Michał Kotnarowski and Mikołaj Cześnik Introduction: the context The European Parliamentary (EP) Elections held on 25th May were the third EP elections in modern history of Poland. The first election took place in 2004, just after joining European Union, and the second in 2009. The main characteristics of previous Polish EP elections were low voter turnout and relatively good results of small and radical parties. Voter turnout in 2004 EP elections in Polish case was 21% and it was the second lowest rate among EU countries in 2004 EP elections. The only country with lower voter turnout was Slovakia (17%). The voter...

Marco Lisi Portugal is experiencing a huge economic and social crisis that has not triggered – at least until now – significant changes in the political system, as it happened in Greece or Italy. The financial default of the Portuguese state led the three main parties – the Socialist Party (PS), the Social-Democratic Party (PSD) and the Social-Democratic Centre-Popular Party (CDS-PP) – to sign in April 2011 a three-year bailout with the so-called troika (International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank). The memorandum of understanding established the implementation of structural reforms based on a neoliberal agenda in exchange...

Nina Liljeqvist and Kristian Voss Finland Populist and EU-critical Finns Party (PS) were expected to pose a serious challenge to the established parties in the Finnish election to the European Parliament last Sunday. Having achieved tremendous success in the national elections in 2011, and continuing to ride high on the Euroskeptic sentiments this spring, the PS aimed to increase their number of seats in the European Parliament from one to three, with polls having predicted that the party would receive as much as 21% of the votes. However, the Euroskeptic sensation never happened in Finland. This may be partly explained...

Enrique Hernández and Marta Fraile Once more, and as is typical in Spain (see for instance Font and Torcal 2012) the main messages and discourses of the electoral campaign were made in national (and not in European) terms. Elections took place when the incumbent government (Partido Popular, PP: conservative) was in the middle of its mandate and had already implemented a number of controversial political decisions. On the top of that, there was a general climate of distrust and disaffection with political elites and traditional political parties without precedents in Spain. The Electoral Campaign The most relevant topic of the campaign (and...

The European Parliament Elections of 2014 edited by Lorenzo De Sio, Vincenzo Emanuele and Nicola Maggini The European Parliament elections of 22-25 May 2014 had already been anticipated, before the vote, as potentially so relevant to become the first “true” European elections. Not only because of the economic crisis – which in recent years has seen the emergence of EU (and international) institutions as key players of economic policy for Euro member states, with relevant effects for the everyday life of citizens – but also due to the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, which has reinforced the link between...