Talk:2004 European Parliament election

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Elections and Referendums

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Elections and Referendums, an ongoing effort to improve the quality of, expand upon and create new articles relating to elections, electoral reform and other aspects of democratic decision-making. For more information, visit our project page.Elections and ReferendumsWikipedia:WikiProject Elections and ReferendumsTemplate:WikiProject Elections and ReferendumsElections and Referendums articles

Candidates

I've deleted the list of candidates for one specific party as we are not including specific lists for other parties. Election law is quite clear on this that once the lists of candidates are published (which was today, in the UK anyway) then you must not be seen to favour one party / list / candidate over another and must promote each equally, unless you are promoting that party / list / candidate, in which case you must have an election imprint on the documents / websites / etc. Rather than create lists for every party it seems safer therefore to remove this one link. The country links would appear to meet the legal requirements. --VampWillow 10:57, 2004 May 15 (UTC)

I've had to do this again (twice). I am sure that users only have the best of reasons to want to list the candidates they support but unless it is signed off and has a proper imprint authorised by that party (and Wikipedia taking responsibility for it too). To list *all* the candidates for a particular country is fine ('equal weight') and to provide links to manifesto's without giving a list of policies on here is also acceptable, but to prioritise single parties can't be safely permitted (until after the ballot closes after the 13th) --VampWillow 10:06, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

For what it's worth I agree wholeheartedly. UK election law is now very strict on this - the alternatives are to provide equal weight to every party or none at all (or to include a party imprint). And we can't add them piecemeal - they have to go on either all in one go or not at all. Toby W 14:27, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

SFAIAA [So far as I am aware] most other European countries have similar legisltation or rules to our PPERA [Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act]. --VampWillow 15:20, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

MOVE

Could someone tell me the point of moving this page and its talk page to a new location with an additional comma? seems rather a waste of effort and, to some degree, pointless as as a search term or 'guess the link' entry the comma is unilikly to be there --VampWillow 23:27, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I moved the page because almost all other election pages on wikipedia are named this way. It's for standardization. --Jia ng 23:28, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Not sure I agree personally - have posted on Village Pump for wider comments though. --VampWillow 23:48, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Jiang's move, in the interests of standardisation (see List of election results -- the vast majority are like that). As long as the redirect's there (and it is, of course), there's no real harm done. –Hajor 01:40, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Results

I've removed the results posted for Nederlands. I dislike doing it but most countries haven't voted yet (only UK and NL) and it is illegal to publish these under EU law before Sunday night. The NL government can risk breaking this, I doubt that WP can --VampWillow 23:48, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Correct call, IMHO. (24% UK and 36% NL turnout!) –Hajor 01:40, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Tha's not really our problem, wikipedia can't give in to local censorship. The Wikimedia Foundation is registered in the USA and thus protected by the 1st Amendment to the american constitution. There's no need for us to be more sensitive to eu regulations, then, exempli gratia, to German or French ones (since there are no articles yet, they make it illegal to disscus certin aspects of national socialism and show nazi insignia).

The Dutch claim they can legally publish preliminary results, and in fact, these results include 'only' 99.1% of the votes, so they're not really final. But, there's not a really big chance any changes will occur. Netherlands threatened with court case... contains some more details. Taking in account the fact that Wikipedia is registered in the USA and the results have been published at quite some places already, I think it's safe enough to list these.

Well, I note that the BBC here haven't convered these 'interim' results and that publishing results in advance of the close of voting in the USA a few years ago resulted in GWB so certainly not an action to be recommended. The data was clearly entered from within the EU and whilst the 'legal' location of WP is the USA there are active plans in progress to register it in France and Germany (at least, I think Jimbo mentioned others too) which could be made more difficult by this publishing. I note that the above comments aren't signed and are from an IP address, which also makes me worry --VampWillow 09:56, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Was it only illegal for the government to publish those results or is it also illegal for individual citizens to spread them further, from what I read it would seem it's only the first one. As for plans to register in other countries, it would be really bad to learn post factum that the protection of freespeech is insufficent. Oh, and pray tell: why does it worry you the above comments are form an IP address?

From the brief mention that the NL government had done this on UK tv last night (the results themselves not being presented) it appeared that it was contrary to EU law for anyone to publish them, but IANAL. Why does the IP-only posting worry me? Simple. The worst form of censorship is self-censorship. By refusing to put your name to what you write, and hiding behind an IP address (which, btw. can quickly be shown to be in Portugal and thus subject to EU law), you fail the first test of transparency and free speech. Rumour and anonymous comments (which really amount to the same thing) are not 'free speech' as I understand them nor, I suspect, as most other people use the term. --VampWillow 11:10, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I'm sorry for not logging in, but for some reason Wikipedia does not remember me, or Firefox throws the cookies away (which it should not, because I allow cookies from Wikipedia), so almost every new browser window I open makes that I'm logged out. And in then I forget to sign in, if I make a small addition.
Nevertheless, the results are in newspapers, broadcasted by the public radio and television, and just about available everywhere. I therefore do not see the problems Wikipedia might get, because it is situated in the USA. The fact whether it's legal in the EU remains disputed, as I indicated with the link; for the time being, it seems safe for an American site to publish them.--Berteun 13:15, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Actually .pl is Poland (still under eu law and the results are openly disscused in state owned tv). Getting a login actually makes one more anonymous, not less. Anyone can register a fake login in a matter of seconds.

Sorry ... I misread it in that case (I do not have perfect eyesight). A login, when used consistently, allows others to judge you by your words over time. By not using one though one has to presume that you (a) made all the anon comments on this page - you have no straight-forward deniability available to you - and (b) that you are afraid to discuss the actual issues involved which, I note, you haven't done.

--VampWillow 16:28, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

seat vs percent

Seats and percent results have been merged:

But the meaning of the percent is not clear for countries where the election rule is not 100% pure proportional. Is Percent a percent of people voting or a percent of seats obtained?

For exemple:

In France a perty with less than 5% vote will have 0% seats.
In France, due to distrrict (circonscriptions) system, the percent should be altered.

The Dutch percentages don't add up to 100%, because some minor parties took about 6 or 7% of the votes, not enough for a seat. And these percentages are the percentages of votes they received. A party in the Netherlands has to receive 100/27 = ca. 3.7% to receive a seat. They cannot receive a seat with only 3.5%, but can receive two seats with 7.0%, because the remaining seats are given to those parties that have at least received one seat. But I suspect these rules to vary wildly from country to country.--Berteun 13:21, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, it is things like the D'Hondt rules and all the variations therefrom which cause us these problems in matching percentage vote with percentage seats. Also many (but not all) countries having a 'minimum' level to be reached to even be considered for a seat ... --VampWillow 15:33, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

So we should compute two percentages (in two different tables: one for vote, one for seats)?

We could, but I'm not sure it would add to the table in a useful sense and would almost certainly make it even more difficult to understand and it is quite difficult already for some people I think unless they are very 'into' elections as there would be a lot of info to add for each country (ie. psephologists only!). Might usefully be the basis of an analysis peice after all the votes are declared though on the subject of proportional voting methods in practice though? --VampWillow 15:46, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Results table

That results table is going to be a monster when it gets fuller. I suspect it'd be easier to read and manage if it was longer than wider -- ie, with the parties along the horizontal axis and the countries listed on the side. Does anyone agree? Does any table guru feel like flipping it? –Hajor 14:41, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I agree with you about the width (it already side-scrolls for me and I run wide to start with so hate to think what it does for others) - one of the problems with EU expansion probably! I suppose it might make sense to flip it, there being only 4/8 party groupings. Will see if I can do it off-line on a test page first --VampWillow 14:50, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Maybe we should also include voter turnout in the table?

table flipped and turnout column added. Another advantage of this is that it will make adding new results much easier as each country is now all together rather than split. Not sure why bgcolor stopped working though :-( --VampWillow 15:28, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Stout work, table guru! –Hajor

color

Are these colors ok for all european partys of all european countries of europe

EPP-ED                   blue/bleu 
PES                      pink/rose 
ELDR                     blue/bleu
Greens/EFA               green/vert
EUL/NGL                  red/rouge
UEN                      yellow/jaune
EDD                    ??
N.I.                   ??

In the new table, the colors are wores, arent they?

ELDR should be yellow. -- Kaihsu 12:11, 2004 Jun 14 (UTC)

At-a-glance table

I'd appreciate someone converting it into a real table. Also, adding fractions ('percentages') of total seats will be useful for comparison, as the total number of seats in the Parliament has changed. -- Kaihsu 12:11, 2004 Jun 14 (UTC)

May we have colours for the at-a-glance table as well, please? -- Kaihsu 22:13, 2004 Jun 14 (UTC)

I tried myself to add colour to the glance table but I have no idea what the table Wiki syntax is.... Someone else help please! -- Kaihsu 10:36, 2004 Jun 15 (UTC)

All right, now added colour. -- Kaihsu 13:37, 2004 Jun 15 (UTC)

Just calculated the fractions in the at-a-glance table, which tells a very different story from that presented in the BBC (at least).... Liberals and 'others' gain at the cost of formal far-left and far-right/eurosceptic groupings, and the socialists.... Who are these 'others'? Are they all new eurosceptic parties not in formal groupings yet? In any case, Kilroy-Silk's grouping actually suffered losses as it stands now -- so much for his wrecking plans.... -- Kaihsu 22:31, 2004 Jun 14 (UTC)

There is something fundamentally wrong with the data in the table -- the number of seats was increased, not reduced. (for example). We should use the correct data in the European Parliament article. ✏ Sverdrup 22:41, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

You're confused with the fact that the European Parliament was temporarily augmented with seats from the new member states (going from 626 to 788) before the elections (going from 788 to 732). -- Dissident (Talk) 23:01, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yep. ✏ Sverdrup 23:17, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I think the eurosceptic parties gained pretty significantly—a spot-check of the "others" grouping, who gained 22 seats, indicates that most of them are either eurosceptic or far-right (or both). I'd imagine they're not in a formal grouping either because nobody wants them (in the case of some of the more far-right parties), or because they don't want to join a pan-European grouping, seeing it as contrary to their pro-single-nation, anti-EU politics. A list of some of the parties in the "other" category is at Non-Inscrits. --Delirium 07:45, Jun 15, 2004 (UTC)

I'd guess most of those parties would end up in EDD, rather than the Non-Inscrits. Certainly UKIP were in that group before the elections and the article mentions that Junilistan intend to join the group. — OwenBlacker 10:34, Jun 15, 2004 (UTC)

Parties who fail to get a seat

I've just commented out a Slovenian party who failed to get a seat, as I'd suggest that the information isn't really relevant on a European level (such comments would seem more appropriate on a country-specific page, to me). I'm in two minds as to the percentages by party (see Slovenia's EPP/ED column); I'd suggest that the table would look better listing seats as 1+2+3+4, but percentages as an aggregate for each European Parliament grouping. Apart from anything else, the percentages are quite wide, so either stretch the column (if one omits spaces between the results) or stretch the row (if they wrap onto multiple lines). I'm not quite sure, though, as the data aren't really superfluous, just a little ugly (imho) and in a table that is already quite data-heavy. Opinions? :o) — OwenBlacker 21:55, Jun 14, 2004 (UTC)

I don't mind -- just make it nice! -- Kaihsu 22:07, 2004 Jun 14 (UTC)

Three Slovenian politicial parties were part of the EPP-ED, but only two of them made it into the European parliament. Should the percentage of the third one then be summed together with the winning ones or not? --Romanm 10:42, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Synchronizing and freezing

We should synchronize the 2 tables (at-a-glance and detailed), and then 'freeze' them (not protect, but an informal freeze) before the new European Parliament convenes and the parties start switching/joining groups. Subsequent changes should go into other articles such as European Parliament. -- Kaihsu 18:29, 2004 Jun 18 (UTC)

Agreed… to an extent. But I'm not sure what use it would be to keep the table which shows the number of MEPs elected to each group if those members never actually sat in those groups. Once we freeze the table, it will effectively show 'number of MEPs who would have sat in each group following the 2004 elections if those groups had remained as they were in the 1999-2004 term', which I'm not convinced is a very useful piece of information, to be honest. Toby W 08:28, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The election was organized more or less around the groups.... --Kaihsu 09:22, 2004 Jun 21 (UTC)

Sorry... what do you mean? Toby W

The national parties had group affinities at the election -- it can be hoped that the electorates actually noticed this and voted somewhat accordingly.... So it is meaningful to keep the groupings as they stand during the election.... -- Kaihsu 09:56, 2004 Jun 22 (UTC)

OK, I take your point. I'd be astonished if any more than a tiny fraction of UK voters could tell you which group their vote went to, but other countries may well be better informed. Toby W 14:09, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I can see your point, Kaihsu, about freezing the groupings at election time, but Toby W is definitely right, very few Brits would even know who the PES are, let alone that they might have voted for them. I'd suggest there's at least some merit in this article additionally showing the balance of party groupings once the Parliament actually sits and parties like UKIP work out where they want to be. To be honest, I'm not all that sure that the groupings as they stood during the election are all that valuable, but I don't think it's a bad thing to keep that table in too. — OwenBlacker 15:19, Jun 22, 2004 (UTC)

Labour is unlikely to switch from PES to any other grouping in this European Parliament, nor are the Tories going to leave EPP-ED anytime soon, right? The only shuffling will be amongst Ukip and the like. I say we freeze the tables here, and then in the article European Parliament, keep a table with a row having the immediate-post-election snapshot, and another row having whatever reshuffling as the Parliament convenes. -- Kaihsu 16:12, 2004 Jun 22 (UTC)

(Irrelevant sidenote: I went to a couple of hustings here in Oxford during the election: A Conservative candidate was grilled by their affinity with EPP-ED, and responded by emphasizing that the party actually is in the European Democrats subgroup, not in the EPP. A Labour candidate tried to tone down the party's support for the Iraq war and emphasize its affiliation with the PES. -- Kaihsu 16:17, 2004 Jun 22 (UTC))

I agree tentatively with OwenBlacker, notwithstanding the interesting sidenote, though I'm not sure more than one table would be a good idea - these things get quite unwieldy. Perhaps some stats instead? Toby W

Irrelevant sidenote of my own, for Kaihsu: it is quite possible, though perhaps not likely, that the Tories may split with the EPP-ED group, or at least that there will be some more serious discussion about it. Basically, the most eurosceptic candidates were towards the top of the Tories' lists, while the more moderate ones were towards the bottom. So, because UKIP took many of their new seats at the expense of Tories lower down the lists, this means the Conservative delegation in the Parliament is now substantially more eurosceptic than it used to be. Hearing what people like Roger Helmer have been saying recently, I'd be very surprised if the issue of their EPP-ED membership doesn't at least get discussed again over the summer. Toby W 21:43, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Ah, we have an expert and professional amongst us. All right, go ahead with whatever you consider most appropriate. -- Kaihsu 09:32, 2004 Jun 23 (UTC)

The tables are now out of sync and I am guessing with much problems -- rapidly deteriorating. This is troublesome. By the way, last week I went to Brussels and gathered some information, which I shall supply later. -- Kaihsu 15:13, 2004 Jun 30 (UTC)

Never mind, they seem to be in sync now. -- Kaihsu 20:09, 2004 Jun 30 (UTC)

Reshuffle

As promised, I have added a new section: European Parliament election, 2004: Possible political group reshuffle after the 2004 election.

Any reshuffling should be soon reflected here: EP: MEP. -- Kaihsu 07:55, 2004 Jul 19 (UTC)

The new link for 'EP6' is here: http://wwwdb.europarl.eu.int/ep6/owa/p_meps2.repartition -- Kaihsu 12:29, 2004 Jul 20 (UTC)

UK vs GB

A sentence read as follows: <quote>in Great Britain, closed lists are used; in Northern Ireland, there is the Single Transferable Vote.</quote>

Bobblewik changed "Great Britain" to "United Kingdom", but I reverted the change. This is because the sentence referred specifically to Great Britain - i.e. England, Scotland and Wales - and not to the United Kingdom - i.e. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The point being made is that, within the UK, Northern Ireland uses a different system (STV) from the system used by Great Britain (closed list). Toby W 12:58, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thanks Toby, I didn't see the second part about NI. I think the text might be clearer if it said something like in the United Kingdom, closed lists are used in England, Wales and Scotland but the Single Transferable Vote is used in Northern Ireland.. It is not a big deal for me either way. Thanks.
Bobblewik 13:27, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

You're absolutely right. I'll make that change now. Toby W 20:56, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

"2004-2009" v. "2004 - 2009"

Somebody might look at Members of the European Parliament 2004-2009 and note that most of the country pages linked from there are of the "2004 - 2009" form. It looks a bit of a mess to me. --Henrygb 23:21, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It is still not tidy (there are a mass of redirects), but it is now better. --Henrygb 00:09, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Results breakdown

I find it very confusing that there's no results breakdown which shows country, party and EP grouping which reflects the partliament as it is today, the one on this page is quite confusing in that it's not particularly explicit that these results show the breakdown using the old groups. (PS: the European Parliament page doesn't show a breakdown by country/party/group either, the only way of finding it is clicking on each party and seeing it seperately). It's especially confusing when you go to the linked party articles, for instance, the Liberal Democratic Party (Lithuania) is, on the results table a member of ELDR, yet in the article it states its UEN, which from the perspective of someone who doesn't know much about the Liberal Democratic Party of Lithuania, seems very odd. -- Joolz 23:31, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Why are percentage changes not counted for the after regrouping situation? Why for before enlargement? If this regrouping happened immediatly on the first session, and enlargement just earlier the same year, then I really dont understand; wouldnt a better picture of the relative changes of power in the old and the new parliament between different party groupings be the post-regrouping state then? Also, is there 731 or 732 seats in total - two statistics are giving a different info here. The EU page says 732. So , there is an error in the first table? By a table on a following page, its possible that a seat of GUE/NGL is somehow not counted - it says 42 on a table below and 41 on the first table.--83.131.159.242 09:21, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ITS

Is it right to have the ITS group listed on this page? We are talking about the 04 results, ITS was created in 2007. Are political groups really retroactive? I would revert it but I can't find its original format, anyone know when it was done? Unless you disagree? - J Logan ^t/_c: 14:03, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's appropriate, considering it's described as a "notional" calculation and provided in addition to the actual totals as of the party arrangements when the elections took place. As the groups reorganized within a few weeks of the elections anyway (ie, ALDE and ID created) then the actual time-of results are kind of irrelevant to most sorts of analysis. The Tom 22:55, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Where do those numbers come from?

The article contains two tables: one for the 2004 estimated result, one for the 2007 notional result. The author has attempted to explain the methodology in the footnotes, and I thank him/her for that, but it's not precise enough. If the table contains a figure of (say) 1,234,567 then it genuinely needs a cite to something that either says "1,234,567", or two cites to something that says "1,200,000" and "34,567" and a line that says 1234567 = 1200000 + 34567. Sorry for this, but in its present uncited state, the tables are unusable and I've inserted an "original research" tag on them. I appreciate that the figure will have been compiled from a wide set of figures and that citing it back will be difficult, but it genuinely needs that kind of audit trail. Right now, I'm looking at a table that says "this has been compiled from official figures"...well, which official figures, where are the citations to them, and how did you get from the official figures to the ones in the tables? Anameofmyveryown 07:18, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Majority" Party

The heading in the infobox talks of a "majority party". There is, of course, no majority party, there is a largest party with nowhere approaching a majority, but I cannot find where to edit this. 14:38, 7 June 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Qlangley (talk • contribs)

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