European Presidential Primaries?

[Cellach]

Candidates elected during European elections are generally selected and ran on a party writ. Once the successful candidate takes his or her seat in the European Parliament, the sit in groupings based on political allegiance, so for example Sean Kelly (FG) sits with the Christian Democrats and Proinsias de Rossa (Lab) sits with the Party of European Socialists.

The presidency of the European Parliament goes to the grouping with the largest amount of seats. Normally in these situations the president is selected, either like our shinning example through divine appointment or as a compromise candidate to mollify powerful European national leaders, such was the case with the selection of Van Rompuy.

However a third option is now beginning to make itself apparent. In the seed of this idea the ephemeral form of a might oak yet to be can be seen shimmering, bellowing with the desire to develop to its full potential.

The Party of European Socialists is the only pan European party where the activist level are formally recognised in statute. This activist level have come up with a rather interesting idea. They want to hold a primary.

It breaks down like this. All PES members and members of constituent parties get the right to vote on who the presidential candidate would be, prior to the election. So you'd know who you were getting, and the horrifing idea that it could be Bruton will forever by consigned one of histories great near misses.

The aforementioned constituent parties would in the case of Ireland be the Labour Party and in the North the nigh on moribund SDLP.

None of the other six political groupings have raised the idea or have any formal activist level to any great degree. The big boys mix far from the casual irritation they have come to expect from common men. But if they too decide to go for it, which they almost have to if the PES decide to, then I imagine the same rule will apply for members of the Blueshirts, the Shinners, na Glasrai and so forth. They to will get to vote in the election of which ever comedy candidate their European groupings throw up.

The positives to this idea are numerous, the negatives few. Some of us may have to sacrifice our lives on the Russian front to secure vital gas deposits and the like, but the Europe you will be dying for will be all that more democratic and accountable.

The negatives: potentially one of our gombeen boys would get through, set the attitude, and Europe dissolves as Germany begins to decentralise her neighbours again. The bright side of this is that it is the incontrovertible proof of the existence of the Devil, and, ergo, God to the irritatingly smug(but logically, probably correct) biologist Richard Dawkins.

So far the activist leaderships of Ireland, Belgium, France, Portugal and Romania are supporting the campaign, so still at least another 22 countries to go anyway, prior to Turkish accession which makes the whole thing pointless as whoever heard of bloody voting for a caliph? The time line for the plans success is tight I'll grant you but a good idea should be applauded on its merits rather then on insane predictions about the future. This is something that we can all appreciate, as the minimum wage remains unmercifully high, and no where near the E1.84 an hour that is necessary for the revival of the economy.

I obviously see a lot of good in this campaign. I reckon you will too. It's a good idea. Think of it lads. Even if Enda doesn't get to be Taoiseach it doesn't matter. Just the chance of getting to vote Berlusconi as your candidate for European leader would be as glorious as the resurrection of Eoin O'Duffy himself.

Anyway what do ye think? Is it workable? Is it likely? Is it desirable? Presidential primaries for European candidates? Look for yourself.
Campaign for a PES Primary: Lettre ouverte aux militants et sympathisants PSE

Of course you mightn't speak French so

Yahoo! Babel Fish - Text Translation and Web Page Translation.

Bloody Europeans.

[Passer-by]

It has essentially been done before. See here:

As a central part of our 2009 campaign, the EPP formally endorsed José Manuel BARROSO for a second term as President of the European Commission at the Congress of Warsaw where we launched our election manifesto ‘Strong for the People.’

[Cellach]

You consider a direct vote, for every member, essentially the same as

consolidate our campaign, we cooperated closely with our heads of state and government and party leaders who were prominent at the national level; with the campaign managers of our member-parties; and with our EPP Group in the European Parliament.

See here:

[Passer-by]

You consider a direct vote, for every member, essentially the same as
See here:

The comment you quote refers to how they ran their campaign I would have thought.

I'd consider a decision by the EPP MEP candidates (and also I believe the EPP Heads of Government) to back Barroso as being a clear indication that he'd be a shoe in for the job if the EPP did well in the polls.

[Goban Saor]

I sounds good in princepal but American style politics only works with the two party thing. EU is too sophisticated.

[PES Activist]

I think the significant things about this proposal are that (a) it emanates from the activist layer in the PES, (the PES being the only European party with a formal activists layer) and (b) involves the use of primaries to enable PES party members across Europe to select the candidate for the Commission Presidency in the EP elections in 2014.

The EPP choice of Barroso as their candidate last year was the usual backroom deal done by party leaders and officials. The PES couldn't agree on a candidate given Iberian loyalties and Brown's support for a neo-liberal candidate. On the other hand, therefore, this proposal to place the choice of PES candidate in the hands of its members is immeasurably more democratic and is a welcome move towards a more democratic European Union.

The campaign organisers have set up a blog at Campaign for a PES Primary

[PES Activist]

I sounds good in princepal but American style politics only works with the two party thing. EU is too sophisticated.

I think that the main difference between this proposal and the US system of primaries is that this is an internal party affair rather than a state-organised (voter registration, campaign funding, etc) system. The US system is particular to its electoral history and the way its politics are organised. This proposal appears to be less ambitious in its scope and directed more towards democratising the internal party organisation of the PES and using that as a foundation for building a pan-European election campaign in 2014.

The Commission President will after all continue to be nominated by the European Council from the ranks of the Europarty that gains most seats in the EP elections. The confirmation of the Commission President will continue to rest with the European Parliament. It reflects the fact that the EU is developing a parliamentary system of governance rather than the US/French/Russian presidential system with a directly-elected executive officeholder.

[Cellach]

The comment you quote refers to how they ran their campaign I would have thought.

I'd consider a decision by the EPP MEP candidates (and also I believe the EPP Heads of Government) to back Barroso as being a clear indication that he'd be a shoe in for the job if the EPP did well in the polls.

And the comment you quoted was completely irrelevant to the point of the thread, which is that the activist level of the second biggest European party is looking to elect their choice of European President in waiting, something which is entirely unprecedented in the European experiment.

[MacCoise2]

Federalist nonsense, you dont seem sure whether youre talking about the parlaiment president, Commission President or the new position that Lisbon created. 3 presidents when not even one is needed

[Cellach]

The commission president, referred to by the tabloids as the parliament president.