Free Republic

A new poll released by Germany’s Bild newspaper on Saturday, conducted in six countries in late February and early March, showed the far-right Europe of Nations and Freedom Group (ENF) was likely to win 67 seats in the European Parliament election in May. Europeans go to the polls on May 23-26 to elect representatives to the 705-seat European Parliament. Currently, the ENF group holds 37 seats. According to the Bild report, which surveyed more than 9,000 people, right-wing euroskeptic parties are in the lead in three of the six countries surveyed. In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party is...

Ahmad Jannati has been chosen to lead Iran’s new assembly of experts, the body which oversees the work of the country’s supreme leader and will elect his successor. Jannati was voted chairman of the 88-member Assembly with 51 votes. The 90-year-old is said to be dismissive of President Hassan Rouhani and his attempts to end Iran’s global isolation by normalizing ties with the West. He is also the leader of the Guardian Council, a hardline vetting body that disqualified thousands of reformists from standing in February’s elections for the assembly and parliament. …

On February 26, the ayatollahs have scheduled two "elections" in Iran: one for the parliament and one for the Assembly of Experts, a body that is supposed to monitor the supreme leader and choose a replacement when the time comes. Some in the West tout this as the potential start of a new era of moderation. After all it is the first election since the conclusion of nuclear negotiations between Iran and six world powers. But the nuclear deal cannot be the only criteria by which the West determines the prospects for moderation in Iran. Equally or more important is...

House Speaker Paul Ryan called on Republicans Wednesday to stop fighting angrily among themselves and not to be distracted by guns or other "hot-button" issues that President Barack Obama raises this election year. "We can't fall into the progressives' trap of acting like angry reactionaries," Ryan, R-Wis., said at a Heritage Action for America policy meeting. "The left would love nothing more than for a fragmented conservative movement to stand in a circular firing squad, so the progressives can win by default." ...

He’s already boasted of wielding power through a pen and a phone. Now President Obama wants to add a rubber stamp to his desk set – and the rubber stamp would be named “U.S. Congress.” Buried in his State of the Union address, Obama said he will ask Congress to give him “trade promotion authority.” He didn’t say what trade promotion authority would do. But critics charge that it would cede the Republican majority’s control of the congressional agenda to Obama and strip Congress of its ability to vet and amend international agreements. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., acknowledges Obama is...

The May 2014 EU election saw the lowest voter turnout on record, according to updated figures discreetly released by the European Parliament during the summer holiday period for EU institutions. The updated numbers, published on the Parliament website, show that turnout struggled to reach 42.54% in 2014, well below the 43.1% initially announced. Diplomatic pencils will be being snapped in despair at the lowest public enthusiasm for an EU poll since 1979, when elections were first held. The tweaked figures will also come as an embarrassment for EU officials who had hailed the results of the 2014 poll for finally...

Europe’s socialists are set to top the polls in May’s European elections, according to the first pan-EU election forecast. The projections, released by Pollwatch Europe on Tuesday (19 February), give the parliament’s center-left group 221 out of 751 seats on 29 percent of the vote, up from the 194 seats it currently holds. For their part, the center-right EPP would drop to 202 seats from the 274 it currently holds on 27 percent of the vote across the bloc. If correct, it would be the first victory for the Socialists since 1994. …

In the midst of the many crisis and challenges facing today’s world, MEPs have sounded off the urgent need of setting up a parliamentary assembly in the United Nations. “A United Nations Parliamentary assembly is a vital component to strengthen democratic legitimacy of the United Nations,” said center-left MEP Jo Leinen, during an international conference last week (17 October). Leinen and ALDE party leader Graham Watson have been on the forefront of such initiative since 2007. Since the 1990s there have been many calls to reform the UN, but there is little clarity or consensus on the way to change...

The EU’s current institutional set-up resembles a “Frankenstein” monster because there is no democratic separation of powers, European Parliament chief Martin Schulz said Monday (4 March) during a debate in Hamburg on sovereignty transfers to Brussels. “National sovereignty in Europe is based on a model of separation of powers: we have a government that can be voted down by a parliament and an independent judiciary overseeing that rules are respected,” Schulz said. He added: “What we are doing now is that we are taking bits and pieces of this framework and transferring them to the EU level, but without also...

Euro MPs prompted uproar last night by plotting to try to block the budget deal using a secret ballot so voters cannot hold them to account. It emerged that they are planning to use a little-understood procedure to allow them to vote in private and defy the 27 EU leaders. Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament and former leader of its socialist group, suggested a vote on the budget should be conducted in secret to allow MEPs to break away from prime ministers and party leaders and maximize the chances of it being rejected. A vote behind closed doors...