Who would you like to see elected as EU Commision President? Eur(o)vison Debate 2024! Not song.

corkie

On 23 May, the final debate between the lead candidates for the presidency of the European Commission took place in Brussels. The Eurovision Debate will be broadcast on public service media channels and online platforms across Europe and distributed to news organizations globally by Eurovision News, and the European Parliament’s Europe by Satellite service. Link to youtube feed of debate. [1h45mins long] Didn't see it Aired on Irish Media or did I miss it?

The six debate topics are:

Economy and Jobs  
Defence and Security  
Climate and Environment  
Democracy and Leadership  
Migration and Borders  
Innovation and Technology  

My main impression of it was that it sound like a 'LEFT' centric propaganda media post. Attacks on the Far Right as not been democratic. On my first viewing Sandro Gozi (Renew Europe Now) came across as likely choice for me. Remember your elected MEP's vote for the president and will probably have to give support to the Party/Group they are a part off!

Note: - The far-right Identity and Democracy (ID) party and regionalist party European Free Alliance where excluded from it, and The European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group has not participated in any or this.

Poll is NOT in order of The position of the candidates on stage. Poll is anonymous!

Search 'Eur(o)vison Debate 2024' for more information. Or visit 'www.ebu.ch'.

corkie

Sorry didn't know signatures appeared above polls. Will delete mine if people object?

Edit:- Ended up deleting mine until the EU Elections are over. Life time of this thread when a President of EU Parliament is elected.

corkie

I am going to try an make a post, that I am not posting links to backup the content. If you need me to confirm the content, please PM me?

Last thread I created was reported as a bit of a link fest.

The EU elections are mostly over, except we are still counting, and our MEP's possibly missing out on important formation groups discussions.

The EPP Group has been declared the winner with 189 MEP's.

Ursula von der Leyen has tough prospects ahead to try and get reelected as president.

• First she has to be nominated by leaders of the 27 EU Member states, and Charles Michel [European Council President] wants to ban her from the upcoming top job talks.
• Then if nominated she needs deals with either the green's group or Giorgia Meloni both which can cause problems with her own party or the other supporting parties.

On opening post, I said I liked Sandro Gozi (Renew Europe Now), but didn't know at the time if it was the same group FF are in. Also don't know if any of the other candidates in poll are even in the running now.

The only break to not including links, is this below tweet on an upcoming timeline.

https://twitter.com/Europarl_EN/status/1800930813363503187

corkie

Ursula Von Der Leyen has been voted in as the President of the European Commission.

MEPs voted by 401 votes to 284 in favour of her.

Discussion continues on the European Parliament Elections 2024 - Friday, June 7th thread.

This thread has reached it's end of life so probably can be closed? @Beasty

Kermit.de.frog

I think this thread exemplifies how much people don't really care about the European Parliament or the Commission.

_Kaiser_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122397223#Comment_122397223

They don't. FFS, most don't even pay attention to domestic politics which is why we have an unqualified, zero experience, FG staffer as Taoiseach amongst other things, and why the 2 main parties have completely done away with any notion of difference between them through Confidence and Supply and outright Coalition, and are predicted to be elected again despite the massive domestic problems they've presided over or actively exacerbated.

The EU is seen as something even more remote and disconnected from Irish politics (except insofar as the "EU made us do it" or our "obligations" excuse used by domestic politicians to absolve themselves of responsibility or liability for decision-making), and generally in a negative light as interfering or overreaching into local affairs. Most people don't even know who their local TD's are let alone MEP's or what they actually do!

But as I've said before, this isn't surprising really. There is no European identity, no common purpose or goals outside of the politicians themselves, and even then it's a very fragmented institution most of the time. Not surprising really considering that the history between many of the members is negative and that the organisation itself only really exists to try and prevent one half from invading or blowing up the other half.

For all their many faults and divisions, at least the Americans consider themselves American first and foremost. In Europe it's French, German, Italian, Irish first, European vaguely and only insofar as it benefits in things like job opportunities, or cheap flights and holidays without changing currencies.

There's also no real effort to sell the idea of Europe or the Commission in general, primarily I think because it suits the bloated and squabbling institutions to retain that disconnect - all the better to also retain that unaccountability and serve as a gigantic job scheme for civil servants, retired (or unwanted) domestic politicians, and a greasy gravy train for them and their hangers on. Think of it like the Irish civil service or HSE but on a far far larger scale.

Here in Ireland we, like it or not, have far more in common with the UK and their culture than we do anywhere on the European continent. We have a common language, shared history (a lot of it bad too yes, but thankfully most have moved on from that), watch the same entertainment, shop in the same stores, follow the same football teams etc. Our "friends" in Europe were all too happy as well to try and use this as a stick to try and beat the UK with for daring to leave the "community", regardless of the damage it could have caused to us as well!

Ultimately I think it's doomed to fail for all of these reasons and will probably fracture into smaller alliances - probably not without conflict in some cases. Of course we in Ireland will hang on to the last because of our political subservience and "need" for validation and approval from our supposed "betters" (insert that infamous picture of Enda Kenny and Sarkozy here).

As I've also said before, as a trade body and economic alliance the EU/EEC made sense and achieved the goal of a shared reliance and interdependency among former adversaries and enemies to keep the peace - but as a political and cultural union it can and will never work because of exactly those same differences, economic disparities, and domestic self-interests. The fantasy of a federal United States of Europe is exactly that, a fantasy!

Hotblack Desiato

There's also no real effort to sell the idea of Europe or the Commission in general, primarily I think because it suits the bloated and squabbling institutions to retain that disconnect - all the better to also retain that unaccountability and serve as a gigantic job scheme for civil servants, retired (or unwanted) domestic politicians, and a greasy gravy train for them and their hangers on. Think of it like the Irish civil service or HSE but on a far far larger scale.

Hah. The EU employes fewer civil servants than Ireland does.

fly_agaric

@_Kaiser_

Here in Ireland we, like it or not, have far more in common with the UK and their culture than we do anywhere on the European continent. We have a common language, shared history (a lot of it bad too yes, but thankfully most have moved on from that), watch the same entertainment, shop in the same stores, follow the same football teams etc.

Our "friends" in Europe were all too happy as well to try and use this as a stick to try and beat the UK with for daring to leave the "community", regardless of the damage it could have caused to us as well!

Suppose am a bit late…but this bit of the big eurosceptic essay is very interesting, as a piece of propaganda.

Is this the new anti-EU Irish version of the events of the Brexit period?

Reality: The rest of the EU members supported us in everything we asked for. We used our collective weight to hold the British govt.'s feet to the fire to make sure they could not f-ck over either NI or us during the exit process.

Maybe first time in history we didn't have to just accept what the UK decreed from on high for this country in Westminister, and suck it up afterwards.

The EU and other members acted as our friends (without the scare quotes) while most of the UK politicians were just focused on their voters, their own internal politics and chasing a will-o-the-wisp of Brexit, and did not give much of a thought for their neighbours or NI (a remote + poor province) until forced to.

Putting right wing anti-EU goggles on: Scheming EU were just using Ireland as a tool to harm the poor innocent put upon long suffering British, Ireland's best buds ever.

The UK govt. and esp. the Tory Party loves us dearly, unlike those nasty EU false "friends" (we all watch same Netflix crap don't we, and cheer for same superclubs and pampered players, they speak good English too, not that foreign-y sounding gibberish they still insist on using on the continent…).

It really is quite amazing (and scary) how even recent living memory history (< 10 years) gets reinterpreted, repurposed, and distorted to suit a message like this and meet the needs of current politics.

The British were ones who decided to sulk, leave the EU and give the 2 finger salute to their neighbours entirely of their own free will. They harmed themselves (and us, to a lesser extent). Noone made them do it and no one punished them for it.