Whom to vote for the European Parliament

Sunday, May 26, 2019. Today is election day. And because I missed the pre-elections by about 50 minutes, I will vote physically, fortunately at only 100 meters from our house. The question is: whom to vote?

I have been dreaming repeatedly of a software application which helps me to find out which party matches my political opinion.

And the EU made my dreams come true: euandi2019.eu. euandi2019 is part of spaceu2019.eu, a larger project on citizens’ voting rights in Europe. Thanks to those who contributed to this great project. One of them is Mari-Liis Jakobson at TÜ. I don’t know her, but if I had time, I would contact her to check out whether I can help them.

My opinion about some of the existing statements:

  • “The European Union should rigorously punish Member States that violate the EU deficit rules” : No. Nobody should have the right to punish anybody else just for not agreeing to their rules. Rules might turn out to be wrong, unrealistic, inadequate or incomplete. I basically agree that the EU should get more power, but that’s a complex topic.

  • “Asylum-seekers should be distributed proportionally among European Union Member States” : I disagree completely. Asylum seekers should have the right to choose themselves in which country they ask for asylum, and every country should have the right to decide whether to refuse or welcome asylum-seekers. Of course the member states should help each other in coping with a global problem which touches some of them more than others. But this solidarity should be regulated without increasing the pains of those who seek asylum.

While I fundamentally welcome and praise this project, I must add that there is obviously more work to be done regarding the set of statements in the poll. Of course it is difficult to find a set of questions which is representative and neutral while staying reasonably short.

I guess that the statements were chosen based on the topics that have actually been discussed at the EP. But didn’t the EP discuss recently about copyright and data protection?

I’d suggest to add at least three statements regarding copyright and privacy:

  • The right to control usage of published content should be reduced. (Sharing published content does not harm the author. Restricting the right to share published content should no longer be a responsibility of our legal system. There are better methods for financing intellectual work than the actual copyright).

  • The responsibility of content publishers concerning plagiarism, defamation and deception should be increased.

  • The right to privacy should be reduced for legal entities. (But maintained for physical persons. Corporates and institutions should have no right to have secrets about their strategies or methods.)

Yes, of course I do agree with those statements. You will have no difficulties to recognize my Lutsu Manifesto. Forgive me if I am obstinate. After all I am a poor limited human.

Later I found another tool which would have been interesting: https://yourvotematters.eu/en/quiz This tool is based on 25 real decisions that Members of the European Parliament have actually made in the last five years. This tool found out that Yana Toom (Keskerakond) is the best match for my views at the EP. But she had only 51%. The bet score was more than 60%.