Peter Spáč On May 24 the election to European parliament was held in Slovakia. This election was the third since the country`s entry to the EU. As in the previous contests, the turnout was extremely low and in 2014 it reached its historical minimum as only 13 per cent of the Slovak citizens participated on the polls. The elections to EP in Slovakia are held under a proportional electoral system with a single nationwide constituency where all 13 MEPs are elected. Originally Slovakia had 14 MEPs, but after Romania and Bulgaria entered the Union, this number was slightly reduced. In...

Vlastimil Havlík Twenty-one MEPs representing the Czech Republic (1 MEP less in comparison to the 2009 EP election) were elected on 23 – 24 May. An electoral system of proportional representation with closed lists, one nationwide electoral district and 5% threshold is applied in the Czech Republic. The d`Hondt divisor is used for allocation of seats among political parties (Chytilek et al. 2009). Electoral Campaign The term “invisible” is perhaps the best descriptor for the campaign which preceded the election. It does not mean that the political parties (and the media) ignored the election at all but the intensity of electoral campaign...

Konstantinos Athanasiadis The elections of the 25th May in Greece were realised amidst pronounced polarisation, deep fragmentation and collapse of partisan identities. Interestingly, the elections coincided with the 40th anniversary of the collapse of the military junta that ruled Greece for seven years (1967-1974) and the subsequent consolidation of democracy as inculcated in the era of Metapolitefsi (change of regime/ new ethos in the conduct of politics). Konstantinos Athanasiadis is PhD Candidate at LUISS Guido Carli University. Mr Athanasiadis earned an MSc in International Politics from SOAS, University of London and a BA in International and European Studies from the University...

Tom Verthé In Belgium the elections for the European Parliament have in the past always been held together with the regional elections. Because of this particularity the European elections have long since been considered second-order elections in Belgium (Reif & Schmitt, 1980; Van Aelst & Lefevere, 2012). Because of the split in the party system since the 70s, the regional elections in Belgium are clearly a first-order election since, for the larger part, there is no difference in terms of voting population and party offer between the regional and federal elections (Russo & Deschouwer, 2014). Federal (and even European) elections...

Konstantinos Athanasiadis Abstention ruled supreme in the European elections held on the divided island of Cyprus (divided between the Republic of Cyprus and the so called "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" recognised only by Turkey). According to the Ministry of the Interior more than the half of the electorate (56%) (Ministry of the Interior 2014) opted for abstention from the electoral process as a token of growing discomfort against the political system and the austerity measures put forward since last year. Paradoxically though, the high abstention rate provided a crucial lifeline to the political system of Cyprus as it enhanced...