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)