The 2019 EP Elections across Europe

The 2019 EP Elections across Europe

The 2019 EP Elections across Europe

The eighth Spanish European Parliament Election (EPE) marked the end of an electoral cycle that began one month before (on April 26th, 2019) with the General Election in which the incumbent Socialist Party (PSOE) won a plurality of seats. However, at the time of the EPE a parliamentary agreement to elect a new national government had not been reached yet, since most parties were eager to postpone this decision until after the election. On top of that, during the EPE campaign Catalan politicians who had organized an independence referendum on October 2017 and ran as candidates in the General...

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,...

Over six million voters were eligible to select 17 members of the European Parliament (EP) in Bulgaria under a proportional representation system with preferential voting in a single nation-wide constituency. 318 candidates were nominated by thirteen political parties, eight coalitions and six initiative committees. Voting in the EP elections is mandatory in Bulgaria, but there is no penalty for not turning out to vote. Furthermore, voting can take place only in person in polling districts and there is no postal voting. These voting arrangements, combined with the lack of any new political formations to mobilize habitual non-voters and the...

  Introduction 2019 European elections in Croatia were held in a very different political environment than previous EP elections. Economic conditions have improved as GDP growth resumed in 2015, unemployment has declined by more than a half and the government fiscal position has also improved. However, the entry into the EU and expiration of the restrictions on the free movement of labour produced a mass emigration of mostly younger population towards countries of Western Europe. Thus, despite the migrant crisis that affected Croatia in 2015 and 2016, and the constant pressure of migration on the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina, it...

The campaign for the 2019 European Parliamentary election in the United Kingdom did not kick off until the last moment as the country’s government had not planned to take part in the election. The UK was originally scheduled to leave the European Union on the 29th of March, but extensions of Article 50 – the legal and political process for leaving the European Union – in late March and mid-April meant that the UK had to participate in the European Parliamentary elections under EU law. Despite this, it was not until the 7th of May that UK Prime Minister...