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...

  The European Parliament elections of 2019 in Greece took place on 26 May together with municipal and regional elections. The governmental party of the radical left SYRIZA suffered severe losses and the centre-right party of New Democracy (ND) increased its electoral strength and dominates again in the Greek party system after the period 2012-2015. The outcome of the election had immediate consequences for the national electoral arena. On the night of the election, the Greek PM Alexis Tsipras called for snap elections (four months ahead) to be held on 7 July 2019. The context The 2019 European election in Greece was...

Latvia was one of the few EU countries that went to the polls on Saturday, May 25 although advance voting was also available for three days. According to the Central Elections Commission (CEC), there were 1’411’955 persons eligible to vote – a decrease by 4 percent from 2014. A party list system is used to choose eight MEPs, and a voter can express either a positive or a negative preference for each candidate on a list that s/he is to vote for. An electoral threshold of 5 percent is provided in the law but the effective threshold (due to...

  Introduction Elections to the European Parliament (EP) in Poland took place on Sunday, 26 May 2019. Similarly, as in 2014-2015, they were part of a long 'election marathon' during which Poles elected their representatives in local government (October-November 2018), MEPs (May 2019), MPs and senators to the national parliament (most likely October 2019) and President (most likely May 2020). This specific context of subsequent, fourth already in the history of Poland elections to the European Parliament determined their character and course. Due to its specific context - being one of the skirmishes in the long 'electoral war' (planned for years 2018-2020)...

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...