Well, it doesnt 😅 you have just two parties because of your some weird procedures of electors and etc 😅 i guess you have it from Roman holy empire WHO voted WHO will be the emperor 😅
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 😂
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.
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.
@@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.
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!!!!☮☯💖
Yes, and that's why the 2012 Peace Nobel Price given to the EU was well-deserved. BTW: Though it is not almost 80 years yet - the earliest predecessor of the EU, the European Coal and Steel Community, was founded in 1952 - I am very thankful of this European integration project that is called the EU.
@@MarkusWitthaut Yes, probably a German habit. Everything good after the war began in 1945. Even before the “Montan Union” there were treaties between individual European states. No matter what, peace since 1945.
@@nashwagemakers Yes it happened, but Yugoslavia was never a member of the EU. Slovenia joined in 2004 and Croatia in 2014. The EU is not Europe. There was never a war between member states of the EU.
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.
@@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.
@@gerardflynn7382 the usa has many more than two parties, i'd hazard a guess the third largest will be the green party, but there are various parties in the usa, they just don't get coverage or win anywhere because of their system.
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...
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.
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.
@@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.
Important part is that every European citizen have national ID by European standard with all names written in both the local language and English. The ID contains a number that can identify the person. If a person does not reside in the country they are citizen of, they can register and vote for members in the country they live, or they could vote by default for members of the country they are citizen of. However, European election forming the European parliament are usually less involved than local country elections. I am not sure how binding European parliament decisions are, but I know that they become a law in each individual country separately, after the local government ratify them, making the ultimate decision responsibility of each country. And if you are wondering what happen if any local government goes against EU decisions - Hungary.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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 ^^
@@matamoski poor people are poor for a reason. It's lack of education. If you look at the world democracy only exists in a small part of the world and only in rich countries. The Swiss type of democracy only exists and works in Switzerland. Russia isn't that poor but it's not as rich as Switzerland and you can count the number of years on your hand when they tried democracy. My country, Hungary isn't poor and is small, but it's a far cry from Switzerland and the public consensus is that they don't want democracy in any form
@@budapestkeletistationvoices so why just in Switzerland? If your theory was right, more rich countries could use that direct democracy system. Precisely that system started in the 13th century, modernized in the 17th. Was Switzerland rich back then? Im from Glarus, where we still today vote by hand. Believe me, i see rich and poors, educated and not so much around me.
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.
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.
@@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-
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.
Pan european representation looks nice on paper like many other things but in reality it will be just free seats for biggest voting blocks aka germany, france, etc. the "underrepresented" would never have chance. Personally i think those seats should be eliminated altogether. For how EU works there is too many seats already.
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.
People not knowing enough leads to low turnouts, like last time turnout in Denmark was an abysmally low 58.25%. Last national parliamentary election was 84.16% turnout, sliding into the low. Local municipal and regional elections was 67.21% which is also worryingly low.
Fun fact: Though members of the EU Parliament are elected, power lies in the hand of the EU commission currently lead by Ursula von der Leyen. This commission though the most powerful entity in Europe, is NOT elected what undermines the democracy in Europe. As we say in Germany "Fish always stinks from its head" (that means if the head of the EU is rotten, you shouldn't be surprised that we have a right-wing issue in almost every member country, Hungary is ruled by an autocrat and there is no other country where there are more proceedings for treaty violations than against Germany).
what she didn't say is that if you live in another country than your nationality you have the choice to vote either with your country of origin or with the country you reside in which i think is pretty cool.
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.
Its 27 member states now since the UK said bye bye. We had this year the european elections and basically I casted my vote to the people from my country would be fit to represent us on EU level. The set up in the country itself its more or less the same when local elections are on, but its EU wide and it was quite interesting to follow the results.... I just wish more people from my own country would attend those elections. It was a bit embarrassing how low the percentage was 😅
A lot of us Europeans know more or less how that works, but not fully. And a lot of people don't vote for these elections. Also, I see you mostly react to videos comparing Europe to USA that show the good side of Europe. But I think it would also be interesting for you to see the struggles in Europe: low salaries in a lot of countries, access to housing, etc. I think some peopel watch your videos to watch you criticize USA but not all of us.
you are doing well, firstly lol, but yeah, you should look at a longer more in depth video on the European parliament and elections to learn more. It is confusing from the outside, but does make sense in the main once you know. There's so many different voting styles across all of Europe, including those nations that are in the Eu. Scotland uses proportional representation for it's elections, with a system designed specifically to prevent any one party from having a total majority, forcing collaboration between parties, however, the support for the Snp a couple of times actually gave them a majority, whereas within the UK elections to elect MP's to the house of commons, they are first past the post, which means whoever in each parliamentary seat takes the most votes wins the seat. when you multiply that by the 650 seats it always ends up making the uk parliament not very representative at all. Of course the two bigger parties could have brought in PR yonks ago but it would only have removed their control, so over here we have a ping pong politics rather like yours.
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.
I think it's actually hard to compare the US elections with the europeans ones. In Europe, our national elections are a lot more important than those of the EU, at least in the main opinion
Most voters in the UK did not understand either. The most Googled question the day after the referendum? "What is the EU?" Currently the UK has a First Past The Post system for all elections. Not very democratic. STV would be my choice as it tends to elect members closest to the concensus of the electorate.
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.
The system is by no means similar to USA electoral college. Each country sends a number of members, yes, but the members do not represent just one party, like in the states’ electoral colleges (there is no “the winner takes it all”).
Think of the EU as a less federalized version of the US. Our countries are like your federal states and they have their own governor (president/prime minister) and congress (parliament) and handle their own national duties. Your federal congress is our EU parliament and your president is our General Commissioner which has other commissioners below that handle separate areas like transportation, defense, health etc. The main differences to the American political system is that Europe has proportional representation in most of it's countries as well as in the EU level parliament that leads to multiple parties and coalition governments and not winner takes all like the US which leads to 2 main parties (with a few exceptions like the UK) and another difference is the level of federalization where in Europe there are less responsibilities transferred from national governments to the EU Commission, but there is a growing sentiment that there should be more strategic areas that the Commission should handle on an EU level like defense/energy/geopolitics/common debt etc. The EU parliament's decisions are also non binding and need a round of negotiations with the council of the member states national governments before becoming law, where a single country could have the right of veto (another discussion is on replacing the veto for qualified majority as you could have a lot of cases where a bad actor can block the whole block). EU Made simple and Into Europe are two good channels you can watch to understand more about the EU.
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.
Five years ago (2019), the UK was still a member of the EU, and held EU elections. So there were 28 countries, not 27. AFAICT, the correct number of eligible voters was about 400M. Weirdly, 350M was *wrong* by approximately the number of UK voters (48M). It's as if they, like you, thought the UK was not holding EU elections. The EU population hardly matters for elections, the number of voters and turnout is more important. The EU population of the 28 countries was about 512M Best Wishes. ☮
FYI the European Union violated the people's democratic referendum results of France and the Netherlands back in 2005, both countries democratically voted NO to the "Lisbon treaty" (The Treaty of Lisbon is a European agreement that amends the two treaties which form the constitutional basis of the European Union, you know what this means if you vote no against a constitution, it means the EU of today would not exist). The EU also violated the democratic "Bailout" referendum of Greece in 2015. All in all the people of countries under control of the EU can vote all they want, if they vote NO and the EU thinks it should be yes then it becomes YES because in the EU we have people so powerful that their only voices count for the voices of entire countries, apparently. Now after the people's democratic decisions were violated in the aformentionned referendums, it can be said the EU is freewheeling making the citizens of which they violated the democratic right eat insects "2023. Following the positive EFSA opinion from July 2022, on the 6th of January, the European Commission published the Implementing Regulation authorising frozen and freeze-dried formulations of lesser mealworm (Alphitobius diaperinus) as Novel Food. The authorisation came into effect on 26 January 2023.". Next time you see a video of our unelected President Von der Leyen, scroll down a bit and read the comments of the European people everyone hates her.
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.
if you want to understand this a bit more then you might want to check out EU made simple. They did some videos on that topic. Same goes for TLDR Europe.
I always thought Norway was part of the EU. But now that I know better... no wonder they seem like the most chill right besides Switzerland lol. Not saying the EU is bad or anything, but they don't have to deal with all that stuff that comes with it. So it's a plus and a minus I guess, depending on how you look at it.
Australia 🇦🇺 has compulsory voting. Plus All three voting processes I.e. party, individual and preference voting. However not proportional representation but first passed the post, similar to the UK with none of the problems they always complain about. Also no Gerrymandering as boundaries are controlled independently of the government! If you have voted in different system you know which is better! NSW in Oz
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.
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.
Around 8:00 they mention that after UK left the European Union, the European Parliament lost seats. That was true during that term (that ended in 2024), but after the 2024 election the European Parliament won 15 seats (up to 720) and reallocated some of the seats that were lost due to Brexit (to the other European countries, proportionally based on population). The EU is confusing sometimes to both locals and foreigners, so don't worry about not getting everything at first lol
After the European election the French president party came second with less than half of the national rally and then decided to dissolves the French parliament.
It is OK not to know how other countries elections work because for most other people outside America they have no idea how or why American elections actually function with a facade of democracy over overt capitalism with legalised corruption, interference and undue influence widely distributed throughout the whole system with enormous amounts of both dark money and legal finances employed to keep the results generally in line with what big business or influential organisations want or need to continue to make huge undeserved profits or monetary returns to the top end of town at the expense of the majority of poorer people
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 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.
Sweed here 👋 It is an effort to try and keep extremist, racist and the likes, from gaining power. Sweden Democrats, third biggest party in Sweden, was started by a former Nazi serving Germany in ww2. That doesn't bode well for international business on EU level considering how their whole reason for existing is built on national level prioritisation.
No wonder I'm really NOT interested in politics and don't vote.For me, if a person doesn't know what to do with their lives, they become footballers, singers or, in a last ditch effort, politicians.
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 . . .
even mericans is trying to figure that out ..
I got the biggest bag of coins! - okay ur elected...
I don't think anyone knows how the fake EU Parliament works. Ursula von der Lying may know, but she won't tell.
Well, it doesnt 😅 you have just two parties because of your some weird procedures of electors and etc 😅 i guess you have it from Roman holy empire WHO voted WHO will be the emperor 😅
the electoral US System is a shame
they can't organize a vote and have the results in 1 day
And for the EU not even trying to figure out. You really just belive... 🤷🏻♂️
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 😂
Hello from Belgium 🇧🇪 ! Yes the vote has already happened 😉👍🗳️
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.
the vote already took place, it took place between June 6th to June 9th
The dates are different for each EU country.
@@gerardflynn7382 Yes and they are all between june 6th and june 9th
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!!!!☮☯💖
Yes, and that's why the 2012 Peace Nobel Price given to the EU was well-deserved. BTW: Though it is not almost 80 years yet - the earliest predecessor of the EU, the European Coal and Steel Community, was founded in 1952 - I am very thankful of this European integration project that is called the EU.
@@MarkusWitthaut Yes, probably a German habit. Everything good after the war began in 1945. Even before the “Montan Union” there were treaties between individual European states. No matter what, peace since 1945.
Tru
yugoslav war happened lol
@@nashwagemakers Yes it happened, but Yugoslavia was never a member of the EU. Slovenia joined in 2004 and Croatia in 2014. The EU is not Europe. There was never a war between member states of the EU.
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.
A good YT-channel about EU is: "EU Made Simple"
Thanks for the info
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
@@gerardflynn7382 the usa has many more than two parties, i'd hazard a guess the third largest will be the green party, but there are various parties in the usa, they just don't get coverage or win anywhere because of their system.
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...
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.
@@mats7492 The minimum voting age is 16 in some countries.
@@to_loww Not in the US , the country my comment is about!
@@mats7492 Yep, but OP is talking about both US and EU. Austria and Malta are EU countries with lower voting age
"I'm learning." That was a very beautiful statement. Keep it up!
You are learning and I love your enthusiasm keep it up!
Thank you for sharing your exploits. You are doing great.
You're doing great, Ryan, at getting to know the EU!
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.
You did it into the latest Jules video "Ein Video über Deutschland" from 35:10
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
Important part is that every European citizen have national ID by European standard with all names written in both the local language and English. The ID contains a number that can identify the person. If a person does not reside in the country they are citizen of, they can register and vote for members in the country they live, or they could vote by default for members of the country they are citizen of.
However, European election forming the European parliament are usually less involved than local country elections. I am not sure how binding European parliament decisions are, but I know that they become a law in each individual country separately, after the local government ratify them, making the ultimate decision responsibility of each country. And if you are wondering what happen if any local government goes against EU decisions - Hungary.
Always wise to admit a lack of knowledge and to work to remedy it than to pretend otherwise and remain in ignorance.
But this would be so (sterotypically) Un-American!
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.
There are a bunch of presidents... One for each main institution... There is a list on wikipedia about this...
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.
The last EU Parlement elections were this year from the 6th to 9th of june (depending on the country).
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.
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
It's history. For Britain there's no return
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
D'Hondt is called the Jefferson method in the US. Thomas Jefferson invented it first.
So intelligente people!!
I have no idea, sounds right to me.
If you're interested in votation please watch something on the semi-direct votation in Switzerland 🇨🇭 😊
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 ^^
Learn about the Switzerland system. You gonna be shocked.
Direct democracy power
Aah! The Magic Formula. Citizens' vetoes. Brilliant.
It only works in a small sized rich country like Switzerland.
@@budapestkeletistationvoices why rich? Poor people cant decide for themselves?
@@matamoski poor people are poor for a reason. It's lack of education. If you look at the world democracy only exists in a small part of the world and only in rich countries. The Swiss type of democracy only exists and works in Switzerland.
Russia isn't that poor but it's not as rich as Switzerland and you can count the number of years on your hand when they tried democracy.
My country, Hungary isn't poor and is small, but it's a far cry from Switzerland and the public consensus is that they don't want democracy in any form
@@budapestkeletistationvoices so why just in Switzerland? If your theory was right, more rich countries could use that direct democracy system.
Precisely that system started in the 13th century, modernized in the 17th. Was Switzerland rich back then?
Im from Glarus, where we still today vote by hand. Believe me, i see rich and poors, educated and not so much around me.
Yep... the Czech elections to the EU parliament was min early June of this year.... and we vote with the open list system
i never knew until now, Tyler Rumple is your brother.
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.
Basically each EU country has 2 separate national elections: one for country's parliament MEPs and one for the EU parliament MEPs.
We just had our election
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.
6:08 Single transferable vote system is more widely known as "ranked choice voting"
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-
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.
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.
Pan european representation looks nice on paper like many other things but in reality it will be just free seats for biggest voting blocks aka germany, france, etc. the "underrepresented" would never have chance. Personally i think those seats should be eliminated altogether. For how EU works there is too many seats already.
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.
I think EUMS, or the EU Made Simple, is a pretty good channel for explaining things related the EU.
It already took place, this year.
It took place twice actually. The video is from 2019.
To be fair..
i know quite bit about european politics but i could not explain it either..
its complicated af
People not knowing enough leads to low turnouts, like last time turnout in Denmark was an abysmally low 58.25%. Last national parliamentary election was 84.16% turnout, sliding into the low. Local municipal and regional elections was 67.21% which is also worryingly low.
Fun fact: Though members of the EU Parliament are elected, power lies in the hand of the EU commission currently lead by Ursula von der Leyen. This commission though the most powerful entity in Europe, is NOT elected what undermines the democracy in Europe. As we say in Germany "Fish always stinks from its head" (that means if the head of the EU is rotten, you shouldn't be surprised that we have a right-wing issue in almost every member country, Hungary is ruled by an autocrat and there is no other country where there are more proceedings for treaty violations than against Germany).
Wrong.
what she didn't say is that if you live in another country than your nationality you have the choice to vote either with your country of origin or with the country you reside in which i think is pretty cool.
This video is from 5 years ago, it still talks about Britain being a part of the EU and the effect Brexit was about to have.
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.
Election just happened recently.
7:53 annoying the video shows the flag of Luxemburg 🇱🇺here instead of the mentioned Netherlands 🇳🇱
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.
That’s not the population it’s the number of those eligible to vote.
Its 27 member states now since the UK said bye bye.
We had this year the european elections and basically I casted my vote to the people from my country would be fit to represent us on EU level.
The set up in the country itself its more or less the same when local elections are on, but its EU wide and it was quite interesting to follow the results.... I just wish more people from my own country would attend those elections. It was a bit embarrassing how low the percentage was 😅
A lot of us Europeans know more or less how that works, but not fully. And a lot of people don't vote for these elections. Also, I see you mostly react to videos comparing Europe to USA that show the good side of Europe. But I think it would also be interesting for you to see the struggles in Europe: low salaries in a lot of countries, access to housing, etc. I think some peopel watch your videos to watch you criticize USA but not all of us.
you are doing well, firstly lol, but yeah, you should look at a longer more in depth video on the European parliament and elections to learn more. It is confusing from the outside, but does make sense in the main once you know. There's so many different voting styles across all of Europe, including those nations that are in the Eu. Scotland uses proportional representation for it's elections, with a system designed specifically to prevent any one party from having a total majority, forcing collaboration between parties, however, the support for the Snp a couple of times actually gave them a majority, whereas within the UK elections to elect MP's to the house of commons, they are first past the post, which means whoever in each parliamentary seat takes the most votes wins the seat. when you multiply that by the 650 seats it always ends up making the uk parliament not very representative at all. Of course the two bigger parties could have brought in PR yonks ago but it would only have removed their control, so over here we have a ping pong politics rather like yours.
I'm Czech and I can confirm that I also have no idea how the Europarliament elections work either.
Hallo, können sie bitte die Volker Pispers Reihe zu Ende bringen? Meine deutsche Zwanghaftigkeit hält das nicht aus!😊
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.
This is an old vid then with UK still in it... not anymore
Don't be embarrassed. It's a very complicated system and most Europeans don't know how it works.
I think it's actually hard to compare the US elections with the europeans ones. In Europe, our national elections are a lot more important than those of the EU, at least in the main opinion
The importance of an election also depends on how wealthy you are.
Most voters in the UK did not understand either. The most Googled question the day after the referendum? "What is the EU?" Currently the UK has a First Past The Post system for all elections. Not very democratic. STV would be my choice as it tends to elect members closest to the concensus of the electorate.
And Keir Starmer is currently wrangling about he isn't willing to ease the requirements to give a student visa to Europeans aka youth mobility scheme
@@budapestkeletistationvoices I do hope he has a valid reason and strategy. The UK and EU will benefit for all closer links.
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.
She is Portuguese
Tuguinha da Silva 🙂
I thought I recognised the accent.
The system is by no means similar to USA electoral college. Each country sends a number of members, yes, but the members do not represent just one party, like in the states’ electoral colleges (there is no “the winner takes it all”).
I mean, in the US you have 50 states and you manage right? I think we can compare US and EU easily
Think of the EU as a less federalized version of the US. Our countries are like your federal states and they have their own governor (president/prime minister) and congress (parliament) and handle their own national duties. Your federal congress is our EU parliament and your president is our General Commissioner which has other commissioners below that handle separate areas like transportation, defense, health etc.
The main differences to the American political system is that Europe has proportional representation in most of it's countries as well as in the EU level parliament that leads to multiple parties and coalition governments and not winner takes all like the US which leads to 2 main parties (with a few exceptions like the UK) and another difference is the level of federalization where in Europe there are less responsibilities transferred from national governments to the EU Commission, but there is a growing sentiment that there should be more strategic areas that the Commission should handle on an EU level like defense/energy/geopolitics/common debt etc. The EU parliament's decisions are also non binding and need a round of negotiations with the council of the member states national governments before becoming law, where a single country could have the right of veto (another discussion is on replacing the veto for qualified majority as you could have a lot of cases where a bad actor can block the whole block).
EU Made simple and Into Europe are two good channels you can watch to understand more about the EU.
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.
Five years ago (2019), the UK was still a member of the EU, and held EU elections. So there were 28 countries, not 27. AFAICT, the correct number of eligible voters was about 400M. Weirdly, 350M was *wrong* by approximately the number of UK voters (48M). It's as if they, like you, thought the UK was not holding EU elections. The EU population hardly matters for elections, the number of voters and turnout is more important. The EU population of the 28 countries was about 512M
Best Wishes. ☮
@@gbulmer Ah. You are right about 2019. That indeed was their last election. So 28 is correct.
MP: member of parliament
MEP: member of European parliament
The 2024 election was in june of this year
"when the next election, it must be coming up"
FYI the European Union violated the people's democratic referendum results of France and the Netherlands back in 2005, both countries democratically voted NO to the "Lisbon treaty" (The Treaty of Lisbon is a European agreement that amends the two treaties which form the constitutional basis of the European Union, you know what this means if you vote no against a constitution, it means the EU of today would not exist). The EU also violated the democratic "Bailout" referendum of Greece in 2015. All in all the people of countries under control of the EU can vote all they want, if they vote NO and the EU thinks it should be yes then it becomes YES because in the EU we have people so powerful that their only voices count for the voices of entire countries, apparently. Now after the people's democratic decisions were violated in the aformentionned referendums, it can be said the EU is freewheeling making the citizens of which they violated the democratic right eat insects "2023. Following the positive EFSA opinion from July 2022, on the 6th of January, the European Commission published the Implementing Regulation authorising frozen and freeze-dried formulations of lesser mealworm (Alphitobius diaperinus) as Novel Food. The authorisation came into effect on 26 January 2023.". Next time you see a video of our unelected President Von der Leyen, scroll down a bit and read the comments of the European people everyone hates her.
don't worry..I'm Italian and I don't understand how it works too 😀
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.
Most Europeans don't know either.
if you want to understand this a bit more then you might want to check out EU made simple. They did some videos on that topic. Same goes for TLDR Europe.
I always thought Norway was part of the EU. But now that I know better... no wonder they seem like the most chill right besides Switzerland lol. Not saying the EU is bad or anything, but they don't have to deal with all that stuff that comes with it. So it's a plus and a minus I guess, depending on how you look at it.
Australia 🇦🇺 has compulsory voting. Plus All three voting processes I.e. party, individual and preference voting. However not proportional representation but first passed the post, similar to the UK with none of the problems they always complain about. Also no Gerrymandering as boundaries are controlled independently of the government! If you have voted in different system you know which is better! NSW in Oz
MEP Member of European Parlament
STV: but if a candidate can win enough votes to win a seat, they're not fringe. The old parties are suppressing the new parties.
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.
It was already , the elections I mean.
One fact...The EU and the continental USA have nearly the same physical size...
I'm pretty sure most Europeans don't know much about the MEPs or how the whole EU voting system works.
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.
Now only 27 member states because UK already leaved the EU.
Around 8:00 they mention that after UK left the European Union, the European Parliament lost seats. That was true during that term (that ended in 2024), but after the 2024 election the European Parliament won 15 seats (up to 720) and reallocated some of the seats that were lost due to Brexit (to the other European countries, proportionally based on population). The EU is confusing sometimes to both locals and foreigners, so don't worry about not getting everything at first lol
Last eu-election was like 3 months ago in germany
After the European election the French president party came second with less than half of the national rally and then decided to dissolves the French parliament.
Europeans mostly would not like our form of gt and we would not like theirs either. And that ok we live an ocean away.
Nobody knows,.. you vote, they decide,.. that was,.. democracy?
It is OK not to know how other countries elections work because for most other people outside America they have no idea how or why American elections actually function with a facade of democracy over overt capitalism with legalised corruption, interference and undue influence widely distributed throughout the whole system with enormous amounts of both dark money and legal finances employed to keep the results generally in line with what big business or influential organisations want or need to continue to make huge undeserved profits or monetary returns to the top end of town at the expense of the majority of poorer people
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….
We just voted again... last June ...for the first time without the UK 😉
Did we miss them ? Were tears shed for the absence of people such as Farage ? Actually I didn't hear anything about the absent British.
"Elections"... 🤣🙄😮💨
Not as painful as watching McJibbin. Trust me.
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.
It is not a democracy AT ALL. It is just a show.
Sweed here 👋
It is an effort to try and keep extremist, racist and the likes, from gaining power. Sweden Democrats, third biggest party in Sweden, was started by a former Nazi serving Germany in ww2. That doesn't bode well for international business on EU level considering how their whole reason for existing is built on national level prioritisation.
Don’t worry buddy most Europeans don’t know how that works either
No wonder I'm really NOT interested in politics and don't vote.For me, if a person doesn't know what to do with their lives, they become footballers, singers or, in a last ditch effort, politicians.