babelblogs

hosted by cafebabel.com

political parties

Barroso also candidate for European Green Party?

WIYC Action EGP 3Green Party Congress de facto supports Christian Democrat Barroso for President of European Commission '' Andrew Duff MEP, President of UEF said: "After last week's nomination of Mr Barroso as candidate for President of the European Commission from the EPP it is revealing to see that the European Green Party didn’t come up with a candidate to contest the Christian Democrats."''

"The Manifesto approved by the European Green Party has valid federalist points like EU regulation of financial markets or the need for Europe-wide transnational lists, but it is regrettable that there is no mention of the Lisbon Treaty. In view of the current world crisis, where institutional functionality and joint action is more urgent than ever, I hope that the Greens across the Union will campaign for the entry into force of the Lisbon treaty" said Andrew Duff, MEP.

Federalist action in Brussels WIYC Action EGP

Today federalist activists have called for linking the result of the forthcoming European Parliament elections to the election of the President of the European Commission in an action in the European Green Party Congress.

"European voters want to see real results of their votes. If the European parties nominated their candidates for Commission President, the citizens could finally have a say on who is governing Europe. The Greens missed an important chance to make Europe more democratic" said Samuele Pii, President of the Young European Federalists.

"The European Political Parties should be major players in European Parliament elections and listen to the demand of the main youth political organisations. Putting a face to their programs is important to motivate electors to vote" concluded Pii. WIYC Action EGP 2

2 comments

Monday, March 30 2009 By manajan

PES Campaign launch without flesh - where is their candidate?

Article written by Åsa Gunvén

On March 11th the Party of European Socialists (PES) launched their election manifesto. But as long as PES fails to nominate their candidate to the position as Commission president we have to ask our self how serious they are in profiling themselves as one political party and giving Europe’s voters a real choice?

PES 2009 Manifesto Rasmussen

The question is in no way unique for PES – the fact is that none of the European parties have yet nominated a candidate for the Commission president. The result is clearly that they indirectly support conservative Barroso as the next Commission president, irrelevant of their party colour. How is the voter in Europe then supposed to have a democratic say on the leadership of the EU? And how are we supposed to see a real result of our votes? Eurobarometer clearly shows that voters stay home as they see no real impact of their votes – nominating a party candidate to the Commission president could hence also contribute to changing the shockingly low voting turnouts.

At the press conference the PES president Rasmussen talked about the need to “politicize” both the EP election as well as the Commission. Rightly he pointed out that the point of discussion should be about political options rather then national interests. But this fits badly together with PES failure to nominate a candidate.

I asked Rasmussen why PES has chosen not to nominate a PES candidate along their election manifesto and interestingly enough he stated that there has been no decision NOT to nominate, and opened up for possibility to nominate a candidate later in spring. This means that PES does see their unique opportunity to make the EP elections and the Commission composition more democratic – the question is of course why they not act accordingly.

Fact remains that Rasmussen’s “We don’t do it, and we don’t NOT do it” did not manage to produce a face to the campaign when it was launched on March 11th.

This article was first published on thenewfederalist.eu

no comment

Wednesday, March 11 2009 By manajan

Entries feed - Comments feed