European parlement election, what will you vote?

[harSens]

I'm somewhat undecided, probably liberals though. I'm all for more efficient decision making (getting rid of vetos etc) and less protectionism (as in spending 40% of the European budget on sponsoring farmers).

 

[sub]

I know nothing about European parlement, but why would getting rid of Vetos be a good thing?

 

[Skiwan]

To be completely honest, I really don't know much about the European parliment, this is my fault for not reading the right newspapers often enough, but we hardly get any kind of coverage on such things here on TV, which is a shame. If anyone can point me to somewhere where I can read up on it, I'd be grateful, atm I just don't know what im voting for.

 

[harSens]

I know nothing about European parlement, but why would getting rid of Vetos be a good thing?

Because currently every country has the right to veto every decision, basically meaning that any somewhat important decision needs all countries to agree. This in turn leads to the EP deciding tons of unimportant stuff that can be handled nationally instead. I wouldn't mind getting rid vetos completely or at least reduce the amount of stuff vetos can be used on.

@David:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/public/default_en.htm

 

[Snowm@n]

I dont know who I will vote for, latelly socialists have prooven not to be very competent.

 

[Ness]

To be completely honest, I really don't know much about the European parliment, this is my fault for not reading the right newspapers often enough, but we hardly get any kind of coverage on such things here on TV, which is a shame. If anyone can point me to somewhere where I can read up on it, I'd be grateful, atm I just don't know what im voting for.

Didn't even know this was going on. Stopped watching the news after the media kept whinging at the MPs and speculating about Obama, with updates on the fabulous life of Jade Goody, and how they're making a musical about her life. What an age we live in.

 

[Dokutayuu]

I'm not eligible to vote . This is the first I've heard of this. The vet thing sounds good though.

 

[harSens]

For those wondering about the pirates:
http://www.piratpartiet.se/international/english
You can vote for them in Germany and Sweden, not sure about other countries.

 

[Snowm@n]

Get rid of the patent system?? I mean...cmon....encourage p2p?? I've heard little rumors about them, but I just came to a conclusion, they have unsustainable ideas. If you get rid of patent system, production will decrease and you'll have nothing to copy...

Prices can be set to certain values instead of implementing that law.

 

[Killface]

Wow.. uh.. is the whole "Conservative" approach dying? I don't see anything on here about republicans or conservatives. Is it just an American thing?

 

[Majin_You]

Wow.. uh.. is the whole "Conservative" approach dying? I don't see anything on here about republicans or conservatives. Is it just an American thing?

One of Canada's big five parties - and the current party leading the government, albeit a minority government - is the "Conservative Party of Canada", though, compared to the Republicans of our southern neighbors, they aren't quite as conservative. They used to be two separate parties - the Progressive Conservative Party, and the Reform Party (later renamed the Canadian Alliance Party); the PC's were fiscally conservative, but socially progressive, whereas the Alliance was both fiscally and socially conservative. The PC's started to lose a lot of support in the mid-to-late 90's for reasons I don't recall off the top of my head, so we lost that interesting mix of fiscal conservativism and democratic socialism. Now, we have the plain old tories who are your typical small government, fewer federally-controlled programs type.

Unlike the US, though, our votes are split between an additional four parties: NDP (New Democratic Party), the Liberal Party (much akin to the US Democrats, but, perhaps, more centrist in their approach, depending on who's leading the party), the Bloc Quebecois (who, obviously, only run in Quebec, and are a regional-interest party, so it puzzles me that they are represented in parliament...), and the Green Party of Canada (who, at the moment, have no elected representatives in parliament; they used to have a couple, but lost seats in the last federal election).

So, no, the US isn't the only governing body that has a clearly conservative choice available when election season rolls around. Other countries' conservative parties may or may not be as "conservative" as the Republicans, but they still exist, nevertheless.

 

[Killface]

Got it... thanks for clearing that up Maj. Sounds like i'd fit in well with the Canadian Alliance Party haha

 

[Prozac]

Liberals, for reasons already mentioned in this thread.

 

[harSens]

Wow.. uh.. is the whole "Conservative" approach dying? I don't see anything on here about republicans or conservatives. Is it just an American thing?

In Europe's many constitutional monarchies, republicanism would be associated with disbanding the monarchy, which is more like a view on this single topic (ironically, our socialist party is also pro-republic).

The Christian Democrats are conservative in their moral views, but centrist/leftist in their fiscal views (pro government sponsored stuff for Christians). The liberals are progressive morally and rightist fiscally. In the Netherlands, we don't really have a big party that represents the republican mix of conservative moral views and rightist fiscal views.