EU Debate 2014: My Dad's On TV!

Published on May 2, 2014

PoliticsEuropean Elections 2014

Ska Keller, 32, Ger­many, Eu­ro­pean Green Party

Ska Keller pro­posed a “green new deal” with the mantra: “a more de­mo­c­ra­tic Eu­rope which takes care of peo­ple”. Maybe it sounds triv­ial when re­peated... or maybe it sounds like a new tune for the Old Con­ti­nent. Her sup­port­ers say the sound of Ska could be the new melody Eu­rope needs to in­spire sol­i­dar­ity and so­cial so­lu­tions.

But some peo­ple thought these utopian vibes were all hot air. Lots of words, lots of dreams, but fewer “con­crete so­lu­tions". Maybe be­cause she’s the youngest can­di­date, maybe be­cause she’s the green can­di­date, maybe due to her gand­hian so­lu­tions for the cri­sis in Ukraine, but most of Keller’s de­trac­tors ac­cuse her of naivete and un­re­al­is­tic utopian ideals.

Trans­la­tion: Who ad­vises can­di­dates how to dress? Ska Keller is saved.

Ska Keller of­fers a strik­ing vi­sual con­trast to the 3 “old men of EU pol­i­tics”. Yes sir, pol­i­tics has not only a com­mu­ni­ca­tion code but also a dress one. Franziska, the 32 year old Ger­man, wears a bright red jacket and smiles. It's a world away from Ver­hof­s­tadt’s snot-coloured tie, Juncker’s ghostly vibe and Schulz' goa­tee. Green is the colour of hope, red the colour of pas­sion (and more­over “red” Tsipras was not there to claim the copy­right.)

Guy Ver­hof­s­tadt, 61, Bel­gium, Eu­ro­pean Lib­er­als

Trans­la­tion: Ver­hof­s­tadt promises 50/50 men/women in the Com­mis­sion. Bold!

Guy Ver­hof­s­tadt: The Bel­gian lib­eral was ap­plauded for promis­ing 50 per cent women in the com­mis­sion when elected. “Bold”!

He in­deed touches on a press­ing issue be­cause only 9 of 28 cur­rent Com­mis­sion­ers are fe­male.

His eco­nomic vi­sion for the fu­ture of the EU is more con­tested. Peo­ple are scared of “less reg­u­la­tion” and “more pri­va­ti­za­tion”.

But in the end Guy Ver­hof­s­tadt can re­ally count on his fam­ily. His son Louis even rec­og­nized him on TV: “That’s MY Dad”.

Mar­tin Schulz, 58, Ger­many, Pro­gres­sive al­liance of so­cial­ists and de­moc­rats

So Schulz' vi­sion of Eu­rope is clear enough to tempt a hard­line right winger? He must be doing some­thing right. But in this case, in­er­tia is on Juncker's side. But wait a mo­ment... what is his vi­sion of Eu­rope? Can you re­ally con­vey any vi­sion in 30 sec­ond sound­bites?

This South­ern Ital­ian thinks Schulz should get out more and base his poli­cies on the ev­i­dence on the ground. Of course Schulz can't be blamed for cor­rup­tion in Italy, but crit­i­cism of the "Brus­sels bub­ble" is not un­founded.

Trans­la­tion: The new Green Keller wins, Juncker loses, and Schulz makes a fool of him­self say­ing "vote for me, I'm a pop­star."

When it came to the issue of lead­er­ship Schulz said he was pre­pared to be our “pop­star”. We can’t wait for the mo­ment when he ap­pears next to Bono in the charts.

Jean-Claud Juncker, 59, Lux­em­bourg, Eu­ro­pean Peo­ple's Party

Trans­la­tion: Juncker is a pleas­ant suprise. Right-wing, yes, but a right-wing that’s in­tel­li­gent and not pop­ulist.

Find­ing a pos­i­tive tweet about Juncker’s per­for­mance was a chal­lenge. In any case, this “not pop­ulist” com­pli­ment is some­what ten­den­tious. Guy Ver­hof­s­tadt taunted Juncker about pop­ulist hell-raiser Sil­vio Berlus­coni’s mem­ber­ship of the EPP Juncker leads. Ska Keller also at­tacked Juncker, say­ing the EPP re­peat the slo­gans of ex­treme-right pop­ulists; “im­mi­gra­tion flood gates” what...??

Ob­vi­ously you can’t blame Juncker for look­ing like a wax work model, but you can cer­tainly blame him for act­ing like one. He was widely lam­basted for his stale style. Would it have been bet­ter for his rat­ings if he didn’t turn up at all?

The Juncker bus… it sure ain’t pretty. And it’s pro­vided ample am­mu­ni­tion for the Juncker par­ody twit­ter ac­count: “My main cam­paign themes for #EU­de­bate2014: jobs, jobs, jobs, peo­ple, peo­ple, peo­ple. I have a bus. I have a bus.” “I'm look­ing for­ward to #EU­de­bate2014 tonight. I imag­ine it'll be the usual chants of "Go Juncker" with teenage girls scream­ing and faint­ing.” Schulz isn't the only rock star on offer.

Aléxis Tsípras,  39, Greece, Coali­tion of the Rad­i­cal Left

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