Talk:European Green Party

Infobox: European upper/lower houses

There are at least 3 reasons why this information is removed:

1. The scope is unclear: ‘European’ means just the EU countries or the whole Europe (whatever that can mean)?
2. Upper and lower houses have no meaning or are ambiguous for some countries: e.g. unicameral, federal systems.
3. The statistics are almost unverifiable from sources and quickly go out of date due to e.g. floor crossing, byelections, local elections changing the seat allocations.

– Kaihsu (talk) 11:16, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

@Julius Schwarz: I have not dared to change the infoboxes for other europarties along the lines I proposed above. Kaihsu (talk) 19:24, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, that's a tough one. I actually really agree with your points and I do not think that the current system allows for useful information: numbers are not consistent across parties and it becomes too much work to keep them updated and relevant, so the information is not meaningful.

Until the EU has a coherent system of political parties across governance levels (with the same parties found at each level), I would support removing that information too, and just focus on European-level bodies.

PS: already keeping the bars up to date in the body of the article, including the Council of the EU, would be good. Julius Schwarz (talk) 20:20, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

actually, this is an open and potentially silly question, but can we use Wikidata to have a small database ofthe composition of national governments which we could use to update the composition bars for the European Council and Council of the European Union? Julius Schwarz (talk) 20:30, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

That would be so cool. I want updates on this. MatthewDalhousie (talk) 23:03, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Take a look at this attempt earlier: User:Kaihsu/Europarties in European Council and EU Council. European Council is fine, but Council of the EU would be tricky: To be pedantic, the participants depend on the configuration and can change each meeting; in addition, some participants are not directly linked to a (euro)party – sometimes just a high-ranking official from the ministry or a diplomat stationed at the seat of the Council. Kaihsu (talk) 05:51, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

That's not pedantic, that's the reality. And it bugs me that we keep "27" even though the total number varies according to the number of coalition governments at any given time. But it's probably informative enough.

In the meantime, I would suggest holding off on removing the lower/upper houses. I am creating a template to, at least, harmonise the numbers of seats for all institutions. Then we can try and see whether we can have a system to automate figures -- both for the Council of the EU and for lower/upper houses (perhaps).

PS: on a separate but related note, I want to add a warning banner so that people do not rush to change MEP numbers for European parties right after the European elections, as the official numbers will only come later, once revised and approved by the APPF. Julius Schwarz (talk) 07:03, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Just added a proposed banner on the European political party page and Template:MEPcountEuropeanParty. Before I add it to individual parties, I welcome your feedback. Julius Schwarz (talk) 10:03, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Template:Ping I’m still troubled by the upper/lower house data. It’s now everywhere and none of the three reasons I listed above have been overcome and probably never will be. I suggest removing them. Kaihsu (talk) 11:24, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks, I now see that there’s extensive template/script infrastructure built for this. To be precise, they should read “EU lower house” (lowercase, and not just “European”). Still I hope my 3 points could be addressed. Kaihsu (talk) 15:12, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Kaihsu! Yeah, a lot of work was actually done on this to make sure that the data there is accurate and kept up-to-date. There is now a dedicated module and dedicated templates drawing data from Wikidata, which greatly helps. The module is currently being improved to be used across wikis, so that all parties across wikis have accurate data -- which also encourages everyone to keep Wikidata updated, which in turn everyone else benefits from.

As for the EU/European, I understand your point and I think this mirrors similar discussion that were held for "European political party", which in end was retained as the preferred terminology. Given this, I would opine that "European lower house", on the page of a European political party is clear enough. Just my opinion, though. Julius Schwarz (talk) 15:45, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the effort and for engaging with this question. Unlike the European Parliament etc., there is no institution called “European Lower Houses” and the national parliaments do not together form an EU institution (or two). So I’m still uncomfortable with the inclusion, and at least it should be changed to lowercase: “EU lower houses”. (Is the Eduskunta an upper or lower house in the count?) Kaihsu (talk) 18:29, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

Of course; always happy to engage. And sorry about the reversal, but this does feel like an on-going discussion. Your point above is true, European lower houses do not form a specific institution and I can easily be convinced about removing the capital letters. I would keep "European", however -- as I said because it is clear in context and consistent with other terminology including "European political parties", "European political foundations", etc. As for the lower/upper house, in case of unicameral system, the one house is counted as lower, because upper really would not make sense and because the single house functions as most lower houses do (representing citizens, while upper houses often serve to represent administrative subdivisions -- not always and it's a longer discussion, but still). Julius Schwarz (talk) 18:40, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

PS: by all means, we can take this discussion to the talk page of European political party and involve the community. Julius Schwarz (talk) 18:41, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

Indeed that would be the more sensible place for a thorough discussion. Many thanks. Kaihsu (talk) 17:26, 1 June 2025 (UTC)

Sure thing. I hope you don't mind if I let you take the lead on this. Julius Schwarz (talk) 17:30, 1 June 2025 (UTC)

The map of member parties should be updated

by colouring Lithuanian green as it has new member party 78.58.3.21 (talk) 20:44, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

A lot of changes should be made as the map is very outdated. There aren't 3 membership types anymore as the "candidate" status doesn't seem to exist anymore. Croatia and Montenegro should also be coloured (dark) green as they have full member parties now, URA and Možemo!. Belarus doesn't have a member at all anymore so it should be coloured grey.

Maybe since it's quite outdated and false rn, until it's updated it should be removed. It's not neccessary (other europarty articles don't have maps) so until there's a new 1 that there isn't confusing info. CroatiaElects (talk) 21:10, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

I removed the map. Kaihsu (talk) 16:02, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

The number listed for the EGP in PACE is actually the number of the Socialists, Democrats and Greens Group. If this is done for PACE, the same should be done for the European Parliament, maybe as additional information. This applies to all european political parties. ElTres (talk) 10:57, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Unlike for the European Parliament, it is not easy to know who, within the political groups, is a member of which European political party. This seemed like the most coherent information but, as you point out, it is not always directly assigned to a single party -- this is why the the name of the political group was added. Otherwise, I doubt that we can have information for that body. Just like for the Council of the European Union. What would you recommend? Julius Schwarz (talk) 11:38, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Expanded on this here. Julius Schwarz (talk) 14:33, 6 February 2025 (UTC)