The context The 2019 European elections were held only a few months after the October 2018 parliamentary elections. Surveys for the latter elections had predicted that the Christian Social People’s Party (CSV) would win votes and return into government after being an opposition party for the second time since World War II during the 2013-2018 parliament. In the end, the CSV lost 5.2 percentage points of the national vote and two of its parliamentary seats, while the government coalition of the liberal DP, the social democratic LSAP and the Greens kept a majority of seats (31 out of 60) and...

Short summary National Parliament election was called in Denmark early May 2019. Hence, much of the focus that would otherwise have been devoted to the European Parliament (EP) election went to the national election campaign. Yet, the two elections thematically overlapped. The overall focus was on the climate crisis and, secondly, immigration. This focus secured a successful EP election for the green parties (the Socialist People’s Party (SF) and the Danish Social-Liberal Party (RL)). But also, the mainstream parties, particularly the Liberals, enjoyed an increase in Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), which was mainly at the expense of the...

La République en Marche (LREM), Emmanuel Macron’s newly formed political party has taken a decisive lead in the first round of the legislative elections with 32% of the votes on Sunday June 11. Les Républicains (LR, right) come second with 21%, followed by the Front National at 13% (FN, radical right), La France Insoumise at 11% (LFI, radical left), and Parti Socialiste (PS) with a bit less than 10% of the votes (including its traditional allies). In a two-round single member district electoral system, the lead of LREM (despite being around 11%) could lead to a hegemonic domination in...

26 May 2019 saw an election paradox in Hungary: a long-serving government won big on a record-high turnout, yet the winners looked frustrated and the losers positively re-charged. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz-KDNP electoral alliance took well over 52% of the popular vote and 62% of the country’s 21 seats in the European Parliament. That is one seat and one percent of the vote up compared to the 2014 EP elections, and just one seat and four percent of the vote less than their all-time best in 2009. But Fidesz’ leaders appeared disappointed and the government shortly announced unexpected...

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...