The 2014 EP Elections across Europe

The 2014 EP Elections across Europe

The 2014 EP Elections across Europe

Andrija Henjak European parliament elections in Croatia took place only a year after the special EP elections held in 2013 just before Croatia’s accession to the EU. Croatian entry into the EU, unlike the accession of other countries of central and Eastern Europe in 2004 and 2007, was not an event market by palpable enthusiasm and high expectations, but rather, it was market with subdued optimism or indifference. It was seen by the public both as a chance to change the direction of the stagnant economy and improve the functioning of institutions, as well as an inevitable development with uncertain...

di Federico Vegetti Introduction The result of the European elections of 2014 in Hungary is all but surprising. The government party Fidesz got the absolute majority of the votes, the left-wing opposition appears to be more and more fragmented, while the far-right Jobbik remains fairly stable, far from the peaks of popularity obtained by ideologically similar parties in other European countries. However, this apparent calm conceals a quite discouraging political climate, from both a national and a European perspective. The turnout went down to 28.9%, 7 points lower than the previous EP election in 2009, and about half of the turnout...

Sorina Soare Bulgaria, which formerly belonged to the Communist bloc, entered the EU in 2007. Nevertheless, compared to the other countries of the former Warsaw Pact, the Bulgarian process of European integration was carried out with 3 years of delay; as demonstrated by Noucheva and Bechev (2008), the reasons Bulgaria as well as Romania lagged behind in meeting the EU accession criteria had to do with a set of domestic factors linked to a tortuous democratization process, with relevant veto players and institutional structures that obstructed democratic and market reforms for almost a decade. Despite the acceleration of political and...

di Marcello Carammia e Roderick Pace Introduction On Saturday 24 May the third European election since Malta joined the EU was held. Malta elected six Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), one more than in 2009. The electoral system is the same as the one used in national elections, the major difference being that the 13 electoral districts are merged into one. It is a proportional system based on the Single Transferable Vote (STV), that permits voters to enumerate as many preferences as the candidates listed on the ballot sheet (Katz 1984). The small dimension of districts, the fact that...

Laura Sudulich On Thursday the 22nd of May citizens in the Netherlands and the UK voted to elect national delegates to the next European Parliament. Irish citizens voted on the following day, Friday the 23rd. In the UK the electoral system in use is a closed list system with regional districts. In the Netherlands the system is ordered (belonging to the group of open list systems) and there is one constituency for the whole country to choose the 26 MEPs (one more than in 2009). Irish voters elected their 11 MEPs (one less than in 2009) through PR-STV, a proportional...