The "fight" for the presidency of the European Commission

There was no big opposition against the idea that the European parties should nominate their candidate to the presidency of the European Commission as it was expected that this could boost participation. Apparently the participation did not fall as expected but many doubt ( see for example here) whether this was due to this so-called "Spitzenkandidaten" system.
The same newspaper demanded already in 2009, before the previous European elections in an editorial that: "Voters must be told what they vote for. The Parliament's groups should tell votes who they want to be the next Commission's president. ... European Parliament elections have for far too long been presented... as a vote for Europe or against it. Political parties should change their approach and make clear that these elections are about what kind of European Union voters want."If the debate were about whether naming the candidate for Commission president is just that, it would make sense. I will try to answer this question below.
After the election, however, political actors start to discover the inconveniences of this idea and thus their disagreement with the principle.
The principle comes from an extending interpretation of the Lisbon treaty:the Council proposes "taking into account the result of the EP elections" a president for the Commission and the Parliament has to approve him/her by vote. It is only after that, that the commissioners can be nominated by the governments (one by each) and it is even after that, that the High Commissioner for Foreign and Security Policy (who is vice president of the Commission and chairs the External Affairs Council) and as the last, the president of the European Council (which is different from the different formations of the Council of the European Union, of which the the External Affairs Council is one) are nominated.
The system of institutions and the way the EU works is a delicately constructed framework and there is no doubt that the European parties threw a stone into this - actually never quiet and sometimes murky - pond.
So it is the European Parliament who finally approves the Commission president while it can only vote about a proposal brought forward by the Council. So it sounds logical that the parties in this Parliament can express whom they are ready to vote for. On the other hand, the separation of powers of initiative and approval is a feature of the EU which among others gives a power to the Commission national executives do not have - while the Commission lacks some other powers of national executives -, thus it is an important part of the above-mentioned delicate construction. The Parliament was in fact limiting the choice of the Council in whom to propose. The more so, as the Council has a majority of conservatives (mainly in the EPP) and this party is also the strongest in the Parliament. Had the Socialists won the EP elections, and the Council proposed Juncker the EPP candidate, not Schulz, the Socialist's favourite, the EPP could have still assembled a majority in the Parliament to approve Juncker. A nomination of Schulz could also been digested, in particular by Juncker, whose ambitions always pointed more towards the presidency of the European Council, which he could have won in exchange. But the time of these bargains is over, it seems taht eithe Juncker, or another EPP candidate will be proposed by the Council.
But why is Juncker's nomination in question? He is supported by Angela Merkel, the strongest national leader in the EPP (the French government is socialist). The opposition came first from Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister, and then from Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and - Britain.
What makes the situation bizarre, is that although the question to be put was whether the voters want an EPP or a socialist candidate, the reservations against Juncker (and also against Schulz) are that they are too federalist. So we are back to the "more Europe" or "less Europe" question, which we should have forgotten. On this, however, the voters could not decide, as neither the ECR, to which the British conservatives belong, nor other eurosceptics staged a candidate for the Commission presidency. And - again no one knows whether due to that or not - all non-europhiles gained only 30% in the EP. A clear minority. We cannot go into the question whether this is much or little, why and how the people voted. It is widely discussed in the political press.
Before we deal with the Hungarian aspects, let's be up my promise: what can the European elections decide in terms of where Europe goes? Clearly, the power relations in the Parliament influence the direction, although no party has a clear majority and coalitions have to be forged. These are occasional coalitions, not like a government coalition. And some analysts like Professor J.H.H Weiler, president of the European University Institute (still a few but nevertheless I think they found the real problem in European-level democracy, the so-called "democratic deficit" of the EU) say, that in a real democracy, a governing coalition should be formed and it should define the way the executive works. The Commission, however, is not quite like a national executive. And its members are nominated by the member states and are usually adherents of the governing national coalitions or parties. Thus, the majority in the Commission will be conservative, but it is not automatic and there will be members from socialist and liberal parties. And the programme of the Commission will be set up by its members. Based on this, some could argue that finally the main political line will be defined by the political stream supported by the majority of the electorate (through both the choice of their governments and the elections to the European Parliament) but to explain to the common voter how this works is not easy. So the voters do not see that their vote has a real influence on the direction the EU takes. And the imperfections of the national vote (that you vote a general direction and a government may have individual measures and even policies you do not like but there is no party with whom you can 100% agree) is also present.
As explained in the previous post, the EP elections in Hungary had a domestic significance in spite of the fact that the national elections were less than two months before. It is more interesting to examine the reactions of the winner of both elections, the governing FIDESZ party to the nomination of Juncker. Of course, during the election campaign they did not mention the topic, it would have been couter-productive. But immediately afterwards, Orbán already declared that they do not support Juncker, who was the figurehead of Eurozone austerity, who is a "man of the past" and wants a Europe they do not want (i.e. too federalist).
And then Mr Szájer, MEP, explained (in the title of the article on the homepage of FIDESZ, the name of Juncker is incorrectly spelled since the 2nd June) the opposition in more popular terms: he repeated the antifederalist argument, that the interests of the nation states should be represented in the EU, but then recalled that during the government Juncker in Luxembourg, Hungary was significantly attacked. He called Asselborn, then foreign minister of Luxembourg the member of Juncker's party (which he is not) and also recalled that Viviane Reding attacked the Hungarian media law. Which in fact she didn't, she did deplore other laws which were more in her remit as European Commissioner and in this quality not reporting to Juncker. The latter mentioned this is his response.
Angela Merkel still appears to support Juncker, but left herself a back door: whe does not want to lose Britain for the EU. About this discussion next time.

What happened in Hungary's elections?

Weel, the facts are simple: the governing FIDESZ-KDMP won another election. It is second time that a governing party wins an election. We do not know until Sunday whether they will have the two-third majority necessary to amend the Constitution and the so-called "cardinal laws" (electoral, police etc. - they extended the scope of questions to be regulated by two-third majority to make it diffcult for the next government to eliminate their legacy). But there is a fair chance. As one who trusted that in spite of the strongly biaised election system and limited publicity afforded to the opposition, the hungarian electorate is sufficiently unsatisfied and politically active to vote for the finally united opposition(I will call them opposition alliance) - of course except the extreme right and LMP, which is the fourth party in Parliament, a green antiglobalist, human rights grouping. So I cannot say that the result was inevitable. Others, who predicted the victory of FIDESZ, are now looking for scapegoats which is also not a coherent behaviour. There were reports from small irregularities which could influence the result (in one district the municipality closed into a room whose door had been then welded, all voting slips while waiting for the votes to arrive from abroad - here there is verys little difference between the two main candidates). The votes of Hungarians without a fixed residence in Hungary (who could voty by letter and the authenticity of whose votes are very difficult to verify) could mean an additional parliamentary seat - all these count for the two thirds. But the fact is that 39% of the citizens did not care to vote. Out of those who voted, about 45% voted for FIDESZ, 26 for the united opposition alliance, 21% for the ultra-right Jobbik. There are some strange things: anly two (or three) constituencies could be won by the opposition alliance in the countryside while half of the Budapest constituencies were von by them. What is the big, decisive difference between the capital and the big cities? In one district, the reigning mayor lost. There were two strong candidates against him (which seemed to be the recipe for failure of the opposition alliance): an independent one who had a high profile as he was the ex-employee of the tax office who publicised a huge cheating scandal covered up ba the tax office and a candidate for the socialist party, who was involved in some embezzling scandal before. And, surprise: the socialist candidate won. So what can I offer as explanation? There are two differences between Budapest and the countryside: Accessibility of information and closeness of people. No wonder tha those who have no access to the Internet or do not use it for information and can access only the public broadcasters and the main commercial tv stations (and eventually the two tv stations controlled by FIDESZ) have no real picture of what is going on in the country. Their deterioration of livng standard and comfort is not attributed to the bad policies of the government as it began under the previous government(s) and they are convinced that a new government will also demand sacrifices. But they beleive the overall positive picture suggerated by these stations. They cannot by independent newspapers or don't care. The voting can be surveyed more closely and, sorry to say, manipulation is easier. There were constituancies where the number of invalid votes was equal to the advantage of the government candidate. Placing posters was deliberately made difficult for the opposition by different means - and the rules changed continuously - while the governing party could make use of their NGO and of government propaganda which neither was subject to the limitations. No party advertisement was possible in the commercial media (as it should have been offered free and none undertook that - while ATV, which is close to the opposition alliance, was fined for transmitting political propaganda (by giving speeches from an election manifestation) without registering its intent to do so in advance. In some marginal constituencies the phantom parties could also tilt the balance, although they received few votes. Two of them bore names resemblling those used by the opposition alliance. The circumstances under which these small parties collected the signatures necessary to post candidates were more than doubtful - some of them received fewer votes than signatures. Some commentators revived the theories that the unification of the opoosition alliance resulted in loss of votes as the different constituents were alienating each-other's voters. There was no strong message - and no way to get the message home to the people, due to the communication difficulties outlined above. The result is now there - what to make of it, no one except the government knows.

Is it a saga or a soap opera? How far can the Hungarian opposition play with the trust of its prospective voters?

There are a number of topics in my head to write about but the developments in the latest days have overwritten all. The question of the last moves of the opposition movements was always, how they can win the hesitating voters without losing their faithful ones. And this is getting hmmm... - but judge yourselves On the proposal of Gyurcsány, the most controversial figure in the opposition, a common festive mass meeting/demonstration has been organised to commemorate the anniversary of the 1956 revolution (which is at the moment one of the constitutive elements of Hungarian political identity). This with the background that the Hungarian Socialist Party (the main governing party between 2002 and 2010, suffering a grave defeat in 2010 and whose prime minister Gyurcsány was till Bajnai took over for the last year or so just to put the budget and the economy in order - which he did - without further political ambitions) and the movement of Bajnai signed their co-operation agreement, leaving Gyurcsány's party (called Democratic Coalition) out, citing overblown demands of the latter. Since support for Gyurcsány is growing fast. They even said that the Gyurcsány-fans will want to remove Orbán and the FIDESZ and therefore will vote for whoever has a realistic chance to do it. Gossip and speculation was abound that this is all tactics and they will agree with Gyurcsány at the end. Gyurcsány actually hinted strongly that the party finances of the MSzP were coming from dubious sources during their government years. And a fake video was apparently made by a Democratic Coalition "footsoldier" and given to an MSzP middle-level "officer" on which roma were discussing voting for FIDESZ in exchange of money and other perks on an intermediate election. Meanwhile, liberal movements with no real following that mushroomed in the years since the demise of SzDSz, the "official" liberal party, which was the junior partner in Gyurcsány's government and totally disintegrated after the - for them totally lost - 2010 elections. A conservative party also emerged under Bokros, the finance minister in the 1994-98 socialist-liberal governments two.year period when they followed austerity policies, economically very successful but politically disastrous. So, the speakers on the demonstration were the following: Bajnai first, then two ex-liberals - one of the Kuncze, who was minister and head of SzDSz for most of its heyday and declared before not having political ambitions but having a programme on Klubrádió, the emblematic radio of the opposition, mainly MSzP-leaning. Aftern them, Bokros, Gyurcsány and finally Attila Mesterházy, the president of the MSzP. Bajnai is not a charismatic leader and a dull speaker but has good thoughts and is speaking in earnest. So he was no surprise. The three following speakers all mentioned the need to co-operate to oust Orbán and then Gyurcsány showed his best form - he is charismatic,clever but some fear that his reputation as prime minister (he failed in getting through his plans and was always very outspoken but a Josephinist politician, not able to win support for his policies in his party's own ranks which may be the mistake of the "ranks" also) and the result of the propaganda against him in all FIDESZ media - which now includes the public media also - he scares away more uncertain voters than he brings. He was passionately arguing for and alliance of all opposition forces. And then, during the speech of Mesterházy, the audience started to shout demanding the alliance. Mesterházy did not give in, he calmed the crowd and finished his speech while people were leaving and he earned a scant applause only. After the event, explanations were raised and insults exchanged, I spare you this. The question was still there: what will those people do, who want Orbán and the FIDESZ to go but would like to have a wider front. And whether this narrower front - Bajnai's unifying reputation being tarnished by the events - will get sufficient votes to win. A little explanation to Bajnai: he wanted to form an umbrella organisation which would be neutral enough to enable that all opposition parties and movements can join in without having to lose their character. But then FIDESZ changed the election law to make such a solution impossible. Then Bajnai started a party from three different parts and started negotiating the alliance with the other parties. To add insult to injury (and thus cutting short a lot of the afterthoughts of the events on the demonstration) The party of Bajnai declared its support for and participation on the "March of the Székelys" for autonomy of Transylvania. Without going into the details on Hungarians in Romania, I can only say that the decision made huge waves - almost a tsunami - in Hungary. The main organisers of this march are the extreme right parties and movements and FIDESZ is also participating. So joining them is a great blow to those, who think that Hungary should not interfere this way with the neighbouring countries. Rational arguments are also there: Orbán gave Hungarian nationality to Hungarians living abroad and voting rights (although only half, but this can be extended if found as discriminatory by the Constitutional Court) to them (a slight simplification was inevitable here). Now, the Romanian State is asked to give autonomy to an area where foreign citizens also voting in their second country are concentrated. And already a number of high-profile members left Bajnai's movement for that. MSzP, however, voiced its support. These moves are also diametrical to Gyurcsány's point of view - that Hungarians should not interfere with state affairs of Romania but they support autonomy and reject double citizenship in its form given by Hungary and the voting rights of citizens outside Hungary. Heated discussion is going on on different fora about the decision of Bajnai. Many followers reject it, even saying they will not vote for them. On the other hand, the choice of those who want change in Hungary, is not easy if Gyurcsány remains separate. There is a chance that his support grows. But it will not reach the support of Bajnai and the MSzP together. And therefore the latter two have a greater chance to send Orbán away. Will voters vote for them and abandon Gyurcsány out of tactics? Or will voters rather vote for Gyurcsány? How much are voters bound to accept? Is the support of Bajnai and the MSzP for the nationalist movement bring new votes at all? It may, as voters who have national ideas but see the tragic direction in which Orbán leads the country, can be lured. But till now, they were told that the opposition is ant-national. Is it easy to change their perception? An explanatory note: the Hungarian elections will be decided in the individual constituencies, where the one who has the most votes will immediately win the mandate, however low the participation is.

A strategy for the Hungarian opposition?

First of all a fast summary of what happened recently on the opposition landscape: - Talks are slowly starting between MSzP and Együtt 2014 - Mesterházy, president of the MSzP was more diplomatic concerning his candidacy for prime minister in an interview - The hassle around the name of the Party of Bajnai, Együtt-2014 continues - New attacks were launched against Bajnai - LMP received the right to keep its faction in the Parliament. Some main events in Hungarian politics and the economy: - The tobacconist saga continues with new leaks about who from friends and relations (in the Hungarian translation of "Winnie the Pooh": "Friends, relations and business partners") - well, not of Rabbit but of the FIDESZ notabilities won tobacconist concessions - The new land law has been voted and Ángyán, one of the main agricultural eminences in FIDESZ, who became outrightly critical to the land policy and the distribution of rental rights on state-owned land to "friends, relations and business partners" who have nothing to do with agriculture, left FIDESZ in response - The merger of the National Bank and the Financial Supervision is progressing and the head of the latter -who is set to lose his job or at least his power even when he was the most faithful executioner during the first FIDESZ government of foreign banks who helped companies in transactions the government didn't like - wrote an open letter to the president of the Supreme Court (recently renamed to Kuria to be able to get rid of the previous president) calling the attention of the judges to the danger to the economy if the loan contracts tied to foreign currency would be declared "en masse" invalid. It is a little strange that the basis of this invalidation would be the laws on financial services he helped to forge. - The minister of the national economy (also fulfilling the tasks of the finance minister) announced a new round of austerity measures (forgetting to announce one of them) in spite that the EU liberated Hungary from the excessive deficit procedure under which it was since it joined the EU. Debates started immediately whether this is to enable the government to relax spending and start "bribing" voters with spending - some bribes were already distributed in the form of cutting utility prices but the extent is small till now - or just to cover the losses to the budget coming from bad planing and delay of some revenues (like e-toll for trucks and the tax revenue expected from connecting the cash tellers of all shops electronically to the computers of the Tax Office). What is the context? About the actors: Everybody knows probably that FIDESZ is the governing party (having and utilising, one may say abusing 2/3 majority in the Hungarian Parliament). - MSzP is the main opposition party if we look at the number of members of Parliament or at the results of surveys. It is also the party which was in government for the 8 years before the 2010 elections, in coalition with the liberals, whose SzDSz party practically disappeared and no measurable successor has appeared yet on the stage. - Együtt 2014 is a new formation, which was intended to be an NGO as an umbrella organisation for the alliance of opposition parties who want to defeat FIDESZ in the 2014 elections. They have foreseen to nominate the unique opposition candidate in the "first past the post" individual constituencies while the parties could go independently for the votes in the proportional part of the elections (as all voters have two votes, an individual for a candidate of their constituency and one for party lists - there are some other details which I will ignore for the moment). Immediately the election law was changed to exclude the possibility of NGOs nominating candidates. The organisation is lead by Gordon Bajnai, short-time prime minister of Hungary for about a year before the 2010 elections, who took over without long-term ambitions, i.e. he was not going to be a candidate in the elections 2010. He put the budget and the economy back on track after the combined devastating effect of the 2008 crisis and the spending spree between 2002 and 2006 and the aborted attempts by Gyurcsány for austerity and reform at the same time from 2006. These attempts triggered an unprecedented series of demonstrations which peaked in the months-long occupation of Kossuth square, the square in front of the Parliament which was also scene of emblematic demonstrations during the 1956 revolution. Another climax was when the 23rd of October, the anniversary of the 1956 revolution, police had to dissipate forceful demonstrations, which (it is debated, by whose fault) mingled with the masses of the anniversary celebration of FIDESZ (set in a place which had no relationship to the revolution at all but was dangerously close to the place where the forceful demonstrators were stopped in order not to be able to get to the Parliament). As a consequence, participants of the FIDESZ-organised event were also attacked and hurt by police. - LMP, a grassroots green - left - liberal party, which surprisingly won seats in the Parliament in 2010 (their name is the abbreviation of the slogan: Politics can be different), split along the line whether to co-operate with Együtt 2014. Those who favoured co-operation, left the party and were denied the right to form a faction in Parliament (just like the faction who left MSzP with Gyurcsány at their helm) while those who wanted to go alone into the elections 2014 kept the name LMP. Why all this? The election law modified by FIDESZ (and introducing a smaller Parliament which was already a promise by Gyurcsány but he couldn't assemble a 2/3 majority behind his propositions) foresees a higher proportion of individual constituency seats but even in the previous system, individual constituencies were the key to success. Before, however, if no candidate attained absolute majority, the candidates with the most votes had to face each-other in a second round, and also here, an absolute majority was needed. If less than 50% of the voters voted in a constituency, the round was invalid. Now, there is no such limit, and the candidate with a relative majority wins the seat, there is no second round. Before, votes cast in a constituency for the losing candidates were counted towards a compensating list, thus they had, if only a lower, value. Now, this system has been complemented with one where the votes cast for the winning candidate in a constituency, also count toward this compensation which also increases the importance of individual constituencies. Given that according to surveys, most of the voters have no party preferences, or do not intend to vote, in case of a low turnout and several opposition candidates, FIDESZ (who amalgamated all parties on the "right" (at least for: MDF, KDMP, FKGP, MDNP - no importance who they WERE - except the extreme right Jobbik) can win a huge parliamentary majority even with a low proportion of the votes (if there are three opposition parties including Jobbik, with 25%), not to talk about the proportion to voters overall. Therefore unity of opposition is crucial. OK, if this is trivial for everybody, why no opposition unity? In my opinion, there are two main reasons (apart from personal controversies), one of principle and one of tactics. As Orbán put his party practically outside the normal political spectrum, the opposition covers all political streams. Classical right wing (i.e. pro-market, libertarian which build on individual incentive and the responsibility of the individual) have no great popularity in Hungary. But still, the co-operation of parties from the most various ideologies and social models is necessary. And a close co operation, meaning even possibly (see the second reason below) uniting in one party. And they have to formulate a programme in common. A programme which is reasonable, coherent, acceptable for the opinion leaders and experts and at the same time one with which they can win elections against a populist propaganda - and deeds - of the governing party, in a media space which is outright unfavourable for them (I will return to that in another post soon - talking about the Tavares-report and Viviane Reding). On the other hand, FIDESZ has the possibility to change any law it wants, within days (and has done so, if necessary, see above). So if the way the opposition wants to shape its co-operation gets known, this way of co-operation will immediately forbidden or strongly disadvantaged. AS parties who have joint candidates in individual constituencies already are in distribution of the "compensation" votes (explained above). I mentioned personal controversies. It is taken for granted, that the opposition has to have one candidate for prime minister (who would believe in co-operation if they had more? I think even more sophisticated voters than the Hungarians would not be able to follow this - even I was stuck now when I tried to spell out this solution although I just raised it) and of course both the president of MSzP as Bajnai announced their ambition (what would an opposition leader without a PM ambition be like?). So that's why the flexibility shown by Mesterházy is important. Although no one precisely knows how the voters think (there is talk about this or that politician or party causing voters of another one in alliance with him/her/it not to vote for the common candidates), and there are undoubtedly risks in naming a candidate, the politically conscious population on the Internet (Facebook and commenters on blogs) mostly trust Bajnai most. His movement organises meetings al over the country, has a Facebook presence and is (just like MSzP, of course) an unavoidable component of the opposition co-operation. So it is not easy, but if opposition politicians and voters will look for what joins them, and not what separates, they may be able to get to a solution.

Together - Együtt 2014

Good news - Bad news. I'm afraid mostly bad news today. The co-operation platform launched the 23rd October (see my post ) was never promised to have an easy way. Its founder Gordon Bajnai, being an ex-minister in the Gyurcsány-government, prime minister thereafter, was exposed to "character murder" pinpointing a past business failure which harmed a number of small entrepreneurs who sold to the company - the links of Bajnai to the company then are up for discussion but he won a number of lawsuits on the topic which cleared him personally - that the comp,any was due to pay indemnities is no surprise as no one doubts it owed money but bankruptcy is the situation where you cannot pay and limited liability companies are invented to stop the failure of a business to cripple its owners. The panic caused among the ruling party (formally parties) is the good news, and also that the movement achieved the political sympathy rating which in votes would be needed to get into parliament (5%) within days is the good news. Its manifesto was signed by a number of personalities who have credibility (including the founder of the "Danube circle" or Duna-kör, which was one of the cores of the resistance during communism, taking up the symbolic case of the Bős-Nagymaros dam. However, one can hear voices that the signatories are "people of the bad socialist regime" - not the one before 1990 but the "pasteightyears" as FIDESZ likes to condemn. Here the bad news starts. But there are only two people among the signatories who were politicians and both were in the back lines, in particular during the Gyurcsány-government, actually both tied to the smaller partner, the liberal SzDSz. Some days after the announcement of the start of the movement as an association, FIDESZ changed the draft election law under discussion (well, this was an exaggeration) in Parliament to forbid for associations to participate in the elections. This is a sign of their panic, referred to above. Furthermore, the election campaign will be shortened and the media available for election advertisements limited to the public service media (i.e. commercial tv which is watched really is excluded) and to open air posters (in which area FIDESZ-friendly enterprises have a dominant position). Now this can be regarded already a significant limitation of citizens' rights in my opinion. A package of more than 200 modification proposals was submitted by one member of the FIDESZ and half a day was given to the MPs to read, discuss and agree in the factions. The debate was very short and - as is usual for critical issues - scheduled for late night. That's why I called the term "discussed" an exaggeration. Of course private individuals or associations can submit private advertisements which have nothing to do with the elections (but expect a scrutiny by friendly attorneys and courts - here setting the retirement age for judges will serve well). So did a pseudo-civil forum start an ad on buses (look at the picture) (of the Budapest Transport Company which is also managed by political appointees) depicting Bajnai and Gyurcsány together, with the text "they ruined the country together" etc. Some facts about the association: its president, who also organised the pro-government "Peace march" also mentioned in my 23rd October article, is also chairman of the committee distributing the government funds for civil associations (NGO's) and the association received government subsidies this year. So is this election advertising? And finally, the congress of LMP (Politics can be different), the anti-globalist green and human-rights-oriented party, which came from nowhere into Parliament (a nice feat in the Hungarian system) in 2010, refused to co-operate with the movement of Bajnai. The decision was more diplomatic, of course: the congress empowered the leaders to start talks about anything except joining. The also new 4K! (fourth republic - the present one is called the third) welcomed the decision which they took before. This formation is brand new, was created by secession from Milla ("a million for the freedom of Hungarian press", a movement which started on Facebook, achieved about a hundred thousand likes but staged several successful demonstrations - one of these was the 23rd October referred to above where Bajnai announced starting the movement Együtt 2014 (Together 2014, latter being the year of the next elections). Its leader said that they want to resemble most the Scandinavian social democrats, thus they also have a left-wing programme. So two new formations refused co-operation. 4K! could be considered irrelevant (their reaction to the announcement of president Barroso on a federal Europe simply was that they also require the harmonisation of social systems - in a tone as if they were an important political player in a powerful member state and also ignoring that this is to some extent already the case. The "loss" of LMP is also more a loss of image for the new movement as this step may cost LMP more voters than the new movement. The head of the parliamentary faction and his deputy immediately resigned, calling the decision irresponsible and unrealistic both for the party and for the country. Their announcement was greeted with loud "hurray"-s and applause probably by the 77 who voted against the decision (97 voted for). The diplomatic formulation of the decision leaves a small opening to return but already called disappointing comments from some blogs and commenters on websites and also on Facebook.

23 October in Hungary

We are living in challenging times aren't we? To increase the enthusiasm of its followers who staged a demonstration the 21st January to support them and to show that Hungary does not want to be a colony (whoever wants to colonise it - there is a joke that all alliances which were joined by Hungary have collapsed and the EU is also in big trouble now), the rumour was raised that if this "Peace march" had not taken place, the EU (or the IMF, you never know who is the actual enemy) would have caused his demise. So as the January march was a response to the opposition demonstration (the biggest and most successful of its type since long), now they staged a second "Peace march" simultaneously to the opposition demonstration on the anniversary of the 1956 revolution (or was it a late reaction on the also successful March 15 opposition demonstration?). This time Van Rompuy was favouring Orban (last year he called a European Council meeting for the 23rd October and thus Orbán could not speak on the FIDESZ/government demonstration and therefore the whole demonstration was cancelled) and so he could be the main orator on the government festive assembly, which was also the final point of the "Peace marchers". Let me save you - and myself - from commenting on the numbers and on the foreign participants and those who were bussed from the countryside from our taxes. It was more interesting what happened on the opposition demonstration and around it: Gordon Bajnai, the ex-prime minister of Hungary, whose face is like that of a young pioneer, and who never was a big orator, but "blackmailed" the government (socialist and liberal) factions of the previous Hungarian Parliament to support his almost neo-liberal austerity programme - simply putting the Hungarian budget back on track by avoiding the collapse of the budget. It is forgotten that meanwhile he could also set up a programme to collect memories of still living witnesses of the 1956 revolution and the times around it. He was a businessman before, and this makes him vulnerable to "character murder" by distributing rumours that a failure of one of his ventures was pushing his suppliers to commit suicide as he did not pay them. As FIDESZ follows left-wing policies and almost the whole opposition is leftist, quite a number of opposition forces are at most moderately enthusiastic about him as prospective leader of the opposition. Why should he? Because the election laws were thwarted by FIDESZ in a way that - there is no lower participation limit to the validity of elections and - there is no second round. This means that even if most of the voters do not vote, the candidate winning the most votes will take the constituency. Thus the opposition has to have a single candidate and convince those who do not like the present government, but are disappointed with politics as such or do not like the common candidate (who can represent only one of the divergent opposition forces) to go voting and vote against FIDESZ. Additionally, most probably only those will be able to vote, who register in advance. About this another time but this means that only citizens with a strong conviction and ready to take some inconvenience on them will vote which decreases the chances of the opposition. I do not agree, however, with those who look at the divergences and reservations with horror: it is maybe better not to lay all cards on the table. If a strong opposition unity will be visible, the government may change the election system again, quoting the critics, and use the fact that they are formally two parties, to favour themselves again. So challenging times now? Rather ahead of us,

Votewatch: how the Council votes

Votewatch.eu has now started to follow votes in the Council although this is much more difficult. Surprising results: not only the U.K. but also Germany and Austria frequently voted against the majority (29, 16 and 16%, respectively). The U.K. actually also voted most against these two states and vice versa. The countries with the fewest "No" votes in the last three years (of which two were under the "liberation war" government of Viktor Orban) were Lithuania, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Luxembourg, Romania and Slovakia. As far as Hungary is concerend, out of 10 negative votes, 2 fall to the period of the Orban government. The votes recorded are only final formal votes where the motion was accepted. Of course, "no" votes in case of rejected motions would count to be majority votes anyway. It also has to be noted that 65% of votes where a qualified majority was sufficient, unanimity was nevertheless achieved. (analysis based on European Voice

Voting patterns in the European Parliament - Hungarians among the illoyals

Do members of the European Parliament (MEPs) vote according to their national interests or their party affiliation? My experience which draws on reading a number of committee amendment proposals to legislation, suggests that professional convictions also play a significant role. On the other hand, decision-making is largely consensual, so the differences in opinion are not necessarily visible in the votes.

The voting behaviour in the EP was subject to two analyses recently:
The Robert Schuman Foundation of France published a two-part report (http://www.robert-schuman.eu/question_europe.php?num=qe-189 and http://www.robert-schuman.eu/ question_europe.php?num=qe-190 while VoteWatch, an independent monitoring organisation, which collects and publishes interesting statistics on its website and also regularly reports on voting behaviour investigated in the first semester of 2011 the dynamics of voting behaviour in the three largest groups in the European Parliament. Their results were also reported in European Voice, a weekly on European affairs. The full report on power in the EP covers the period between 2009 and 2011. I draw the conclusions below from these two reports.

On the website of VoteWatch, also the loyalty of individual members is investigated and it can be seen that their loyalty is above 90% both with their party group and their national majority. This supports the idea outlined above that voting is largely consensual. One more factor has to be kept in mind: there are a number of votes which are not roll-call, so the voting behaviour in them cannot be analysed. This was the case when the motion about the new Hungarian Constitution was voted upon. The evaluation of the politics of the Hungarian government is one of the most controversial issues under discussion (you could even say that the FIDESZ party could polarise the European Parliament to an unprecedented level as they did so already with Hungarians). The vote was won with more than 50% of those present, 331 votes. Although this is mathematically possible without any EPP (to which FIDESZ belongs) vote, the proportions indicate at least that the EPP, the ECR (another centre-right, somewhat more eurosceptic grouping), the eurosceptics and the far right could have blocked the resolution.

Roll call votes can be initiated by the party groups and are usually enhancing
voting discipline but - in case of a difficult decision, can also lead to MEPs not voting, writes the Schuman foundation. Thus, there is no regularity in which question is put to a roll call vote and which one is not. Roll call votes are about one third of the total voting procedures. Since 2009, however, all legislative proposals must be approved by roll call voting (according to the internal regulations of the European Parliament.

Based on 16 votes in the first year of the legislative 2009-2014, the Schuman
foundation concludes in general that the right-left divide plays a smaller role in the European Parliament than on national level, as it coexist with the national affiliations, its role is increasing. There is also another divide: those who favour and those who oppose the enhancement of European integration. This line of course also extends between parties but is still not the same.
There is another trend: increase of the power of the Parliament through the Lisbon treaty has - in the opinion of the foundation - led to an increase of the role of national interests in voting.

The mixture of national and party (ideological) affiliations can lead to strange phenomena: European Voice concludes, for example, that French, Italian and Hungarian delegations in the centre-right EPP are more aligned with the S&D (social-democrat) group than other national delegations. "Among the seven largest national party delegations in the EPP, the Hungarian FIDESZ has voted with the majority least often (95%)." states the VoteWatch report. The biggest deviation was in the area of agriculture, where FIDESZ voted only 69% of the time with the rest of the group. On the other hand: "In the EPP, the highest degree of similarity in voting behaviour between leaders of the largest national party delegations has been between heads of the Polish and the Hungarian delegations." writes the report. European Voice also mentions environment and public health as points of dissent. The Hungarian delegation in other political groups is small and thus their behaviour is not analysed.

As there is no political group with absolute majority, coalitions have to be formed. These are nicely described in European Voice. The consequence I want to mention here is that the liberals seem to tilt the balance in many cases and they were the ones who were on winning side of votes the most frequently.

European Voice also draws conclusions on the dominance of some national delegations in the main political groups. The EPP and the S&D are dominated by the Germans. They form the right wing of the group, together with the Spanish Partido Popular. In the S&D group, the British - being to the right in the group - vote less with the group (this, however, still means 90% loyalty). The influence of the German FDP in the liberal ALDE group was limited due to the fact that the party is the furthest to the right of the group and prefers voting with the EPP. The most rebellious delegation, however, is the French MoDem, to the left of the group in a political sense.

If we add that most decisions are taken together with the Council, where consensus-building is also the rule but qualified majority voting is gaining ground, and that only the Commission has the right to propose legislative acts, a complex mechanism of decisionmaking is unfolding. No wonder it is so badly understood and can be the scapegoat for decisions the national politicians do not want to present to their constituencies.