EU Elections

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EUOBSERVER Political scientists call European Parliament elections ‘second-order elections’. This means that they are less important to voters than elections that determine the national government (domestic parliament or an executive presidency), and therefore turnout is lower and the share of the vote for extreme and protest options is higher. The increase in the power of the European Parliament and innovations such as the ‘Spitzenkandidat’ [lead candidate] mandate for president of the Commission in 2014 and 2019 have not altered the general voter perception of EP elections as being secondary to national elections. There are occasional exceptions – turnout in Greece in the May 2019 European Parliament election was higher (58.7 percent) than in the July 2019 parliamentary general election (57.8 percent). 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Turnout by year Final results 1979 1984 1989 1994 1999 2004 2009 2014 2019 Source: European Parliament in collaboration with Kantar 1994) fell from 62 percent in 1979 to 47.8 percent in 2014 — but rebounded somewhat in 2019 to 52.6 per cent. The other reason for lower turnout in recent elections has been that the EU average is reduced by low turnout in many of the states that joined in 2004 and after, a phenomenon that affects national elections as well as those for the European Parliament. There was a 20-point gap in turnout in 2014 between the first 15 members and the 13 post-2004 accession states. Even though many voters in these countries have relatively high trust for European (compared to national) institutions, the general lack of faith in politics leads to lower participation. The turnout gap narrowed dramatically in the 2019 election; the rise in turnout in the post-2004 joiners, particularly in the largest two of them, Poland and Romania, was an important contributor to the overall rise in turnout in the EU. Turnout is measured simply as the number of people voting divided by the number of people entitled to vote. While the vote count precisely reflects the number of people participating in the election, the figure for the registered electorate tends to be a lot vaguer, and its accuracy varies between member states. Turnout might look artificially low in some countries because the electorate is swollen by the names of people who are dead or have moved, and people who are on the register twice. Countries with large populations working overseas, such as Romania, Bulgaria and Poland are particularly affected. Conversely, the electoral register in countries with large resident populations from other EU states, such as Luxembourg and Belgium, often misses out many people who are legally entitled to claim a vote for the European Parliament. The gap in participation as a share of those eligible to vote between the top and bottom countries may therefore be smaller than the published turnout figures suggest. Belgium: the ‘best’ Election after election, Belgium has been the champion member state for participation, with an average turnout of 90.6 percent since 1979. To some extent, this may reflect Brussels hosting (most) European institutions and awareness of its ideas, but a closer look at the context shows other factors at work. Voting is compulsory in Belgium, and although prosecutions for failing to do so are now rare, participation has remained very high. Turnout in Belgium has also been supported in the elections of 2014 and 2019, and will be in 2024, by concurrent federal and regional general elections. In 2024 the European franchise, but not the federal, will extend to 16 and 17-yearolds, for the first time.
EUROPEAN ELECTIONS 60% 50% 40% 30% Turnout by accession date, European Parliament elections 2014 & 2019 The same high turnout factors apply in Luxembourg. Interest and knowledge in European institutions is high, voting is compulsory and, until the 2014 elections, European Parliament elections took place on the same day as those for the national parliament. However, Luxembourg’s statistics look rather less impressive because of the 38 percent of the Grand Duchy’s residents who are citizens of other EU states than Luxembourg, only around 10 percent of those are on the electoral register – participation of the eligible population is therefore in the mid-60 per cent range rather than the officially recorded 85 percent average for 2014 and 2019. 20% 10% 0% 2014 Pre-2004 EU 15 Source: European Parliament in collaboration with Kantar Post 2004 accessions 2019 Election after election, Belgium has been the champion member state for participation, with an average turnout of 90.6 percent since 1979. The highest turnout without compulsory voting is in Malta, where party allegiances are very strong among the electorate. After Malta comes Italy and Greece, both of which have seen large decreases in European Parliament turnout since the turn of the century; both countries have abandoned a ‘soft’ form of compulsory voting based on minor discrimination against non-voters in providing civic services – Italy in 1993, Greece in 2000. Turnout in the 2022 Italian parliamentary election was well down on any previous election (64 percent, compared to 73 percent in 2018 and over 80 percent before 2013) so it may have further to fall for the European Parliament in 2024. The biggest rise in turnout in 2019 was in Poland. Participation nearly doubled, from 24 percent to 46 percent, reflecting the increased political polarisation that has also raised turnout in national parliamentary elections – from 51 percent in 2015 to 62 percent in 2019 and 74 percent in 2023. The worst? The worst turnouts in EP elections have consistently been in Slovakia, Croatia, the Czech Republic and Slovenia; the turnout in Slovakia rose above 20 percent for the first time in 2019 but it is, as it has 57
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MAGAZINE 01 24 Europe votes, as two
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EUROPEAN ELECTIONS An introduction
Page 5 and 6: EUROPEAN ELECTIONS 30 34 38 Migrati
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Page 12 and 13: EUOBSERVER MEP and then European Pa
Page 14 and 15: Interestingly, whether people belie
Page 16: EUOBSERVER EU commission vice-presi
Page 19 and 20: EUROPEAN ELECTIONS lysing users’
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Page 25 and 26: EUROPEAN ELECTIONS Europe has been
Page 27 and 28: EUROPEAN ELECTIONS EU eyes teen tur
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Page 32 and 33: HOW OTHERS SEE THE EU Recent EU agr
Page 34 and 35: EUOBSERVER To fight euroscepticism,
Page 36 and 37: EUOBSERVER in the latest two French
Page 38 and 39: EUOBSERVER Farm-to-fork, to protest
Page 40 and 41: EUOBSERVER the combined pressure fr
Page 42 and 43: EUOBSERVER
Page 44 and 45: EUOBSERVER “Brussels So White”
Page 46 and 47: EUOBSERVER 100 million disabled EU
Page 48 and 49: EUOBSERVER The disability community
Page 50 and 51: With a population of 1.3 billion pe
Page 52 and 53: EUOBSERVER Indian prime minister Na
Page 54 and 55: Turnout for European Parliament ele
Page 58 and 59: EUOBSERVER Turnout in European Parl
Page 60: A EUROPE This material is financied
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