mutantsushi said:
Is that how they actually dealt with seat apportioning? I mean, UK leaving or not itself doesn't per se necessitate apportionment changes, AFAIK. It seems the simplest and least disruptive approach is just having less MEPs if/when UK does leave. I'm not even sure how additional seats would be handled for some countries, that use systems like single-transferable-vote rather than real proportionality. I believe the "potential vacancy" of UK MEP seats was actually a feature, in that it allows for potential new members (Yugoslav & Balkans) to receive their seat allotment without going over treaty limit for total. That UK MEPs might potentially actually occupy these seats for short period of time doesn't seem problematic, the entire idea was that those seats could be filled or empty, it doesn't matter because the EP total size isn't fixed by law it just has max limit and rules on each country's seats that are flexible within treaty guidelines.
That story or "media event" is so sketchy, few seem interested to ask deeper question, beyond scandal story and emotions tied to political tribe.. I mean, it happened 2 years ago yet only "leaked" now. The story is framed as if "Russia collusion" happened or would have happened, yet that part of "story" was 100% fabricated: the plot chosen by those who set up the sting. Probably most people do think the fascist party implicated in it is the main story, but of course it also perpetuates meta-narratives which influence opinion as much or more than particular factual details. I remember "leaked surveillance recordings" showing criminality in "North Macedonian" government, with similar dynamic. In that case involving telephone conversation recordings, and of course we know the US and UK have extensive sureveillance capabilties in those areas, including hacking Belgian Telcom etc. Again similar to case with Austrian fascists, those surveillance tapes showing corruption weren't published for many years, somebody was just holding on to them i.e. maintaining silence about criminality, until they decided it was useful to publicize them... via media who doesn't care about those questions. How many other corrupt politicians have damning recordings on them that aren't being released? That's alot of power that isn't being questioned, and these are not legal investigations overseen by judiciary. Context for this is things like UK Integrity Init with evidence showing mass-scale political-media influence operations. How is governments, media and NGOs infiltrated by US/UK intelligence assets not as important as these corruption scandals, how is UK intelligence assets mobilizing to change Spanish FM nomination not a scandal? Ofc, it just runs a little to hot to handle for MSM, when that sort of thing runs deep in history especially during Cold War, if they start going after NATO intelligence assets that involves alot of people in high places. |
Yeah, well, the apportioning of the seats is something that seems to be a bit complicated. Wikipedia says:
The EU needed to revise the apportionment of seats in time for the next European Parliament election, expected to be held in May 2019, when the United Kingdom's 73 MEPs may have vacated their seats following Brexit. In April 2017, a group of European lawmakers discussed what should be done about the vacated seats. One plan, supported by Gianni Pittella and Emmanuel Macron, was to replace the 73 seats with a pan-European constituency list; other options were to drop the British seats without replacement, or to reassign some or all of the existing seats from other countries to reduce inequality of representation.
In February 2018, the Parliament approved a plan to reduce the number of seats to 705. It involves redistributing 27 seats to under-represented members, and reserving the remaining 46 for future EU expansion. The proposal to create a pan-European constituency was rejected at the same time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apportionment_in_the_European_Parliament#2019_election
And you don't need to worry about ow to fill the seats. In elections for the european parliament all countries have to use a proportional election system, even if they are using usually a majority system (like France).
And yeah, the stuff surrounding the Ibiza video is a bit sketchy. I would add, that it is strange that german news outlets published the story, not austrian.
