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Slovakia | Singing Tail-Light

Thursday, May 28 2009 By epolitik | Crossing Europe A-Z | 10 comments

Slovakia_Pic 1 What a battle: On October the 15th, Poland beat Slovakia in the FIFA World Cup 2010 Qualifiying Match with 2 goals to 1, with a spectacular turn in the 85th and 86th minute by Stanislav Sestak, striker of the German football club VFL Bochum. Currently Slovakia (12 points) is two points ahead of Poland (10 points) in the chart.

On June 7th, the two countries will fight a totally different battle in a totally different qualifying modus: Who will be the tail-light in the European Parliament Elections 2009? In 2004, Slovakia had the least voter participation of all countries, with just 17 percent. Followed by Poland with 21 percent.

Slovakia_Pic 2Old Town Hall in Bratislava
















After all the effort the Slovakian Government doesn´t want a reprise like in 2004. Róbert Hajšel, chairman of the information office of the European Parliament in Bratislava, said, it was the saddest statement in the whole history of European Elections. His explanation: “If you fully trust and support something, you don’t want to change it and if you don’t want to change it, you don’t care to come and vote.”.

Nevertheless, the Slovaks tried to do the best preparation for June the 7th, with the help of a new star in the country’s entertainment business. The 17-year-old Viera Berkyova won the show “Slovakias Next Superstar” in 2008 and wowed the crowd with a special song – about the European currency, the Euro. The song became an unexpected major hit in the charts. May be a good sign for the votes next Sunday – and an appropriate instrument to get the Slovaks ready for the election, too.


Images are preserved under a Creative-Commons-Licence (roblisameehan/flickr and iandanielbrown/flickr).

Romania | Party time in Parliament?

Monday, May 25 2009 By epolitik | Crossing Europe A-Z



Just look at these photos. What do you think who this woman is?
''- An It-Girl?''
Yes.
''- Romania's Paris Hilton?''
Yes.
''- Someone with maybe wealthy or prominent parents?''
Yes.

It is Elena, daughter of Romania's president Traian Basescu. And guess now what comes next? RIGHT: 28-year-old Elena Basescu is a candidate in the upcoming European elections. There will be more than 750 MEP in the new parliament so why not having a sexy female disco queen among them?

Latvia | To be or not to be

Sunday, May 24 2009 By epolitik | Crossing Europe A-Z | 11 comments

Latvia_ID cards Concerning our nationality we have no choice. The exception proves the rule. Nearly 400.000 Russians in Latvia are the exception. 17 percent of the whole population. They are non-Latvians. Non-citizens. Stateless. Or at least faceless.

Latvia´s government - after the independance from the former USSR - in 1991 decided that just all those people are Latvian citizens who were born before 1940 in Latvia or are originated from this generation. Hundreds of thousands of Russians, immigrated during the period of the Russian occupation and annexation, were abruptly excluded. Visibly marked with a separate ID card. Although lots of them were even born in Latvia in the meantime.



A so called naturalisation procedure to integrate these people was started in 1995, calling for special standards. Applicants for citizenship had, and still have, to know the Latvian constitution and history and have to speak Latvian - sounds obligatory, but it´s not in generations born and raised in Russian occupied Latvia. It was common and adequate to speak Russian. So what are they? Culprits? Victims? Or maybe just a failure of history.

Nevertheless a failure of history corrigible by the European Commission? No. Jacques Barrot, Vice-President of the Commission, in February 2009 declared: "The participation in elections of people who are not nationals of an EU country, and are therefore not EU citizens, is not an issue covered by Community law. The Commission therefore cannot talk to Latvia regarding the issue of these people’s participation in local elections. It is up to the Member States to decide such issues."

Nonetheless they are facing a wide range of personal rights today, they are not allowed to vote - not in national elections nor in communal ones. No citizen, not vote. No state citizen, no European citizen. No citizen, no European citizen, no vote in the European Parliament election. But born in Latvia. Member of the European Union. And so kind of European...

Netherlands | A salamander on the ballot

Friday, May 22 2009 By epolitik | Crossing Europe A-Z

Newropeans Have you ever tried to turn a map of Europe upside down? Maybe you'll see a salamander just as Franck Bianchari did. The reptile became Newropeans' icon. Newropeans claims to be the first truly pan-European political party. Its members' aim was to run for this year's European Parliament election in all European Union member states simultaneously. But they only campaign now in three countries: in Germany, France - and in the Netherlands.

It's all about Motivation

By epolitik | Picked up

Everyone’s complaining that the EU has a legitimacy problem. More and more is being regulated from the European commission in Brussels and its huge bureaucratic machine – and national parliaments and administrations seem simply having to follow the EU Directives. It is even a bigger problem though that a lot of people don’t want to use the little influence they could have in the European political system. May it be for the reason to protest against the current situation – or, more likely because of a mixture of indifference, ignorance and dullness. To bring the second group to the ballot boxes, no cost and effort was too great. Here some of the actions which were taken to motivate the European citizens to participate:

The European parliament launched a multilingual online television station, called europarlTV, which covers everything in Europe from agriculture to women’s rights. In the categories Your Parliament, Your Voice, Young Europe and Parliament Live you can find all kinds of information on the political system as well as news about ongoing events and citizens speaking up. First of all, you can find here the official TV spot for the European elections which exists in 34 languages and is being broadcasted all over Europe on television, in cinemas and on the web.

In the last European elections, only 18 % of the 18-25 years old voted. To bring about a change to low participation, there’s much attention being given to the youth in the EU elections campaign. For example, the Charlemagne Youth Prize has been awarded some days ago. This competition asked for projects which foster a shared sense of European identity among young people. The winner is the Polish project “Yourope needs You” and was designed by the members of the European student’s forum, AEGEE.

MTV’s campaign “Can you hear me Europe?” works in the same way. Set up as a competition, the incentive to take part is also to win a prize. MTV wants to raise the awareness of the European elections rather by a big shout than a complex learning process. In Prague, Berlin, Rome and other European cities people came together to simply shout out their support for Europe – and also to win a ticket for a major MTV event.

Irish support for the Lisbon treaty is growing

Tuesday, May 19 2009 By epolitik | Crossing Europe A-Z | 8 comments

After the failure of the European constitution, a second attempt has been made with the treaty of Lisbon to reform the structure of the European Union. So far, twenty-six out of twenty-seven members of the Union have ratified the new treaty. There’s only one missing - Ireland. The Irish constitution prescribes a referendum for the ratification of the treaty, and the Irish people decided to vote against it in June 2008. Due to the rejection, some minor changes have been made on the treaty, amongst other things it has been decided that every country will keep its own commissioner.

Europe’s future is up in the air until this second referendum has been held – originally planned for December 2009, it now seems like the Irish government tends to an earlier date. As a result of the strong influence of the world economic crisis on the country, public opinion turned in favour of the European Union. To take advantage of this, the next referendum is supposed to take place much sooner than expected, maybe even linked to the elections for the European parliament.

Ganley.jpg

When talking about the Irish “No”, one must also mention a prominent figure that not only influenced the Irish referendum but also plays a role in the EU election campaign. It is Declan Ganley who I’m talking about. The Irish businessman and multimillionaire funded the campaign against the Lisbon treaty and now has founded the Euro-sceptical party Libertas. As a qualification for the EP elections, a party has to nominate candidates in at least seven European countries. Libertas has met this condition in February 2009. However soon afterwards, two of the candidates, Igor Gräzin and Mincho Hristov, denied being members of the party. Hans-Gerd Pöttering, president of the European parliament, has induced inquiries which are still ongoing.

In addition, Libertas does not meet the national conditions for the EP elections in all countries. In Germany, 4000 signatures would have been needed for an approval, yet only 3500 had been collected. Instead, Libertas forms alliances with small national parties. In Germany it is the Christian AUF-Partei (Party for Labour, Environment and Family) who plays this role. Last week Declan Ganley came to Frankfurt to launch the campaign – and guess who else was there? Eva Herman, a German author and journalist, known for dubiously approving statements about the Nazi’s family policies. Will this prominent assistance help Libertas to gain more support in Germany...? I rather doubt it.

More transparency for deputies

Sunday, May 17 2009 By epolitik | Picked up | 6 comments

What is the deputy I am voted for really doing in the European parliament? Two websites try to close this information gap. While Votewatch.eu is providing pure figure and datas, Parlorama.eu judges the MEP's activities. You can read more about this last project here.

Hungary | A borderless country?

By epolitik | Crossing Europe A-Z | one comment


It´s Pécs. Pécs, fifth-largest city of Hungary, was elected the European Capital of Culture 2010 (together with Essen, Germany and Istanbul, Turkey). It will try to present itself as a "borderless city [...] right in the middle of Europe".

Pécs 2010 The 10th of May Pécs was the focus of mayoral elections. The Socialists (MSZP), prevailing the city since 1998, lost control to the opposition Fidesz party. In Hungary, facing a deep recession in consequence of the Economic Crisis, this result definitely is an outlook on the European Parliament elections taking place the 7th of June. The Conservatives from the Fidesz party are prognosticated to win the majority of the 22 Hungarian seats in the EP. This could lead to quarrels in the MSZP and encourage discussions about snap elections.

We will see, if Hungary really is that open-minded towards European Policy and will keep it´s hopeful promises. Take a virtual tour through Europe´s Capital of Culture 2010 here.

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