American reacts to How do European Union elections work?
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- Опубліковано 18 вер 2024
- Thank you for watching me, a humble American, react to How do European elections work?
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Millions and millions of EU citizens have no clue about how this works either, which is a pity indeed.
indeed, but they all are "experts" who tell others how the EU works at the same time as they cry about the dictatorship from Brussels ... its pure comedy talking with the average EU citizen about the EU.
many don't even vote
To be fair, the most powerful people like Von der Leyen are not even elected by anyone of us.
This is a shame too because she wasn’t even popular in her own country.
@@MrsStrawhatberrythat’s some bureaucratic bullshit right there
@@MrsStrawhatberry Von der Leyen actually having a lot of power is one of the many silly claims from the cluelesss people.
She is essentially just a bureaucrat and mediator who runs between the political factions in order to formulate politics/decisions which could get a majority support in parliament and the European Council.
Especially the veto rights of each member nation in the European Council and the parliaments power to overule/undo anything she does undermines these fantastical claims of power.
Pretty much every higher EU position which isnt elected directly by the people has at least two elected safeguards against abuse of power.
EU citizens dont elect the gardener, they elect the people who hire the gardener and tell him what to do, and also firing him if he doesnt do whats asked of him.
No embarrassment, no shame not to know things. Brave and smart to learn, at any age. 😊❤
Unless you have someone who’s the best POTUS in all history, does everything better than any human ever has and is completely unconcerned with the truth… because in Springfield they’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there 😂
Must be nice to have a voting system that doesn't involve bald eagles screeching or candidates threatening that all dogs will be eaten
I have a friend who still believes this whole thing because Tim pool said so according to him.
Oh well, we do have our share of populism. Sadly, ignorant masses are on the rise everywhere.
Hello from Belgium 🇧🇪 ! Yes the vote has already happened 😉👍🗳️
Don't worry Ryan - the rest of the world is still trying to figure out how anyone thought the US election system could possibly work properly . . .
In 2022, there were 163 million registered voters in the US, so the EU registered voter number is over twice that of the US.
Ryan didnt consider the fact that people under 18 and non-citizens cant vote
In most EU Countries you do not have to register as a voter you usually are automatically registered (e.g. in germany there is mandatory registering with the muncipality you live in (Meldewesen) - and those lists are then used to inform everybody that there is an election (of any kind) and so on.
For the french election, they didn't exactly coincide; Emmanuel Macron decided to dissolve the parliament and called for legislative elections just after the European election and a massive sweep from far right party Rassemblement National, which asked for new legislative elections (which usually take place right after the presidential election).
Essentially, Macron saw the result with the far right dominating the elections and thought it was a good time to have legislative elections in France, while also being just around the summer break and the Olympics, which he then used to refuse nomating a new prime minister for the whole summer.
And why he "thought it was a good time to have legislative elections" even though he had said that the European results would not have any impact as far as France was concerned will remain a mystery...
the vote already took place, it took place between June 6th to June 9th
The dates are different for each EU country.
and to top it off, its over in 24 hours. meanwhile americans keep on counting for days. Do better USA
To be fair, US elections are way more complex, because voters have a huge array of options to make.
We mostly talk about their Presidential elections, but on the same day voters are also choosing their US representatives, and some (but not all) are choosing their US senators, their state governors, state senators, state representatives, mayors, ombudsmen, sheriffs, district attorneys, etc., plus supporting or opposing different ballot initiatives (i.e. local or state referenda on specific issues).
If I remember correctly, in 2000, Chicago residents had 78 - *Seventy-Eight!* - options to make. The election ballot was *not a ballot* - it was an election *book!*
By contrast, in my country, the most "complex" elections are local elections, but we only have 3 options to make: municipal executive (which will determine the mayor), municipal assembly, "freguesia" assembly ("freguesia" being a subdivision of the municipality).
@@GazilionPT We had the local elections at the same day as the EU elections. I had 5 or 6 ballots, one of them was as big as a desk. For the local elections we have multiple votes and can split them between different parties or candidates. And for most of those elections we had preliminary results in the same night.
The final results need usually a few weeks, but they rarely change anything, so most of the people don't know this.
@@GazilionPTu need to add the autonomous regions elections, they have an extra choice and election.
@@puraLusa No, that does not add an extra choice, because *those elections occur on different occasions.*
- National legislative elections (one choice): 10 March
- Madeira regional legislative elections (one choice): 26 May
- EU elections in Portugal (one choice): 9 June
Note these last 2 elections were *2 weeks apart,* which means in each Madeirans only had to make *one* choice.
The same thing happened, but on a national level, e.g. in 2009, with national legislative elections (one choice) on 27 September and local elections (a maximum of 3 choices) two weeks later, on 11 October.
Also, the way polling stations are defined, most counting agents (votes are counted by hand) only have to count a max of around 800 votes, and that if 100% of voters participate.
@@GazilionPT no american elections are just a mess because the US is a banana republic with the most powerfull military in the world
A good YT-channel about EU is: "EU Made Simple"
Thanks for the info
The EU is complex because it is a fine balance acted aimed at balancing the rights of states, citizens and regional parliaments. For example while there are 27 member states in the EU, there are 38 regional and national parliaments involved in the decision making process as well as the voters in Denmark, France, Ireland and in some cases The Netherlands.
If you were to elect the House of Representatives in the USA using a proportional system, you would probably determine the order on the party lists in the primary elections and only tick the parties in the main elections. Gerrymandering would then no longer exist and representatives from 4 or 5 parties would then sit in the House.
Except that the US has only 2 parties. Democrat or Republican.
Smaller countries have in the regions of 7 to 12 parties.
@@gerardflynn7382 The two party system is only thanks to the winner takes it all rule. With proportional representation Libertarians and Greens would have seats in the House and the GOP would split into two parties.
@@adagio2343 Democrats into two or three as well i'd guess.
and GOP maybe even more then two
It’s not similar to the electoral college. It’s similar to the House of Representatives.
Always trying to grab power from the states? 😜
Yes and no. The European Parliament is similar to the US House of Representatives, but that's not what he meant. He was talking about the fact that the electoral process can differ between the memberstates, similar to how the process can differ in US presidential elections
Not quite.
You can argue it has about the same position in the overall government structure.
But the House of Representatives has it's members elected in districts, and with first past the post. So it is prone to Gerrymandering and the spoiler effect.
Gerrymandering is not possible in EU elections, and even in tiny countries the spoiler effect wont be felt much.
@@larseich5796 that’s the same for the House of Representatives. In every way, it’s more similar to the House than the electoral college. It’s the state that runs the election.
@@Aoderic that’s true to some extent but it’s still the states in both cases. In any event, my point wasn’t how similar it was to the US House. My point was to the extent we are talking about similarity, it’s more similar to the House than it is to the electoral college.
Always wise to admit a lack of knowledge and to work to remedy it than to pretend otherwise and remain in ignorance.
USA the land of the free...but not all citicens can vote.....i dont get it
You have to be asleep to believe that the US is the land of the free.
Every other country has more freedom than the US will ever have.
EU terms
*
EU parliament - a parliament that has representatives from all member states
elections are held every 5 years
---
EU Court of Justice - the supreme court of the Union
EU Council (presidents / prime ministers of member states)
each member has the right to vote and the right to veto
every decision of the council is unanimous
---
The EU Council of Ministers (ministers of foreign affairs of the member states) determine the basic policy of the Union and deal with matters that are not so important and therefore do not need the approval of the EU Council
---
EU Commissioner - implements the policy of the EU Council and the EU Council of Ministers
and represents the EU as a political member in the UN and other international agreements
After each election of the EU Parliament, a new Commissioner is elected
It is proposed by the EU Council, and approved by the Parliament with 50%+1 vote
---
The EU commission is a bureaucracy that leads the entire union, made up of commissioners for the part of the economy who are elected from member countries (each member state has at least one commissioner)
Commissioner for Agriculture and Fisheries
Commissioner for Trade
Security Commissioner
etc...
BREXIT, bye bye Britain ,they did not Vote this Time. And they probably will never do it again.
I love how he says it is probably so hard logisticaly for so many countries to elect a parliament,
Meanwhile america and its 50states
European countries are much more politically and logistically different than American states.
Yeah i know
No reason to be embarassed, a lot of us here in the EU also barely underatand how it works :D
. . . which is why the Brexit mob could get away with their "unelected EU Parliament" rubbish.
According to the EU pages the total population of EU is 448 million. About 27 million of those are not citizens of any EU country (about 6% non-EU citizens).
I think they didn’t get the way how the voting is done in my country. We don’t give the vote to a party but directly to one candidate only. Though selecting the candidate includes the party.
The result is calculated by using a method called d'Hondt. It is a 3 phase method to calculate who are elected.
1: calculate the total number of votes of each ’party’.
2: sort the candidates in each party. 1st who got most votes etc.
3: calculate relative number of votes for the candidate in each party
The relative number of votes of a candidate is used to sort who is elected.
That seems somewhat complex, but they use the method also in our national parliament election. Have used over 100 years I think.
Hi,
I'm not sure,
but I think that is the party open list option, it is explained at 5:41
Crazy times! ---- Initially no EU election was planned in the United Kingdom in 2019, as Brexit (following the 2016 referendum) was set for 29 March 2019. However, at the European summit on 11 April 2019, the British government and the European Council agreed to delay British withdrawal until 31 October 2019. From then on it was the default position in UK and EU law for the election to take place; however, the UK Government continued making attempts to avoid participation by seeking agreement on a withdrawal to take place before 23 May. On 7 May 2019, the UK government conceded despite their opposition that the election would have to go ahead. ... The UK didn't leave the EU until 31st Jan 2020
If you think that E.U. elections are complicated just look just at the governements (yes there are plural) in Belgium... I think it will be funny to see you react to the beautiful (messy) governement of my small country ^^
I really like the idea of STV as a way of electing representatives. It would do away with the necessity we have here in the UK (in most constituencies) of tactical voting, where you don't feel you are able to vote for your preferred candidate as this will just allow another candidate who you dislike most to get in.
Hi,
You like STV (6:28), can you explain:
Any candidate who exceeds the thresh hold, is elected and any excess vote are used for their 2nd preference.
How do we decide which votes are redistributed?
if the candidate needs 100 and gets 120 (ok these are silly numbers but you understand).
Then 20 votes are used for 2nd preference, but which 2nd preference?
And further down the line if my vote was redistributed down to candidate who comes 2nd, and they also exceed their required quota,
is my 3rd choice then used in someway?
Sorry I like that all votes count, but I don't understand the method.
Easier to explain than election to those idiots that sit in the US senate.
The United States has 50 states and each state has its own elections to send representatives and senators to the US Congress.
US states are in no way comparable to EU countries. US states are like German states, or French provinces. The level of cooperation between EU countries is an international one and very different from the relationship between US states, which are all in the same country.
It's similar in my small European country, where every "state" or municipality get's their representatives who also will be working in the government of our small country. we got 19 voting districts across the country. and including voting for a representative we also vote for the different political parties we wants to win, and we have 10 parties to choose from. The winning parties will be put into our government and choose the best ones that represent their parties, and these parties must all work together with the party that one. so in my country, it's similar but different. we're like 1/10 of your population and got 10 parties to choose from, and there is never ONE winner, but multiple winners, having to work together, there is 169 seats in total for political representants from their winning parties.
Oh and these do not relate to the EU as the EU parliament got their own thing for Europe, while every country got their own, individual government where maybe one or two representees will be able to be in contact with the EU parliament incase of anything big going to happen.
EU is like our annoying auntie for my country, as we aren't part of it, but still follow their rules and are great allies with them
1:01 'tbh, I kind of thought each individual country elected like a parliament member or something.' well, you ain't wrong - just 50yrs late. it used to be that way up until 1979. 🤏 since 1979, the parliament has been _directly elected_ every five years by the citizens of the EU (or its predecessors).
and no, it's not an organisational nightmare as our institutions are all quite used to the logistics of elections. we do it all the time on different levels and squeezing in one for the EU every 5yrs is no big deal.
The greatest success of the European Union is that there has been no war between the member states and their neighbors since it was founded almost 80 years ago. Before that we had 3000 years of almost permanent war. I am now approaching my mid-60s and I can say that I have never had to experience war in my life. Thank you EU!!!!☮☯💖
i never knew until now, Tyler Rumple is your brother.
MP: member of parliament
MEP: member of European parliament
So intelligente people!!
The last EU Parlement elections were this year from the 6th to 9th of june (depending on the country).
I strongly recommend you to watch a serie call "Parlement", it is sitcom, it is a clever satire which tells a lot about the how the parlement work. Episodes are short and funny.
The European Election just took place at the beginning of the summer, and simply made French Politics explode.
If you heard about what's been going on in France for the past three month, it happened because the current "Macron party" lost the French European elections by quite a large margin, having the far right win with above 30% of the votes, which is quite a catastrophe for France in Europe, understanding that the far right is mainly anti EU.
Macron then promptly decided on his own to dissolve the French parliament (which has nothing to do with the European one), without notice to see him lose again but now to a left coalition, making the current assembly be so divided that no single group can rule on its own (the parliament has the power to throw down governments as it pleases so if the ruling party cannot control it it's bound to fail).
So as the Left won they were supposed to try and setup a government, but Macron refused, arguing it would not be stable enough to rule in the parliament.
And went on a quest to find a right wing Prime Minister to try and make his own gov.
The Left is now pushing to take macron down as the law permits for not allowing the Left gov to be formed, there's little chance that it'll ever get through but you can see the current vibe in the country, thanks to this great President who is apparently bound to prove that our Fifth Republic is just a big ass democratic joke and absolutely need to be reformed.
Which is probably the only positive legacy Macron will keep after he's gone and quickly forgotten.
So that Video is from 5Y ago ... that would make it 27 countries and not 28. And those 27 countries have about 450M people and not 350M. They're off to a good start there.
Brits stamping their feet about what they can and cannot do or have in their relationship with Europe now is entirely explained by all this. We are almost as much outsiders to this process as you are now. And we can DRIVE to Europe. Make it make sense.
I have no idea, sounds right to me.
It already took place, this year.
If you're interested in votation please watch something on the semi-direct votation in Switzerland 🇨🇭 😊
I think Pan-european representation would be a headache to introduce since while the various parties are broadly arranged into similar parties between countries they often aren't quite similar enough. The 'green party' of Sweden might not agree at all about certain things (like say nuclear power policy) with the 'green party' of Spain or France and so on.
It's not a real parlament though to be fair. It dosent have the powers that a parlament should have.
To be fair..
i know quite bit about european politics but i could not explain it either..
its complicated af
This is a fascinating thing to learn. I'm curious why the transferable system works the way it does. I would have imagined they allocate points based on preference level and elect the 3 people worth the highest points. That's something I'd have to look into. It's interesting to see the parallels with their system and America's.
There's no shame to feel in this regard.
Understanding things like the US electoral college and gerrymandering is quite difficult to figure figure out for a European. And understanding how it always end up with just 2-3 candidates for president, more or less directly elected. Which comes with the risk of either the house, senate or the president becoming a sitting duck...
In that regard, I like that we as EU citizens, only gets to elect our parliament not specific roles, from our own and known political parties. Then it's their job to represent us and make the alliances to build a functional commission and choose a president etc. In that way the system doesn't get stuck because of one politicians popularity, if his or her party isn't very popular.
In essence, the US model was designed for back when the results had to be submitted on horseback, the EU design is a tad more modern, but still tries to give every country a fair share of the power.
Country borders can't be moved to give a certain party a better result. But of course the more populous countries have more seats.
Democracy isn't perfect, but it's better than all the other options.
So if you live in a democracy, it's your duty to go vote when you get the chance.
We just had our election
6:08 Single transferable vote system is more widely known as "ranked choice voting"
Europeans mostly would not like our form of gt and we would not like theirs either. And that ok we live an ocean away.
The election has been in June 2024, so three month ago. And it's actually pretty much straight forward once you understand how it works.
We have parliament =congress, council = senate, commision = presidant. It's all very confusing.
An MEP is the equivalent of a member of Congress. The thing you are thinking of is the European Council, where each country's parliament puts forward one person representing their seat at the council and this would be your version of the senate.
Our version of the president is the EU Commission, but we have a president 5 vice presidents and a bunch more vice, vice presidents.
2:55 “When’s the next election it must be coming up?”
It already happened a few months ago mate!😅There are videos out there covering it.
And the results were so disastrous for Macron that he called snap national elections in France.
Easier than electing the nuts in the USA senate.
I'm pretty sure most Europeans don't know much about the MEPs or how the whole EU voting system works.
I am Norwegian and didn’t know this 😂
that's like being canadian and not knowing the US just had an election (not really, but kinda). Bruh
@@pippofranco879 goodness! I was joking - but the US is a national election - our countries all have national elections which is a big deal. The EU election is a super national election which doesn’t affect us directly-
But this time, I don't think it's about you being American. European politics is severely under-communicated. I'm Norwegian and we are not member of EU, but we are in EEA, so it really matters to us. Still, I almost missed the entire election. And I'm fairly engaged in politics. No wonder Americans are oblivious to it.
Most Europeans don't know either.
Election just happened recently.
7:53 annoying the video shows the flag of Luxemburg 🇱🇺here instead of the mentioned Netherlands 🇳🇱
It was already , the elections I mean.
The 2024 election was in june of this year
The one thing I dislike is how they openly discuss the inability for "fringe" parties to get a seat. So only establishment parties are allowed? Super democratic!
There is no "inability". Listen to what she says. They just have to get enough votes. And in most European countries there are lots of "established" parties, not just two like in the US.
MEP Member of European Parlament
She is Portuguese
Tuguinha da Silva 🙂
I thought I recognised the accent.
Not as painful as watching McJibbin. Trust me.
What happens is simple, really. There are elections across the EU for "representatives" who have no power or authority.
The European Commission decides what is best for everyone and then forces national governments to enshrine the decisions into national laws.
That way everyone in the EU follows the, allegedly, same set of rules, except for those that don't.
The only way to avoid this idiocy is not to be in the EU.
Ok boomer.
The European Commission has no such power.
They are for checks and balances for the entire EU.
Each country has control over their own national elections.
Hi, I’ve watched and been catching up with several of your videos now, so this is not related to this particular video. I’ve heard you being confused when British call someone ‘smart’, because you interpret it as clever. I’ve just heard you use the word ‘dapper’. When we say someone is smart referring to their appearance, that is what we mean - well dressed or dapper. And I think we would use ‘dapper’ for even a step up … like James Bond ??? We do also use smart in terms of clever….
The problem is nobody has a clue our own "democracy's" are effectively close to none
Finally a good thing about Brexit. I wont need to vote for someone that i know f'all about ever again
This is an old vid then with UK still in it... not anymore
hey bro, all good, European Union is so complex in elections, that most EU member state citizen does not even know how those elections work in detail. Chill out 🙂
Yeah so we vote for the parliament, who doesn't have any say but to prevent wrong decisions, and we are guarded by the Führerin Von-der-Leyen (Sorry, but I am identifying as a german (actually I'm an Austrian living in germany since birth) so I am politically and ethically allowed to do this joke). But no one identifies as a european, so nevermind.
Disclaimer: Actually many people do and Von-der-Leyen does an ok job imho, so its not so bad how it is now, but it should definitely be reformed soon. Imho.
I really regret Brexit. The biggest mistake the UK has ever made. Would love to be able to vote in EU elections now.
You reacted to a whole bunch of memes on the most recent EU election on your German channel 3 months ago but didn't look up which election it was.
That was the EU election. Since you don't know, I assume you don't read your comments, so now I don't know why I'm typing this but there you go ^^
Edit: nevermind, some of those memes even said "European elections"
The wheels are now thankfully coming off the EU..
1:40 Right of the bat, before her name (*) even appears: She's Portuguese ("tuga").
(*) Misspelled, by the way; CNBC couldn't handle diacritics, I guess.