The EU thread

[Josquius]

It is amazing how completely unknown he is in the UK despite his pivotol role in completely upending British politics on Europe.

[Sheilbh]

At the time he was - he was a front page news figure which I don't think has been the case for any subsequent President of the Commission.

But also, to an extent, it was a long time ago. He was President from 85-95. He had a seismic impact on Europe as a whole and I think was an important part in the great EU switcheroo in British politics.

The thing I found striking though was actually perhaps the absence of vision. You might agree or disagree with one or the other, you might want to mix and match. But I think there's something admirable - in a democracy - in Delors setting out his vision that so enraged Thatcher that she set out her alternative vision. That there was a dialectical, debating element about the future of Europe. Especially when you add that you also had Mitterrand and Kohl at the same time who also at different points spelled out views on Europe. There was a future being debated.

For all his faults it feels like the only European leader really still trying to do that is Macron - and, arguably and with far more faults, Orban.

[Sheilbh]

Separately, but not a million miles away, Michel is going to stand down as President of the Council in order to run as an MEP (no doubt desperate to vote for a potential other VDL term ).

Which doesn't really matter because if anything his time in office has shown how sort of pointless it is. But on the other hand it does matter because until a new President is appointed, the member state holding the rotating presidency takes up the position. When Michel leaves, that will be Orban So until there's a new appointment, that's who'll be responsible for chairing and agenda setting and (formally at least, practically it's VDL) representing the EU on the international stage.

I've said before but with some mistakes - and the Ukraine funding-budget thing was a big one - I think VDL has impressed. Michel far less so. I suspect he knew he was unlikely to get a second term and not sure about his chances in a return to domestic politics, so I suspect running as MEP was probably the best move purely from a career perspective.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Michel wasn't selected because he'd be effective, but because cause he'd be more or less inoffensive and actually ineffective.
Don't forget he comes from a country that can't manage anything and that's he's from the part that is de facto bankrupt.

[Zoupa]

Are the Flemtards feeling oppressed? Now's the time to ask your big idol Wilders to declare a special military operation.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Are the Flemtards feeling oppressed? Now's the time to ask your big idol Wilders to declare a special military operation.

Oh look, a francophone being clueless

[Tamas]

Belgium: the Moldavia of Western Europe.

[Sheilbh]

As there's a couple of stories on what's going on in the far right in Europe thought they'd be here. First the AfD meeting to discussion deportations with an even more extreme group.

I hadn't been aware of this but I saw that Alex Clarkson said this shouldn't necessarily be a suprise. Apparently, according to him, the AfD and FPO are both more closely tied to the really extreme like Sellner or other groups that were basically 20-30 years ago the skinhead wing of the far right. While they may not necessarily be further right than other far right parties in Europe - the milieu they operate in, the ties they have etc are among the most extreme in Europe - again I wasn't aware of that and don't know much about it:

Politicians from Germany's AfD met extremist group to discuss deportation 'masterplan'
Martin Sellner, member of the Identitarian Movement, reportedly spoke of 're-migration' ideas
Philip Oltermann in Berlin
@philipoltermann
Wed 10 Jan 2024 14.33 GMT
First published on Wed 10 Jan 2024 12.59 GMT

Politicians from Germany's far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, including a personal aide to its leader Alice Weidel, met the head of the rightwing extremist Identitarian Movement and neo-Nazi activists to discuss a "masterplan" for mass deportations in the event of the party coming to power, it has been reported.

The meeting, which was first reported on Wednesday by the investigative outlet Correctiv, took place last November at a countryside hotel on the outskirts of Potsdam. It is likely to feed a fraught debate over whether the AfD should be banned due to growing concerns that it poses a fundamental threat to German democracy.

Buoyed up by discontent over immigration, the AfD is polling in first place in all five of Germany's eastern states, three of which are holding elections later this year. While both the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the liberal, pro-business Free Democratic party (FDP) have, for now, ruled out entering coalitions with the party, its presence at the meeting suggests a far-right organisation with its eye on political gains in the near future.


Martin Sellner, a key figure in the pan-European 'New Right', who is banned from the UK, reportedly spoke about mass deportation at the Potsdam meeting. Photograph: Christian Bruna/EPA

Invitations seen by Correctiv and the Guardian describe the meeting as an opportunity to present "an overall concept in the sense of a masterplan". The meeting was attended not only by two state and municipal-level AfD politicians but also one active member of the Bundestag, Gerrit Huy, as well as Roland Hartwig, a former MP who has acted as a personal aide to Weidel since September 2022. One party branch of the AfD's has described Hartwig as being tasked with the party's "strategic positioning".

The AfD figures were meeting with Martin Sellner, who was tasked with introducing the "masterplan" and is a key figure in the pan-European "New Right" and who, in 2019, was permanently barred from entering the UK because of his extremist views. The Identitarian Movement, whose Austrian branch Sellner used to lead, openly opposes the idea of multicultural societies and expounds the conspiracy theory of a "great replacement" to replace Europe's white population with people from Africa and the Middle East.

The Identitarian Movement is on a list of organisations whose membership the AfD considers incompatible with party membership, and the party has denied ties to the movement in the past. However, in recent years the AfD has done little to distance itself from the activist network.

One key idea that Sellner has been trying to nudge into the political mainstream is "re-migration": the forceful return of migrants to their countries of origin via mass deportations. Such deportations would target not only asylum seekers but, as Sellner elaborated in a recent article for the New Right journal Sezession, also citizens holding German passports who, he claims, "form aggressive, rapidly growing parallel societies".

According to Correctiv's account, the explosive subject of "re-migration" apparently dominated the discussions between AfD politicians and rightwing extremist activists, with Sellner allegedly presenting the forcible extradition of "non-assimilated" German citizens as the biggest "challenge" if the AfD were to gain power.


An aide to Alice Weidel, the leader of AfD, was also said to be at the meeting. Photograph: Hannibal Hanschke/EPA

Ideas discussed at the meeting, according to Correctiv, included that of deportations to an unnamed state in northern Africa that would provide space for up to 2 million people. People who lobby on behalf of refugees in Germany could also go there, Sellner is reported to have suggested.

In a statement sent to the Guardian, Sellner confirmed he had presented the idea of "re-migration" at the meeting but said it was not about a "secret masterplan" and his comments had been shortened and taken out of context.

During the meeting, Sellner said, he had made it "unmistakably clear that no distinction can be made between different types of [German] citizens – that there must be no second-class citizens – and that all re-migration measures have to be legal".

"Remigration also includes not only deportations, but also local assistance, Leitkultur ['guiding culture'] and pressure to assimilate. The demand is part of an alternative migration and family policy, the aim of which is to control immigration so that it does not exceed Germany's reception limits."

Huy, the AfD Bundestag delegate, is reported to have claimed that she developed her own "re-migration" concept, and appeared to suggest her party no longer opposed the government's plan to lift a ban on dual citizenship for that reason. "Then you can take away the German [citizenship], and they still have one," she is alleged to have said at the meeting. Currently it is illegal under German law to strip people of citizenship if it means they would then become stateless.

In a phone call with the Guardian, Huy confirmed her attendance of the meeting and that the discussion of "re-migration" was on the agenda. "In 2017, I presented my party association chairman with plans for a re-migration programme for non-German nationals who can't find their way into the labour market, which were not picked up by the party," Huy said. "I still stand by those proposals."

Huy said she could not remember if plans for the removal of German nationals were also part of the discussions at the Potsdam meeting. Her comments on dual citizenship, she said, "were clearly meant as a joke".

Contacted by Correctiv and the Guardian, neither Weidel nor Hartwig commented on the report. The AfD confirmed that Hartwig had been at the meeting but said the reported proposals were not party policy.

"The AfD won't change its position on immigration policy because of a single opinion at a non-AfD meeting," the party told Reuters.


Gerrit Huy, an AfD MP, confirmed that she had attended the meeting and that 're-migration' was on the agenda. Photograph: Facebook

The AfD's gradual transformation from an economically liberal, anti-euro party into what many believe to be a far-right outfit is not new. In the three eastern states where the party could triumph at elections this year – Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia – the party has been classified as "certified rightwing extremist" by the German domestic spy agency, allowing its covert surveillance and potentially even infiltration. The party, however, denies that it is extremist.

Postwar Germany defines itself as a "militant democracy", and its constitutional court can shut down political parties if they pursue anti-constitutional goals – and are in a position to achieve these goals. In recent weeks, some politicians, such as the co-leader of Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SDP), have called for a debate about whether the constitutional court should consider such a ban for the AfD.

Others, including the SPD's federal commissioner for the east, Carsten Schneider, have said that such a move could backfire by further radicalising AfD supporters, especially if the constitutional court were to reject a ban.

In practice, the bar for outright party bans is relatively high. In 2017, Germany's top constitutional court ruled that even though the radical-right NPD resembled Adolf Hitler's Nazi party, it would not be banned because it did not pose a sufficient threat to democracy.

Second story is Italy - where the far right gathered outside the former Italian Social Movement HQ and gave fascist salutes at their commemoration of three MSI militants who were killed by left-wing terrorists during the years of lead:

This commemoration is an annual event and, to some extent, not that new. But it is the centenary of Mussolini extinguishing Italian democracy so is particularly resonant. The FdI were not formally involved/attending.

I also think it's important because of Meloni. She was not present but this is an annual event tied to the MSI. MSI was the post-fascist party founded by ex-ministers and politicians who had been part of Mussolini's Salo Republic post-43 - indeed in its early days the MSI actually debated whether they should even be open to politicians who were just "normal" fascists pre-43 or if, actually, joining Salo was a necessary condition as it demonstrated ultimate commitment to the cause.

I flag all that because in 1992 when Giorgia Meloni was 15 in her working class district of Rome, she went to the local Youth Front branch to sign up and join. The Youth Front were the youth wing of MSI (and the organisation the murdered militants belonged to) - they also had close links to Lazio ultras. The MSI were dissolved in 1995 and then re-created by their leader, Gianfranco Fini, into the National Alliance (with a small right-wing split). The National Alliance subsequently merged into Berlusconi's People of Freedom, but there was a larger right-wing split this time who went on to creat the Fratelli d'Italia. Meloni was part of that right-wing split - and they're now the biggest party. Both the AN and FdI have always had the MSI's symbol, the tricolour flame in their party logos.

I think that's the problem I have with the framing of the divide/problem in Europe as populists v non-populists. Meloni isn't populist in style, she isn't really threatening to the Euro (unlike even a centrist like, say, Renzi who wanted significant reform), and she's on the right side on Ukraine (which isn't surprising given the MSI's position). All of that's true - the problem is she comes from a far-right tradition which is dangerous. I think the populist v non-populist framing also flattens the populist left and right. The danger with the right isn't the populism but their ties to anti-democratic and far-right ideas. I don't think there is any equivalence between that and, say, Podemos or SYRIZA. I think it might be a consequence of - as with the AfD - the framing emerge in the context of the Euro crisis (and perhaps also Brexit - at the same time as Corbyn's leadership and Melenchon's rise - with an embattled centre seeing all opponents as a populist hydra).

On Meloni she is proposing a constitutional reform to change the voting system and ensure majority rule in Italy. In effect the party that won the most votes would automatically get, I think, 55% of the seats in the lower house. It's not a million miles from the old Greek system (which has now been restored) where the largest party got their share of the parliament plus an extra 30 seats (or 10%) in the aim of increasing the chance of stable majority government. Thinking of what's going on in Poland, it's also not that far from voting system reforms proposed by Renzi who would have subordinated the upper house and also introduced a run off system in the lower house - so if a party got 40%+ they'd be given a majority, if they didn't there'd be a run off between the two most successful parties with the winner getting a majority. These "majoritarian" proposals - like Renzi's or Greece's - have historically been supported by more centrist press in Europe (like the FT, Economist etc) as ways of helping driving market reform. But obviously could be used in different ways.

Meloni and Italy are also key on the potential for a shift at the EU level. There are European Parliament elections this year - where there are fears that the far right across Europe will do well. Seat projections are very difficult and it will all depend on national politics but it looks possible that the centre right and far right might win a majority in the Parliament which will raise the question for the centre right of how much they decide to use that. There are already rumours of someone from her party getting one of the top Commission roles (and a vice-presidency). Not sure if that'll happen but it's definitely being talked about as a possibility.

[The Brain]

I remember years ago there was some whining from Germany that some German Nazis had relocated to Sweden where they were more free to promote their cause. WE got THEIR Nazis and THEY were the ones who should complain? Surely if anything it was Sweden who had reason to complain. Germans are weird.

[Zanza]

On Meloni she is proposing a constitutional reform to change the voting system and ensure majority rule in Italy. In effect the party that won the most votes would automatically get, I think, 55% of the seats in the lower house. It's not a million miles from the old Greek system (which has now been restored) where the largest party got their share of the parliament plus an extra 30 seats (or 10%) in the aim of increasing the chance of stable majority government. Thinking of what's going on in Poland, it's also not that far from voting system reforms proposed by Renzi who would have subordinated the upper house and also introduced a run off system in the lower house - so if a party got 40%+ they'd be given a majority, if they didn't there'd be a run off between the two most successful parties with the winner getting a majority. These "majoritarian" proposals - like Renzi's or Greece's - have historically been supported by more centrist press in Europe (like the FT, Economist etc) as ways of helping driving market reform. But obviously could be used in different ways.

The mechanism is a bit different, but the outcome is similar to what the FPTP system in the UK produces, no? Not a fan personally though.

[Barrister]

On Meloni she is proposing a constitutional reform to change the voting system and ensure majority rule in Italy. In effect the party that won the most votes would automatically get, I think, 55% of the seats in the lower house. It's not a million miles from the old Greek system (which has now been restored) where the largest party got their share of the parliament plus an extra 30 seats (or 10%) in the aim of increasing the chance of stable majority government. Thinking of what's going on in Poland, it's also not that far from voting system reforms proposed by Renzi who would have subordinated the upper house and also introduced a run off system in the lower house - so if a party got 40%+ they'd be given a majority, if they didn't there'd be a run off between the two most successful parties with the winner getting a majority. These "majoritarian" proposals - like Renzi's or Greece's - have historically been supported by more centrist press in Europe (like the FT, Economist etc) as ways of helping driving market reform. But obviously could be used in different ways.

The mechanism is a bit different, but the outcome is similar to what the FPTP system in the UK produces, no? Not a fan personally though.

I don't mind FPTP though because each MP is also accountable to their local voters, and jot just the party leader.  If party leadership is supporting a policy that is deeply unpopular in your own home riding you can form a kind of internal opposition.  It also promotes parties that have broad regional support, and not just a deep reserve of support in one region.

In a system as described though the MP (or whatever term) is still only accountable to the party leadership - that's who put them on the party list to get elected in the first while.  So you do run the risk of a party getting as little as 25-30% of the vote, concentrated in one region, who then gets an absolute majority.

So you run the risk

[Sheilbh]

The mechanism is a bit different, but the outcome is similar to what the FPTP system in the UK produces, no? Not a fan personally though.

Yeah similar-ish. And voting system shapes voter behaviour - so people would probably respond. The consequence of FPTP is that it trends to a two party system with big tent parties. Similarly PR tends to fragment the vote - which is more fragmented in the Netherlands or Israel where there's no minimum threshold than Germany (5%) or Turkey (10%). I'm not sure quite what it would look like if those two systems overlapped. Italy often has pre-election coalitions but I think that change would trend to two party so the immediate consequence would be for FdI to become the Italian right - no need for Berlusconi's old party or Lega. It seems like a weird mix of presidential and parliamentary.

But the combination of that and a party in government and leading the right that comes from a post-fascist tradition seems potentially risky.

Although I think the key difference with FPTP though is the constituency - which I know everyone is cynical about but I think is a real thing that has an impact. Every candidate is selected independently by 650 local parties and if they win, as an incumbent, they're very difficult to remove (unless the boundaries of their constituency change significantly) because in most parties the incumbents are automatically the next candidate if they want it. The central parties can (and do) try to rig selection of candidates but ultimately have only limited control over who gets elected - and because of incumbency even in a landslide they can only really rig the selection of MPs in the seats that they won (or the incumbent stepped down).

Every MP has and believes they have an independent, individual mandate. We've seen it with this government with a majority of 80 occasions when they've lost votes because there's too many rebels, or just been forced to u-turn - but it even happened to Blair who had 400 MPs. I think that happens far less in, say, Israel where there's a pure list system and your rank is just based on reliably voting as the party leadership tells you. I believe it's similar in the Netherlands as the other far end of PR example. And in both I think if there's a resignation or whatever, you just move onto the next person on the list to replace the outgoing MP. It's also why I think in, say, the Netherlands the longest serving MP is Wilders who's been around since 1998 while in the Commons there's MPs who were first elected in the 70s or 80s, they're difficult to remove and they've got a base that is not dependent on the central party/party leadership.

The only party that doesn't have automatic re-selection is the SNP - which is also the party with fewest rebellions (basically none) and strongest party discipline. It's also a big demand of the Corbyn wing of Labour (and I think Farage has pushed for it to). It's always described as more democratic - which it sort of is, but it also favours the people who turn up to every local party meeting. On the left it was a thing in some of the local councils that got taken over by the hard left to force out their internal opponents/discipline waverers on the soft left.

[Zanza]

I don't mind FPTP though because each MP is also accountable to their local voters, and jot just the party leader.  If party leadership is supporting a policy that is deeply unpopular in your own home riding you can form a kind of internal opposition.  It also promotes parties that have broad regional support, and not just a deep reserve of support in one region.

In a system as described though the MP (or whatever term) is still only accountable to the party leadership - that's who put them on the party list to get elected in the first while.  So you do run the risk of a party getting as little as 25-30% of the vote, concentrated in one region, who then gets an absolute majority.

So you run the risk

Sure, but that cuts both ways. If you hate the dude in your constituency, but like the party, what do you do?

[Sheilbh]

Fair and there's always a trade-off, which is partly why my preference is for AV (having once been a staunch PR-er).

Having said that I've never really heard anyone moan about that dilemma. It will come up and happen in some places. But the more common complaint I've heard is that they hate the party but quite like their local MP.

[Barrister]

I don't mind FPTP though because each MP is also accountable to their local voters, and jot just the party leader.  If party leadership is supporting a policy that is deeply unpopular in your own home riding you can form a kind of internal opposition.  It also promotes parties that have broad regional support, and not just a deep reserve of support in one region.

In a system as described though the MP (or whatever term) is still only accountable to the party leadership - that's who put them on the party list to get elected in the first while.  So you do run the risk of a party getting as little as 25-30% of the vote, concentrated in one region, who then gets an absolute majority.

So you run the risk

Sure, but that cuts both ways. If you hate the dude in your constituency, but like the party, what do you do?

As Sehilbh says, not usually an issue.  At worst you may view your local MP as a potted plant or trained seal, but at best some MPs can have support well above that of the national party.  But as I type I can think of a handuful of times when a bad candidate lost a party an otherwise winnable riding.

It's pretty unusual for a sitting MP to win the nomination a second time, but if a candidate is that unpopular it can happen.