Updated with some preliminary results:

Wins/losses:

source: https://election-results.eu/

**********************

Currently (since Thursday) the election for the european parliament is underway. This election is kinda interesting, as a lot of changes are underway.

With Britain leaving (any time now…) the seat distribution between the countries may change. But as long as Britain is still part of the european union, the composition stays the same. So it might happen, that the parliament is in session with some people, then Britain leaves some countries (especially France and Spain) gain seats and new representatives enter.

The german speaking countries are also in uproar. In Austria we have the Ibiza video coming into the public shortly before the election. In germany a youtuber released days before the election a video attacking harshly the biggest parties. Normally nobody would care about something someone rants on Youtube, but this time it had impact, big media outlets covered this and the parties scrambled to debunk the stuff - and made it worse.

Projections see massive losses for the biggest blocs, european peoples party (conservatives) and Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (social democrats). Liberals are gaining.

Here some informations:

• https://www.politico.eu/2019-european-elections/
• https://europeelects.eu/ep2019/
• https://ig.ft.com/european-parliament-election-polls/

What do you think about all this?

Mehr Proll wagen!

Yeah, but not so much the members of european parliament (although there are enough morons), but mostly thorugh the german government and the european commission.

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. I mean, it happened 2 years ago yet only "leaked" now, nobody thinks who how or why sting was conducted is important. The story is framed as if "Russia collusion" actually 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.

EDIT: The media promulgating it conceal it's provenance in name of "protecting source" which is absurd, as "protecting source" applies to leaker acting against organizational obligations, who would personally get in trouble, be fired etc. If the staging and publicization of "sting" was all part of consistent agenda, there is no reason to protect source because identity and agenda of that source can be just as relevant. Which was exact premise of "Russia hacking" allegation when Clinton/DNC corruption leaks were published, the agenda/identity of those who (allegedly) facilitated revealing the info was considered equal or more of a story than the content.

I remember "leaked surveillance recordings" showing criminality in "North Macedonian" government, with similar dynamic (albeit less entrapment angle). 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.

Well I do know Ireland ,including as well Northern Ireland despite being in UK, use "single transferrable vote" which is formally allowed to count as proportional, even though it isn't really . Which seems like it would at least be alot more complicated to add an extra MEP, considering anybody they add may lead to existing MEPs not supposed to win? Anyhow, I'm pretty sure Britain leaving after EP election wouldn't lead to other countries getting extra seats, the total number of seats is allowed to fluctuate quite a bit.

This does remind me of the irony of Brexit, with the major party promoting it - UKIP and now Brexit Party - being given best venue to grow only via proportional list elections for the EP, when the UK's own 1-seat district system (which isn't even 2-stage or STV) marginalizes smaller parties, and routinely yields Parliament majorities without popular majority backing. Which you'd think would make them more question the democratic failings of their own system and try to fix that, before worrying about "undemocratic EU". Or for that matter, ask why their government can't manage a more detailed referendum process to find the largest consensus on what kind of Brexit to pursue (say, thru a ranked vote approach).

I'm not at all familiar with Austrian media, but I get impression German media is hyper "Atlanticist", more againt popular sentiment than with it, as well as exploited by NATO intelligence, so plenty willing to play their part. I mean, I think one major media company there has loyalty to NATO and Israel written into their corporate charter, which is insane. Not that I'm sympathetic to the fascist party or leader at all (plenty of rightwingers seems to comment here, so just clarifying), but like I said, they keep these sketchy guys around until it's convenient to turn on them. There's this Friends of Israel group tied to ex-Canadian PM Harper, ex-Spanish PM Aznar that openly cultivates far-right groups as long as they're "friends of israel" (not to mention the whole Ukrainian fascist thing). Or consider Japan, massive corruption mostly ignored by NATO media along with their permanent one-party-state with autocratic and fascist-revisionist tendencies... Just not interesting I guess... But did you see Theresa May's dress color? /s

Already voted for this European election (vote by letter)

The conservatives and Social Demcrats should remain the biggest parties. However, Eurosceptics could become the third power an wreak havok from within.

Apart from the Eurosceptics and the Liberals, I see a rise for more leftist and green parties. So, United Left - Nordic green Left (GUE-NGL), Green - European Free Alliance (Greens-EFA), and possibly the Party of the European Left may get a rising number of votes

Here in the Netherlands exit polls say our equivalent to the Labour Party has a big win after losing terribly in the last few elections. Though it appears that it wasn’t really a vote for the party but more one for a specific candidat, who’s also up for chairman of the EU. Geert Wilders’s Freedom Party lost badly, but another, new Eurosceptic party has managed to become a decent size.

Not sure about the eurosceptics. Seems like the EFFD and ENF will be dumped in favor of going together as EAPN and it seems the Brexit party is pretty successful in the UK. So this all makes it a bit complicated. In some projections I see Greens win stronger, in others only a few seats, so I didn't talk about them. But it seems Greens win big in Germany. GUE-NGL seem to lose even some seats.

I thought the EAPN was seperate to the other two, so I added those votes together. If that ain't the case, my bad.

And yes, GUE-NGL looks like it will be stable or loosing seats. If it does, I expect those to go to PEL instead, keeping a light movement to the left in general for the European election.