The context During the last five years, Portugal has been regarded as a successful case in the European context from both an economic and political point of view (see Fernandes et al, 2018). On the one hand, the country has turned the page on its 2011-2014 crisis, when a financial assistance programme was implemented with painful austerity policies. On the other hand, unlike other Southern European countries, Portugal’s party system has proved to be very resilient. Although mainstream parties have struggled to retain their electoral support, the Socialist Party (PS, Partido Socialista) and the Social Democratic Party (PSD, Partido Social...

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...

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...

A triple victory for Salvini: numerical (he becomes the center of gravity of the government); geographical (its party is now truly national, with a homogenous electoral support), strategic (he now has several options). Tab. 1 – Electoral results in Italy, 2014 and 2019 EP elections, 2018 legislative elections The geography of Salvini's success is in three numbers: compared to its 2018 results, the League multiplies its votes by 1.5 in the North, by 2 in the Center, and by more than 3 in the South and on the Islands. Thus, the current geographical profile of the League appears to be more nationalized,...

Domenica 26 maggio, dalle ore 22, Luiss organizza una maratona elettorale in occasione delle elezioni Europee 2019, in collaborazione con il CISE, il DataLab, la Scuola di Giornalismo Massimo Baldini, Radio Luiss e con la media-partnership di Sky TG24. Esperti, Professori e ricercatori dell'Ateneo, nel LOFT del campus di viale Romania, commentano ed espongono le loro impressioni sul voto dei 28 Paesi dell'Unione Europea. Tra gli ospiti: il Direttore della Luiss School of European Political Economy Marcello Messori, il Professor Pietro Reichlin, il Direttore della Scuola di Giornalismo e del DataLab Gianni Riotta, il Direttore della Luiss School of Government Giovanni Orsina e il Direttore del CISE Lorenzo De Sio. Lunedì 27, alle ore 10, chiude l'evento la conferenza stampa dei Professori Giovanni Orsina e Lorenzo De...