Introduction Romania organized elections for the European Parliament (EP) for the third time since joining the European Union (EU) in 2007. This time the elections overlapped with Romania holding the six-month rotating Presidency of the EU. During this Presidency, Romania organized different meetings with representatives of the member states, intensively covered by national media. As a result, the European agenda became more visible in the public debate, the peak being reached during the informal summit of heads of state or government of the EU organized in Sibiu to discuss the EU strategic agenda for the post-election period. Political context Romania is regularly...

  On May 25 European Parliament (EP) election was held in Slovakia, the fourth of its kind since the accession of the country to the EU. Two points are worth mentioning in the beginning. First, the turnout increased considerably since the previous election in 2014. However, with roughly one in four voters who attended the election, it was still the lowest number in the whole EU. Second, the results confirmed substantial changes in political life in the recent development of Slovakia with essential implications for the upcoming years. In line with other EU countries, the elections are held under proportional representation...

Introduction The 2019 European election in the Republic of Cyprus came three years after the last legislative elections of 2016 and one year after the presidential elections of 2018 which saw the right-wing governing party, DISY and President Nicos Anastasiades, renew their mandate for another five years. In the backlog of the campaign politics and electoral results that lie before us, one can observe a number of realignments in the patterns of political competition. Although each of them carries significance, their overall relevance in the island’s political evolution is certainly not analogous to a major transformation of domestic politics. Rather,...

Context 2019 EP elections in Estonia took place amidst a heated political atmosphere that prevailed in the aftermath of the general election held less than three months prior. In a “remarkable failure of mainstream politics” (Walker, 2019), two liberal parties, Reform and Centre (both members of the ALDE group in the EP), failed to cooperate in the process of government formation. Having rejected an invitation by the victorious Reform Party to start coalition talks, the incumbent Centre Party formed a coalition with two right-wing parties, including a moderate Pro Patria and an illiberal, xenophobic, and eurosceptic Estonian Conservative People’s Party...

The election of the European Parliament took place in metropolitan France on May 26 (oversees departments had already voted the day before). 74 seats were to be filled, with an additional 5 seats on reserve in case of a Brexit. The election is based on a proportional system, with a 5 per cent minimum threshold: Only lists which pass this threshold obtain representatives in the European Parliament. The party lists are closed, meaning that citizens vote for one list, but cannot express any preference for specific candidates within that list. While this electoral rule was similar to the one...