European elections will be held in June – and a host of established parties are fighting hard to win the vote to elect the 720 MEPs who will determine the course of EU legislation for the next five years, writes Euronews.
There are, however, a number of more specialized, if not outlandish, options.
As the countdown draws closer to the opening of the polls on June 6, Euronews has looked for the strangest options Europeans could face at the polls.
1. The Esperanto Party
Voters in France can put their stamp on the Esperanto Democratic Europe party – a single-issue campaign that seeks to add this artificial language, invented in 1887, to the bloc’s list of 24 official languages.
“EU bodies operate almost exclusively in English,” documents on the party’s website state. “The European population is isolated from its leaders.”
Is the lack of Esperanto really why voters feel disconnected from Brussels? In 2019, 18,587 members of the French electorate thought yes, which places the party at 0.08% of the national total.
It became one of the 28 parties that ran in France, but did not get any MEPs.
2. The party for millennials
Across Europe, party strategists are trying to figure out which arguments will resonate with young or old.
Alongside the main parties, such as the Christian Democrats and the Socialists, voters in Germany can choose from a range of options dedicated to vegetarianism, humanism and animal rights.
Or they could opt for a party with even more special interests – dedicated to biomedical research in the field of rejuvenation or stopping the aging process altogether.
The website of the Partei für schulmedizinische Verjüngungsforschung says it will invest €40 billion a year in EU money to provide “unlimited healthy life for everyone”, promising Europeans the chance to live for thousands of years.
3. The “Don’t Vote For Us” Party
If you don’t like voting to become Methuselah, you could just… not vote.
In the Czech Republic, there is a “Don’t Vote for Us” party, and its message could prove extremely popular.
The last European elections in 2019 saw a record turnout, attributed to an increase in interest among young voters. But almost half of the electorate chose to stay at home, suggesting lower enthusiasm for EU-related issues compared to national polls.
The Czech’s full name “Nechceme Vase Hlasy” directs users to a website that proclaims the benefits of “anarcho-capitalism” — a libertarian political theory that advocates reducing state regulation.
4. Vote for the bad chick
Sweden’s Ond Kyckling Partiet, or Bad Chicken Party, is one of 114 groups competing for the country’s 21 MEP seats.
“Initially, the evil chicken was kind of an inside joke,” Svante Strokirk, the party’s founder, who is also at the top of its electoral list, told Euronews. “I don’t remember exactly why, but it kind of changed.”
While the party has some policy ideas, from copyright reform to electoral rules, Strokirk seems more interested in testing how easy it was to officially register as a candidate.
He is hoping to get more than 100 votes, which would be a significant increase from the 39 the party got in the recent national elections.
“If you’re a person who wants to vote for the Bad Chicken Party, I think you probably wouldn’t have voted anyway, or you don’t care that much who you’re voting for,” he said.
He says he’s not quite sure he wants to become an MEP, although he admits “it would be cool”.
“I haven’t gone so far as to look at property prices in Brussels,” he added.
5. … or a dog with two tails
Sometimes in politics what starts with humor can end up very serious.
Italy’s Five Star Movement, founded by satirist Beppe Grillo, is forecast by a recent Euronews poll to win 16 of Italy’s 76 seats this June.
The Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party, founded in Szeged, Hungary, nearly two decades ago, set out to poke fun at mainstream politics through humorous artistic stunts – but now says it’s much more than a joke.
Although the party retains its ironic side, lead candidate Marietta Le told Euronews that the Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party “draws attention to issues in public life and politics” through “long-term, community-based thinking”.
Marietta Le cited issues from broken sidewalks to corruption: and there are certainly plenty of issues to call attention to. Right-wing leader Viktor Orbán, in power since 2010, is frequently accused of veering towards autocracy, and MEPs have cited concerns over the independence of the judiciary and press freedom.
Hopes are rising for alternatives such as Péter Magyar, a former close associate of Orbán, who has 12 MEP candidates and is rising in the polls.
But Marietta Le is confident her party will get at least one MEP and, if so, is in talks to join the Greens group in Parliament. “We’re a funny party – and the other parties are jokes.”
6. The Party The Party
Perhaps the most famous – and, by most polls, successful – protest party is from Germany, simply called Die Partei.
Comedian and founder Martin Sonneborn is seeking a third term in the European Parliament this June – with a manifesto that includes a promise to rebuild the Berlin Wall and cap the price of beer and kebabs.
According to the European Parliament’s website, in his ten years as an MEP, Martin Sonneborn has not drafted a single report – the key tool lawmakers use to amend EU law or demand policy change.
Sonneborn told Euronews he was lifting the veil on the EU’s opaque institutions – and also cited interventions into more serious issues, such as how the European Commission negotiated Covid vaccine contracts with Pfizer and the bloc’s troubled relations with Azerbaijan .
“It is crucial not to re-elect the parties that have led Europe to war and crisis.”
Why are there so many parties?
For Sophia Russack of the Center for European Policy Studies, it is no surprise that there will be such diversity in June.
“European Parliament elections are always a very attractive testing ground for new parties,” said Russack, a researcher at the Brussels-based think tank.
In countries like Germany, there is no minimum threshold for a party to gain representation in the EU, she notes, making these elections good preparation before trying to run in national elections, which have a minimum threshold of 5%, much tougher.
“Satire parties are refreshing … I don’t think it’s necessarily unhealthy for democracy to have such parties,” Russack said.
But, she added, European Parliament rules mean the odds are stacked against iconoclasts who cannot fit into any of the chamber’s big political families, which currently number seven.
“Power and influence are distributed by groups and by group affiliation,” she said — perhaps explaining why the likes of Sonneborn have been unable to get involved in legislative activity. “Without a group, you’re nothing.”
