Redazione CISE

di Michail Schwartz Le elezioni europee del 22 – 25 Maggio si preannunciavano come elezioni di rottura e di cambiamento, specialmente per quei partiti che all’interno della propria piattaforma programmatica criticavano profondamente l’idea di Europa portata avanti fino a questo momento dalle principali famiglie politiche europee.  Il Partito della Sinistra Europea (GUE-NGL) era uno di questi. Capeggiato dal greco Alexis Tsipras, tuttavia la formazione più a sinistra all’interno dell’emiciclo di Strasburgo, a differenza delle formazioni euroscettiche, non rifiutava la moneta unica ed il progetto di integrazione europea, ma proponeva una visione completamente alternativa a quella neoliberale e predominante, accusata non solo...

Nina Liljeqvist and Kristian Voss Finland Populist and EU-critical Finns Party (PS) were expected to pose a serious challenge to the established parties in the Finnish election to the European Parliament last Sunday. Having achieved tremendous success in the national elections in 2011, and continuing to ride high on the Euroskeptic sentiments this spring, the PS aimed to increase their number of seats in the European Parliament from one to three, with polls having predicted that the party would receive as much as 21% of the votes. However, the Euroskeptic sensation never happened in Finland. This may be partly explained...

Tom Verthé In Belgium the elections for the European Parliament have in the past always been held together with the regional elections. Because of this particularity the European elections have long since been considered second-order elections in Belgium (Reif & Schmitt, 1980; Van Aelst & Lefevere, 2012). Because of the split in the party system since the 70s, the regional elections in Belgium are clearly a first-order election since, for the larger part, there is no difference in terms of voting population and party offer between the regional and federal elections (Russo & Deschouwer, 2014). Federal (and even European) elections...

Konstantinos Athanasiadis Abstention ruled supreme in the European elections held on the divided island of Cyprus (divided between the Republic of Cyprus and the so called "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" recognised only by Turkey). According to the Ministry of the Interior more than the half of the electorate (56%) (Ministry of the Interior 2014) opted for abstention from the electoral process as a token of growing discomfort against the political system and the austerity measures put forward since last year. Paradoxically though, the high abstention rate provided a crucial lifeline to the political system of Cyprus as it enhanced...

Patrick Dumont and Raphaël Kies The context For the first time since 1979, European elections were held separately from national elections in Luxembourg. The simultaneity of elections decided on before the first direct European elections (as Luxembourgish MPs were already elected for a five-year mandate and that the next scheduled election was to be held in 1979 anyway) and government stability made all seven previous national and European elections fall on the same day, with a number of consequences ensuing. For instance, as European elections are fought on a unique, nationwide constituency until 2009 all party heavyweights used to be...