in general, Yes. Slightly off topic to the main OP, but in the area of intellectual property the MEPs had made and successfully held off the ACTA treaty. This would have imposed a very restrictive regime in Europe and likely increased monitoring of internet by Big Media. So, as the MEPs are of value.

touts

ewan whose army wrote: »

But then who should I vote for.

I don't know much about the Irish parties, which is kinda shocking since as a UK citizen I can vote in the Diál as well

Well the first place I would start is with the voting records of the outgoing MEPs. And I'm not talking about how they voted. Just if they even bothered to vote. One lad we sent last time voted in only around 20% of the votes in the European Parliament. And he even managed to go a whole year without voting once. No doubt he'll claim he was too busy representing his constituency but I live in his constituency and the first I heard of him (other than a rumour in the press that he wanted to run for president a couple of years ago but was told to feck off by his party HQ) since the last count was when a leaflet with his big grin arrived in my door a few days ago. And on the league of MEPs he wasn't even the worst.

If someone couldn't be arsed to do the job for the last 5 years why on earth would they do the job for the next 5 years.

Scofflaw

keeponhurling wrote: »

Is there a party whip in the European parliament, or can the Irish MEPs vote as they like?

There isn't a whip system in the Irish sense as such - that is, something to force MEPs to vote the way of their EP group. The groups do provide voting lists to their MEPs that show the group's position, so MEPs when voting know how they "should" vote, but are not bound by it.

If you're interested in to what extent the Irish MEPs vote with their EP group, or with the rest of the Irish MEPs, I'd suggest votewatch.eu. What you'll mostly find is that they vote with their Irish political party (where applicable) colleagues. So in a pretty strong sense, you can say that voting for Fine Gael for the EP is more or less the same as voting for them here in terms of their likely attitudes and voting patterns.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

touts wrote: »

Well the first place I would start is with the voting records of the outgoing MEPs. And I'm not talking about how they voted. Just if they even bothered to vote. One lad we sent last time voted in only around 20% of the votes in the European Parliament. And he even managed to go a whole year without voting once. No doubt he'll claim he was too busy representing his constituency but I live in his constituency and the first I heard of him (other than a rumour in the press that he wanted to run for president a couple of years ago but was told to feck off by his party HQ) since the last count was when a leaflet with his big grin arrived in my door a few days ago. And on the league of MEPs he wasn't even the worst.

If someone couldn't be arsed to do the job for the last 5 years why on earth would they do the job for the next 5 years.

For example, you can see from the Votewatch stats that the lowest vote attendance record is Brian Crowley, who has a 44% attendance due to disability, with particular medical problems over the last couple of years.

cordially,
Scofflaw

ewan whose army

I also have a slight snag with how the European Parliament works.

I mean its not technically a Parliament like the Dail or the UK Commons since they can make laws and make proposals, the European Parliament can only Accept or Reject laws made my the Commission.

Scofflaw

ewan whose army wrote: »

I also have a slight snag with how the European Parliament works.

I mean its not technically a Parliament like the Dail or the UK Commons since they can make laws and make proposals, the European Parliament can only Accept or Reject laws made my the Commission.

Accept, reject, and amend. Once the Commission has initiated legislation, it does get amended by both the Parliament and the Council, and pretty freely in both cases.

I'm not sure why there's such an obsession with legislative initiative, but possibly my "no legislation is usually better legislation" position is particularly unusual.

Parliaments, as a general rule, only have the de jure power to create legislation - most legislative initiative is de facto in the hands of governments. There are very few parliaments where the passing of private members' bills, as opposed to those created by the government, is something that happens at all, and I can't think of one where it's anything like a significant feature of legislative output.

The Parliament, the Council, and the citizens via a Citizens' Initiative, can all request the Commission to initiate legislation, but the Commission is tasked with only initiating legislation where it sees there as a genuine European need to do so as well as a solid legal basis in the Treaties for doing so.

Handing legislative initiative to the Parliament without such a filter in place seems to me likely to lead pretty quickly to one of two outcomes - either a large amount of spurious (vanity, politically motivated, illegal) attempts at legislation, or the rapid growth of such a filter in the form of a parliamentary 'government' within the EP. I don't see either of those outcomes as desirable.

It's fashionable to knock the technocratic elements of the EU, but there's good reasons for them, and throwing them out purely on the basis that they're technocratic creates constitutional changes in the EU for which nobody is really prepared.

At the end of the day, the EU is not a European government, and is not intended to be a European government. It is intended to be a joint framework for European action between the governments of the Member States, which is where the power and control lies and is supposed to lie, because there is not yet a European demos which would properly legitimise the governance of Europe through a single elected body. As such, the Parliament is not a democratically elected body for governance, but a democratically elected body for control - a steering wheel and brakes, not an engine, if you like.

cordially,
Scofflaw