Talk:Volt Europa

Number of seats in the German and Italian local governments

As per Volt Europa[1], there's elected Volt representatives in several German and Italian cities. I would like to add this information to the main infobox, but can't find the data on the number of total councilors in all of Germany nor Italy, like with Portugal and the Netherlands. Can anyone help find this data? Pepbob (talk) 01:05, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

This could be a bit tricky, especially since in Germany there are district councils, migration advisory councils, etc. in which Volt is represented.

Besides, there are a hell of a lot of local councils in Germany. I'm not sure if there is a reliable total number for all local councils anywhere, let alone for the larger parties on their number of local councils, as this is likely to change on a daily basis throughout Germany due to the various changes.

However, it should be relatively easy to find out the number of Volt councillors, as the party lists them all on its website. There are probably around 80 councillors spread across Germany. Heideneii (talk) 19:09, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

I think it should be possible to figure out a number, which is around what Heideneii said. However, it changes quite frequently so it might not be worth it. Giving a rougher overview: "in city councils in various large German, Italian, and Dutch cities" would be better. Womaninthehighcastle (talk) 11:16, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

About Sophie in 't Veld

Should that count as an official welcome from the party? https://twitter.com/d_boeselager/status/1669638223956410369 Slazac (talk) 13:29, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Straightening out the "National Sections" Part of the Article?

I think the "Nation Sections" part is too long and contains quite little interesting information, for most of the sections the information is basically that they have been registered and now exist and maybe participated in an election and did not do all to well. I think it would be more informative to summarize the main activity across all countries in a text and then simply put a table that shows where the national sections are parties and link to their articles (which in many cases also unclear if the must exist but that is better than the confused ordering now). Thoughts? Womaninthehighcastle (talk) 11:21, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

@Womaninthehighcastle I think this could be beneficial. Group them all in a table with a column that toggles between, maybe "Registered", "Contested elections", "Has political presence" and "Governs"? 66.181.161.136 (talk) 02:16, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

The content isn't suitable for a table, even an unwieldy one as is known to grow into a maintenance nightmare fast. There's clearly more to say about some sections than others at this point, which is only natural, as is some unavoidable repetition. But it's also a start and we should keep in mind that any part could be expanded at some future time. At this point a few of them just may be regarded as of dubious notability and delivering on not much more than honorable mention or completeness sake, maybe those could better be summarized in some concluding section. Apart from that I don't see a problem with easily skipping those parts of the article where desired, it's pretty much the point of a digital encyclopedia. -149.22.91.78 (talk) 06:39, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Representing critical perspectives and NPOV

The article largely avoids presenting criticism. I have read multiple times that the party is accused of implementing neoliberal interests and astroturfing. This should be at least mentioned in the article; otherwise, it appears one-sided.And not NPOV Aberlin2 (talk) 08:02, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Aberlin2 providing you cite your claims with reliable sources then I'd say WP:BEBOLD applies here. Helper201 (talk) 15:26, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Counting the votes for EP 2024

Currently, the overview of the votes Volt got for EP 2024 include over a million votes in Italy and almost 300.000 in bulgaria. However, in these countries, volt ran on a combined list, whose Volt candidates recieved much less votes. It therefore seems more appropriate to only count the votes the candidates themselves obtained, and not the total the entire list obtained, for voting coalitions in which Volt takes part. This gives a better overview of the amount of Europeans that actually voted for Volt, instead of voting for a list that Volt is just on. FLoris Löffler (talk) 20:26, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Political Position

While there are sources saying that the party is center or center-left, the source for the centrism is from The European Federalist, a source which we must admit might have more than a little bias on this issue, while the source saying that the party is center-left is from 2020, almost four years ago now (though that can be hard to believe sometimes lol). Given the significant social progressivism, the typical confluence between European Federalism and the Left wing/far-left, the favoring of the Greens over Renew, the significant emphasis within the party of countering Europe's rising right-wing parties, and, most importantly, the wealth of reliable sources that place Volt in a left-wing context, some of which I have placed below, I believe there is sufficient basis to call this party "left-wing." If nobody has a problem with this over the next week or so, I will make the necessary changes.

https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/news/article/is-paneuropean-party-volt-the-future-of-eu-politics

https://internationalpolicy.org/publications/popular-fronts-can-defeat-reactionaries-in-europe/ JustAPoliticsNerd (talk) 19:53, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

I disagree and think the centre to centre-left statement is a good reflection of where it stands. I'll look for more sources when I get the time. Helper201 (talk) 16:08, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

If more reliable sources can be found, then I suppose I would support it, though I cannot think of a single part of their platform that would qualify as centrist, when centrism is generally considered to be assocaiated with Liberals in Renew Europe in the European political context, of which all of there positions are to the left of. I would say that, given the unity of their political postions and the lack of internal division within the party, they should also only be classified as one thing, not "___ to _____" JustAPoliticsNerd (talk) 20:02, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Here are sources for centre-left:

• https://ecpr.eu/Events/Event/PaperDetails/61599
  
• https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/22/netherlands-votes-in-tight-election-with-far-right-expected-to-make-gains
  
• https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/eu-asylum-seekers-first-country-migration-m9lk75gcq
  
• https://www.academia.edu/106358878/Yugoslavs_and_Europeans_Compared?uc-sb-sw=113074454

Helper201 (talk) 10:15, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

To be clear, The European Federalist source does not say it is centrist but that it is "more centrist" than another left-wing party. That simply means it is closer to the center than another party. Here is the passage from the source:

These European elections were also marked by the media presence of openly federalist parties, the two main ones being DiEM25 and Volt. In Germany, the "Demokratie in Europa – Diem 25" list stood out in the media thanks to the candidacy of the former Greek finance minister and opponent of German ordoliberalism Yanis Varoufakis. The results, however, didn't meet the expectations: the left-wing federalist party only got 0.3% of the votes. Volt, a mode [sic] centrist federalist party, managed the feat of sending their lead candidate, Damian Boeselager, to Strasbourg.

For that reason, centre-left remains an apt description for Volt's political position. Precision123 (talk) 18:19, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I would agree that this is commonly used and acceptable. Is there a source for "centrist," though? JustAPoliticsNerd (talk) 18:24, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't see a source describing it as centrist, User:JustAPoliticsNerd. The page only cites The European Federalist, which merely says Volt more centrist than Democracy in Europe Movement 2025, another Eurofederalist party. I support leaving it as centre-left in the infobox. Precision123 (talk) 17:12, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

This seems sensible to me. JustAPoliticsNerd (talk) 17:20, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

I took a look at this and ultimately classifying Volt as left-wing would be WP:OR. Whether it's the "significant social progressivism", "the typical confluence between European Federalism and the Left wing/far-left" (I don't think far-left is majority pro-EU at all), "the favoring of the Greens over Renew" or "the significant emphasis within the party of countering Europe's rising right-wing parties", none of these prove that the party is left-wing.

You posted two sources but neither of these call Volt left-wing. First source says "We first founded Volt Europa, a progressive, Eurofederalist party that today sits in the EU parliament." Conflating "progressive" with "left-wing" is instead an example of WP:OR. The other source says: "But Volt is not the only example of a pan-European party with a top-down approach. Another contender in this year’s European elections was Mera25. The left-wing party was founded in 2021..." Volt was not founded in 2021 - this refers to Mera25. Alas, so neither call the party left-wing. I think you should make sure that you have source to show that the party is left-wing, and ensure that it would not be WP:OR. We are not supposed to interpret or draw our own conclusions from sources.

In fact, the first source you give, from the Parliament Magazine, says this:

• Boeselager was first elected to the EP in 2019 as Volt’s first and – for a long time – only MEP. Last summer, MEP Sophie in ‘t Veld left the Dutch liberal party D66 and joined Volt. In ‘t Veld, however, was not re-elected this year.
• “Last time [before the 2019 elections] we were rather the underdogs. We first had to explain to everyone what we were. That has now become less," Boeselager tells The Parliament.
• The centrist party that he co-founded in 2017 was created to build “a counter-model to these right-wing populists who always say that we should go back to the nation state.”

Boeselager co-founded Volt in 2017. It is a centrist party per this source. Deutsche Welle seems to agree too:

The German Volt was the first national branch of the centrist pan-European party to be founded in 2017.

Both sources are from this year, from 2024. This makes it clear to me. Brat Forelli🦊 00:32, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Description and lede

Hi everyone,

I would like to discuss the current description and lede of this article. As part of recent changes I made to a number of pages, I changed the description of this page to "Federalist European political alliance"; this was quickly changed to "Federalist European transnational party". Likewise, the lede currently states that Volt Europa is "a pro-European and European federalist transnational party", though it does specify later that Volt Europa does not meet the criteria to register as a European political party.

I find this confusing and misleading. As the latter part of the lede rightly indicates, Volt Europa is not a European party. Further, in line with the article dedicated to political parties, I contend that a political party is tied to a jurisdiction. This is not the case for Volt Europa: at the European level, it is not a European party, and at the national level it instead has national chapters, many of which are registered as national political parties. So Volt Europa (which is legally registered as a international non-profit in Belgium) is an structure of cooperation of national political parties and other similar national political entities.

Since Volt Europa aspires to be a European party and operates at the EU level, I find it relevant to rely on the framework provided for such parties, and the Regulation on European parties defines as "political alliances" such structured cooperations of national parties. I therefore think that Volt Europa clearly meets the definition of "European political alliance", but does not meet the definition of political party, transnational or otherwise.

Of course, Volt Europa does regularly describe itself as a European political party, and this term has been applied to it in many publications. But since "European political party" has a specific meaning, it is clearly not adequate to label it as such and we do not have a definition of "transnational party".

Happy to hear everyone's opinions on this. Julius Schwarz (talk) 14:02, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

PS: to be clear, I have no problem with indicating that Volt Europa "refers to itself" as this or that, or that is "has been referred to" as this or that. But this remains different from what it actually is. Julius Schwarz (talk) 15:57, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Firstly, thank you very much for your edits to the text, they are a great improvement. Regarding your question, if it's not technically a party, maybe we can find some other neutral terminology. "Alliance" seems to me to be too weak to describe Volt. There is a centralised structure and organisation there. Possible examples: European federalist transnational political structure or European federalist transnational political movement. Jdcooper (talk) 23:44, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Jdcooper, thanks for your kind words, that's appreciated. Actually, I agree with your assessment; Wikipedia aside, Volt is, to me, the closest thing to what a European party should really be.

And, to be sure, when I did a big review of the article on European political parties (which included a lot of entities not registered as European parties, and still does to this day), I did try and bring a distinction between "European political organisation" and "European political alliance", which is along the lines of your comment. In this dichotomy, European political organisations were entities that had a stronger centralisation for decision-making and Volt fit squarely in there; conversely, European political alliances were looser networks, where the national-level entities were clearly the most important players.

However, there was push-back again this categorisation for two reasons: 1/ because it was not properly supported by sources or litterature on the topic, and 2/ because "European political organisation" could mean widely different things -- the European Union, the Council of Europe, or the European Political Community can also be described as European political organisations. So while the push-back was less on the merits of the categorisation, it was very fair for Wikipedia work, and that distinction was since removed.

As a result, I tried to remove "European political organisation" where it was applied to party-like entities. Instead, I have been trying to use "European political alliance" because it has a basis in Regulation 1141/2014, which is the applicable framework for European parties. Basically, if you want to be a European party, you first have to be a political alliance (a "structured cooperation between political parties [of EU member states] and/or [European] citizens"). That's both clear and loose enough to be applicable to many structures.

But, of course, that leaves open the initial issue that I was trying to address in my categorisation: the notable distinction between entities like Volt and loose networks of national parties (actually, most European political parties fall somewhere in the middle of that spectrum).

The way I see it, there are two ways forward: 1/ we do not take it upon ourselves to have a categorisation that would be based on the entities' internal structure, and, in this case, I think "European political alliance" is the most fitting description, owing to its legal basis and considering the push-back that I mentioned; or 2/ we do want to take these organisational differences into account, but that may lead to very subjective naming, since there aren't clear categories of reference.

Volt can be called a political movement, but what makes a movement a movement, and what is the clear distinction between a movement and an alliance? Would DiEM25 (which is looser in its organisation than Volt) be a movement or an alliance? The same goes for "political structure". At any rate, the one element that I believe does not qualify is anything with the word "party" (in the singular). Volt certainly comprises political parties, and certainly aspires to become a (European) political party; but it simply isn't one. And while European political parties are indeed transnational parties (probably the only real transnational parties, by the way), Volt Europa simply isn't (yet) a party, transnational or otherwise, as it has no jurisdiction where it is either registered or recognised as such (the article on political parties is very country-focused in its phrasing, but the core idea is that a party is tied to a jurisdiction).

Anyway, sorry this was so long. I am very happy to try and find a good phrasing, I just think many terms will face the same push-back that my initial categorisation received and, as a result, I do think that a more general "European political alliance" (accompanied by a proper description later in the lede and main body of the article) is the best way forward. Julius Schwarz (talk) 07:24, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

@Jdcooper Any follow-up thoughts? Julius Schwarz (talk) 09:52, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Oops sorry, I forgot to reply! Not many, I have to admit. I would call it a European party, de facto, but if it doesn't meet the technical conditions for such, then fair enough. We can call it an alliance, if that's the most fitting, technically, or we can defer to the sources, even if they are not formally correct. But I've no strong opinion either way and I'm happy to go with what you think is best. Jdcooper (talk) 12:01, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Ahah, no problem at all and I am sorry the message was so long. Between you and me, I would really like to call Volt a European party, and I do in common parlance, but I do not believe this is appropriate in Wikipedia, since it just isn't factual. My recommendation would also be not to take it upon ourselves to create various categories of non-registered entities, and, for this reason, would continue to recommend the use of "alliance", together with a proper mention in the lede. At any rate, I will still wait a bit more to see whether more people chip in before make any changes. Julius Schwarz (talk) 13:36, 11 October 2024 (UTC)