European elections

D'usage courant en allemand, le terme de Spitzenkandidat est utilisé depuis 2014 pour désigner la personne «tête de liste», lors de la campagne des élections européennes, susceptible de présider la Commission européenne. La présidence de cette institution exige en effet, depuis le Traité de Lisbonne, l'aval du Parlement européen. Mais les chefs d'État et de gouvernement de l'Union européenne gardent un rôle décisif dans cette désignation. La pratique a varié d'une élection à l'autre. Comment stabiliser la désignation du Président de la Commission ? Avec quels rôles respectifs pour le Conseil européen et pour le Parlement européen ? Le choix des personnalités têtes de liste revient-il aux seuls partis politiques européens ? Place dévolue nécessairement au parti arrivé en tête ou constitution d'une coalition parlementaire autour d'une personnalité qui entraînera l'élection ? Le recours au Spitzenkandidat soulève nombre de questions toujours débattues et à éclaircir avant les européennes de 2024. Il en va de la légitimité de la prochaine Commission et, plus largement, de la démocratie au niveau européen. Nous avons demandé au Professeur Olivier Costa (Directeur de recherche au CNRS, CEVI-POF-Sciences Po et Directeur des études politiques au Collège d'Europe de Bruges) et à Pauline Thinus (Assistante académique au Collège d'Europe de Bruges) de revenir sur l'historique de cette problématique et sur ses enjeux, d'analyser les positions des différents acteurs et de présenter les scénarios susceptibles d'advenir d'ici au prochain scrutin européen. En complément de l'étude, nous présentons les contributions de quatre éminents membres de notre Observatoire politique du Parlement européen, tous anciens députés européens : Pervenche Berès, Jean-Louis Bourlanges, Monica Frassoni, Alain Lamassoure. Cette étude est la première d'une série consacrée aux grands enjeux institutionnels européens. Elle sera suivie d'un policy paper sur la question des listes transnationales et d'autres études à venir.

Since the Esperanto speech community cannot rely on intergenerational transmission to guarantee its long-term continuity, the Esperanto movement has emerged as an attempted solution to stabilise the community by promoting the language and encouraging continuous engagement with it. In this sense, one of the most interesting wings of the current neutral Esperanto movement in Europe is the political party Europe-Democracy-Esperanto (EDE), which puts forward candidates for the European Parliamentary elections and uses their election campaigns as a platform to promote the language. Through a socio-anthropological approach, based on long-term fieldwork carried out among Esperanto speakers and supporters in France, this work explores some aspects of EDE’s actions, focusing on a controversy: how can a political party be neutral? From this initial interrogation, the diverse definitions of neutrality held by Esperantists will be explored as a means to approach the question of how a concept of neutral politics can be strategically mobilised as a tool in the discussion among this party’s members. Also examined is how the outcomes of this party’s actions are seen by its members in terms of success and failure, and how the issue of neutrality and political engagement reappears in this discussion.

Ĉar la Esperanta lingvokomunumo ne povas kalkuli je laŭgeneracia transdono garantianta ĝian daŭron, la Esperanto-movado aperas kiel provo stabiligi tiun komunumon varbante por la lingvo kaj instigante okupiĝadi pri ĝi. Tiusence unu el la plej interesaj frakcioj de la neŭtrala Esperanto-movado estas la politika partio Eŭropo-Demokratio-Esperanto (EDE), kiu startigas kandidatojn por la balotoj al la Eŭropunia Parlamento kaj utiligas la balotajn kampanjojn por reklami la lingvon. Per soci-antropologia aliro kaj bazita sur longdaŭra kampolaboro inter parolantoj kaj subtenantoj de Esperanto en Francujo, mi esploros kelkajn aspektojn de la agado de EDE, kun speciala atento al la disputo, kiel politika partio povas resti neŭtrala? De tiu unua demando mi esploros la diversajn difinojn de neŭtraleco troveblajn ĉe la Esperantistoj, kiel maniero aliri la demandon, kiel koncepto de neŭtrala politiko estas strategie utiligata kiel helpilo en la diskutoj inter la partianaro. Mi krome esploros, kiel la rezultoj de la partia agado estas perceptataj de la membroj rilate sukceson kaj malsukceson, kaj kiel la problemo de neŭtraleco kaj politika engaĝiĝo reaperas en tiu diskuto.

The primary goal of the Institute of European Democrats (IED) is to promote an in-depth discussion on the core aspects of the European integration process. Last year, in an attempt to shed some light on the challenge of the upswing of populist parties in the upcoming European elections and better understand the solutions ahead, the Institute of European Democrats set to launch a research project on "The Risks of growing Populism and the European elections". The aim of the project is to give our contribution to the European-wide debate on populism and to broaden and support the part played by the youngest generation in this debate. It was with this idea in mind that we awarded 15 research fellowships to young researchers. The results of these researches are collected in the publication "Rising Populism and European Elections. Collection of Selected contributions", presented at the IED conference held on the 24th of April 2014 in Bratislava.

This Chapter interrogates the logics and technologies underlying the governance of elections in Africa. It defines elections, their nature and logics. It argues that elections are tools, which integrate electoral processes and systems to deliver on the people's choice of who will govern them. 'Free and fair' presuppose the existence of a 'free and fair' electoral commission, 'free and fair' machineries to run the elections, 'free and fair' systems and procedures for the conduct of those elections. It interrogates the role of stakeholders, before, during and after the elections and argues that elections reflect the independence and sovereignty of any nation. The Chapter presents a 5Vs framework of Volume (how many vote); Velocity (Speed) – the regularity of the elections; Value (the value of the elections as perceived by voters; Veracity (the trustworthiness and authenticity of the systems and outcomes); and Variety (diversity of voters and diversity of political parties). The Chapter argues that the prerequisites to hold free and fair elections include political will from the polity; transparency; a politically educated citizenry capable to act; unity in diversity (there can be many parties and tribes), faith and trust in the electoral systems, political parties and themselves; astute and smart systems and processes and bureaucracy.

This paper was written in the framework of a team project of Sciences Po Paris in partnership with the Think Tank "Atelier Europe", based in Paris. The paper discusses theoretically the European Elections in general and also compares the 2014 European Election in Portugal, United Kingdom, Germany, France and Italy in order to discuss whether the European Elections contribute to the construction of a Pan-European politics or if we rather witness a combination of multiple political arenas.

One of the most important reasons for the expansion of Eurosceptic parties is the worsening of the economic crisis. This and, more generally, the processes of globalization/denationalization have not had the same effects for all citizens; a new structural conflict, opposing the " winners " and " losers " of globalization , has arisen. Usually the mainstream political parties tend to take the " winners' " side, while the peripheral parties tend to adopt a " loser's " ' programme and to use Euroscepticism as a mobilizing issue; the electoral constituency of the Eurosceptic parties is therefore formed, above all, by the " losers " of globalization. The 2014 European elections represented an important turning point for the Eurosceptic parties; they obtained an unprecedentedly large percentage of votes, but no " political earthquake " , " sweeps " , or " Eu-rope's populist backlash " occurred. The Eurosceptic parties have never been able to form a joint anti-European front, because of their mutual mistrust. " He's worse than me " , could be the statement that best epitomizes the relationships within the Eurosceptic right-wing camp. A further exacerbation of the economic crisis and/or the inability of the EU institutions in addressing it could lead such parties towards new and more considerable achievements.

En los últimos años hemos asistido al crecimiento, cuando no la aparición, de toda una serie de partidos difíciles de encuadrar pero que comparten en sus líneas programáticas el rechazo a la Unión Europea, los denominados comúnmente como “partidos euroescépticos”. La relevancia y fuerte apoyo popular que han conseguido en los comicios tanto nacionales como europeos nos obligan a buscar cuáles son las razones de su apogeo.
En este contexto se enmarca el presente trabajo que no busca ser un estudio pormenorizado y analítico del auge del euroescepticismo en los distintos países, sino que se trata más bien de un ensayo histórico que busca los puntos en común entre los diversos partidos euroescépticos y trata de aclarar cómo el Brexit o el auge de movimientos nacionalistas son perfectamente comprensibles en un mundo cada vez más globalizado.

Recently we have witnessed the growth, when not the emergence, of a whole series of political parties that are difficult to frame but they share in their political agenda the rejection of the European Union. They are commonly known as “Eurosceptic parties”. The relevance and strong popular support they have achieved in the national and European elections forces us to seek for the reasons of their apogee.
In this context, the present study doesn’t try to be a detailed and analytical study of the rise of Euroscepticism in the different countries, but rather it is a historical essay that looks for the common links between the various Eurosceptic parties and try to shed some light on how the Brexit or the rise of nationalist’s movements are perfectly comprehensible in an increasingly globalised world.

La question de la citoyenneté politique n’a guère été un enjeu dans les négociations sur le Brexit. Pourtant, cette citoyenneté politique, bien qu’embryonnaire, existe, sous la forme, d’une part, du droit de vote et d’éligibilité des citoyens de l’Union aux élections des membres du parlement européen et, d’autre part, du droit de vote et d’éligibilité des mêmes citoyens aux élections municipales dans l’Etat membre où ils résident. Or, le Brexit met redoutablement à l’épreuve cette citoyenneté politique embryonnaire. Elle pose la question, d’importance constitutionnelle, de la pérennité et de la robustesse des droits des individus à être représentés au sein de cette polity singulière qu’est l’Union européenne.
Cette question se pose avec d’autant plus d’acuité considérant la situation particulière qu’a été celle du Royaume-Uni durant les élections européennes de 2019. En effet, le retrait du Royaume-Uni aurait dû prendre effet, en vertu de l'article 50 TUE, deux ans après la notification de l’intention de retrait, soit le 22 mars 2019 à minuit (heure de Bruxelles), et donc bien avant les élections européennes. Toutefois, après avoir prolongé ce délai une première fois, le 22 mars 2019 , le Conseil européen l’a à nouveau prorogé le 11 avril 2019  jusqu'au 31 octobre 2019. Or, cette même décision de prorogation précise par ailleurs qu’elle aurait cessé de s’appliquer le 31 mai 2019 si le Royaume-Uni n'avait pas organisé d'élections au Parlement européen conformément au droit de l'Union en vigueur, ce qui a « forcé » le Royaume-Uni à participer auxdites élections. Cette situation a soulevé non seulement des problèmes de technique juridique mais plus fondamentalement politiques et constitutionnels : dans quelle mesure fait-il sens qu’un Etat membre ayant énoncé son intention de ne pas participer à l’avenir de l’Union participe à une élection qui a précisément pour but de forger cet avenir ? (I)
Au-delà de cette circonstance, le Brexit aura évidemment une incidence notable sur le droit de vote et d’éligibilité des citoyens aux élections européennes qui auront lieu après que le Brexit soit devenu effectif – pour autant, bien entendu, que cela arrive un jour. Se pose alors une autre question, tout aussi importante du point de vue là encore politique et constitutionnel, celle de la rémanence, de la résistance de la citoyenneté politique lors de la « sécession » d’un Etat membre d’une entité fédérative telle que l’Union européenne, en particulier dans l’hypothèse où des citoyens ont exercé leur droit de circulation ?

Este trabajo evalúa la validez de diferentes modelos interpretativos del comportamiento electoral en las elecciones europeas partiendo del resultado de junio de 2009. Nos centramos, en primer lugar, en modelos que conectan el voto europeo con aspectos políticos basados en el nivel nacional (modelo de segundo orden) y en el ciclo electoral doméstico (modelo de ciclo electoral); en segundo lugar se evalúa la capacidad explicativa de un modelo reñido con las interpretaciones tradicionales, y basado en el papel de la posición de los partidos políticos y la campaña electoral (modelo de Europa importa). Finalmente, se avanza un modelo sintético, con el objetivo de proporcionar una más sólida explicación de las elecciones de 2009 al Parlamento Europeo.

This thesis provides a descriptive study comparing the change, or lack thereof, in levels of Europeanization of the Czech and Polish Green parties between the 2004 and 2009 elections to the European Parliament.  The aim is not to explain, but to observe the extent to which Europeanization has occurred and assess what, if anything, this can teach us more broadly about democracy in the European Union with a particular focus on the second-order nature of European elections. Organizing Europeanization into cooperative and communicative varieties reveals a deficit in the communicative Europeanization among the two parties. It is suggested that further communicative Europeanization of national political parties may be the key to overcome the second-order nature of the European Parliament elections.

The working paper in question is concerned with the electoral performance of far-right parties in the 2014 European Parliamentary elections by aiming to interpret the aspects of this vote through the interrelationship between the demand-side and supply-side explanations. Even though the case of Golden Dawn could be examined as a single case-study due to the contribution of multi-dimensional factors, nevertheless we are interested in investigating it across a comparative perspective. On the one hand, through the demand-side approximations, we examine to what extent a range of socioeconomic issues affected the electoral dynamic of the far-right parties in the latest European elections. Simultaneously, our target focuses on the external supply-side developments in terms of how the positions of mainstream parties across several ideological aspects and the subsequent configuration of party competition create electoral opportunities for the far-right parties. The findings reveal that we should take into consideration both the demand-side and supply-side account in order to apprehend the factors that determine the swift of the electorate towards the far-right spectrum. Through the analysis, we discuss how the bidirectional relationship between the demand and supply-side framework in conjunction with a range of additional control variables contribute to the interpretation of the electoral behaviour of the far-right voter in the recent European elections.

L'articolo analizza le elezioni europee del 2019 in Ungheria, nell'ambito del consueto numero monografico della rivista Federalismi.it sullo svolgimento delle elezioni per il rinnovo del Parlamento europeo in ciascuno dei 28 Stati membri dell'UE.

The contribution describes the 2019 European elections in Hungary, as part of the monographic issue of the Federlismi.it journal on the elections to the European Parliament in each EU Member State.

Thanks to ART.17.7 of the Lisbon Treaty, the European Council now has to “take into account” the results of EP Elections when selecting a candidate for the role of Commission President.
The European Parliament has grabbed the opportunity to launch the first electoral race for Spitzenkandidaten to the Presidency. Is this the start of a new democratizing (and thus, politicizing) process for the European Union? This research will try to give a possible answer to the dilemma by constructing a comprehensive framework around and beyond EP Elections 2014 that will involve both the Commission and the Parliament and an analysis of the debate behind legal provisions facing the possibility of a politicized presidency of the Commission.

Nur noch wenige Stunden und die achten Europawahlen beginnen. Den Anfang machen bereits am Donnerstag die Wähler in den Niederlanden und im Vereinigten Königreich. In den meisten Mitgliedsstaaten wird hingegen erst am Sonntag gewählt. rst nach Schließung der Wahllokale in Italien um 23 Uhr werden die ersten gesamteuropäischen Hochrechnungen veröffentlicht. Grund genug, den Spannungsbogen durch eine dritte Duisburger Prognose zur Europawahl noch weiter auszubauen.

Recommended Citation: Sánchez-Castillo, S., Galán-Cubillo, E. & Gifreu-Castells, A. (2020). Audiovisual Representation in Spanish and European Election Debates. Tripodos. Communication Flows in the European Elections: Amid Populism and Euroscepticism. No. 49, pp. 89-108. ISSN paper: 1138-3305. ISSN electronic: 2340-5007. DOI: https://doi.org/10.51698/tripodos.2020.49p89-108

-----  ABSTRACT: The presence of ever more conflicting stances between Europhiles and Eurosceptics has revealed some audiovisual discourses unknown until now. The fragmentation of inconclusive narrative discourse and staged situations with a clear intent to clash all make it necessary to analyse in detail the role given by the audiovisual media to the European process of democratisation. This study addresses the audiovisual discourse in Spanish public television (TVE) with the intention of discovering how the different topics addressed in debates are dealt with in audiovisual production, and whether those topics have benefited from certain decisions by the production team that are subjective a priori. Using external codifiers, the intensity of each question has been checked and the result has been correlated with the dependent variables "[camera] shot with question while listening" and "shot with question with split screen". The variables have been subjected to descriptive analyses, correlation with hypotheses, and bivariate analyses using Pearson's correlation (Rx-y). The results indicate a clear difference in the modes of television representation between national Spanish and European debates. It is discussed whether this audiovisual differentiation may condition the perception that the audience may have of European politics .

This chapter focuses on the implications of Brexit for the European Parliament. It will start by evaluating the new distribution of seats and then explore the changes of political groups. Finally, the chapter will showcase some key decisions made in recent years and simulate how these would have looked like without British MEPs. Shedding light on the Parliament's role in the withdrawal process, the chapter demonstrates that the EP is not just an object of Brexit. It has the democratic mandate and political power to oversee Brexit and to shape the future relations between the EU-27 and the UK.

RESUME
L’introduction rappelle que, des institutions originelles des Communautés, l’Assemblée
parlementaire était la plus immédiatement familière. Pour cette raison, elle a tardé à susciter
l’attention des chercheurs. Pourtant, c’est aussi l’institution qui a le plus évolué, jusqu’à
devenir un rouage central du système politique de l’Union et le principal vecteur de sa
politisation. Elle mérite donc d’être constamment réévaluée. Ce numéro spécial réunit cinq
contributions originales destinée à analyser les différents aspects de la séquence politique
ouverte par les élections européennes de mai 2019 et à faire le point sur les équilibres internes
et le mode de fonctionnement du Parlement européen.
ABSTRACT
The introduction recalls that, of the European Communities' original institutions, the
Parliamentary Assembly was most immediately familiar. For this reason, it took a while to
researchers to pay attention to it. However, it is also the institution which has evolved the most,
to the point of becoming a central cog in the Union’s political system and the main vector of its
politicization. It therefore deserves to be constantly reassessed. This special issue brings
together five original contributions intended to analyse the different aspects of the political
sequence opened by the European elections in May 2019 and to take stock of the internal
balances and the functioning of the European Parliament.

Since the 2000s, the reference to 'values' has become a key topic in the legitimation and politicization of the European Union (EU). This article studies to which extent and how members of the European Parliament (MEPs) mobilize values in their Facebook communication and whether it contributes to the politicization-understood as polarization-of their discourse. Our findings show that references to values are minor in MEPs' Facebook discourse. Differences are visible along national and party lines and according to issues at stake. However, no clear patterns emerge to relate specific value narratives to stable coalition-or conflict-lines. Empirically, the article analyses Facebook posts by MEPs of four nationalities (France, Italy, Poland and Hungary) in pre-and post-electoral times (March 2019-March 2020). Theoretically, it contributes to the literature on the politicization and legitimation of the EU ; and on MEPs' communication and use of social networks.

Cette étude se penche sur les « partis politiques au niveau européen », organisations politiques mal connues et souvent confondues avec les groupes politiques du Parlement européen. Le but est ici de présenter ces organisations et leur histoire, mais aussi de ré-interroger les modèles théoriques qui les étudient, comme le « modèle Niedermayer » qui développe une série de critères pour décrire leur « degré de développement ». Cette analyse met ainsi à distance les tentatives qui ont été faites pour définir la nature et les fonctions des « partis européens », et appelle à une sociologie plus réflexive des « partis européens », centrée sur les acteurs et leurs usages de ces organisations.

Since May 2017, when its president and candidate, Marine Le Pen, has successfully made it to the second round of the French presidential election, the Front National/FN (renamed into the Rassemblement National/RN, the National Rally) has passed through a period of political difficulties and unrest to the point that some observers anticipated at least a long-lasting era of this party’s decay (Rayski 2018). Rather unexpectedly, for a series of still debatable reasons, the RN found once again a very fertile ground for developing its ideas in early 2019 and for winning in this way the first place in the European elections. How was this possible? What are the main ingredients of this RN’s unforeseen political maintain as the first party in France? In this chapter, I will try to explain the reasons for the entrenchment of the RN in the French electorate by testing one major hypothesis via a historical-contextual analysis and a focus-group research. My argument is that the RN has consolidated its position because of the twisted effect of the massive contestation wave against the now Macronist establishment called the Yellow Vests movement. More precisely, I argue that the Yellow Vest movement succeeded to provoke the spreading of a radical form of anti-Macronism in the French society (August 2018-February 2019) that was not translated in any credible and structured political platform and that the Rassemblement National was able to intelligently use in its political coming-back (February-May 2019). In order to test this hypothesis, I organized a focus group research with two major categories of citizens – the traditional FN/RN voters (who have been voting with the candidates of this party at least between 2007 and 2019) and the first time RN voters (who never voted before for the FN/RN). The structure of this chapter is the following. In the first part, I will briefly analyse the evolution of the FN under the leadership of its founding father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, and of his daughter and successor, Marine Le Pen, in order to explain the need of the latter to enforce a “normalization” strategy for the party. Then, I will try to study the context of the May 2019 European elections and especially the spectre of the Yellow Vest crisis. Finally, I will try to explain the return of the RN as a consequence of the failure of the YV movement’s transformation into a political project and I will confront my argument with the results of the FG research mentioned here-above.

The 2019 European Parliament (EP) elections campaign revealed the emergence of a transnational political space 1 : beyond national considerations, which were still dominant, political parties timidly dealt with European issues and alliances at European level. But then it was only a question of joining EP parliamentary groups after the elections. However, fostering public debate is the role of parties, not of parliamentary groups. The European debate therefore requires a transnationalisation of political families, much beyond the current European political parties, which only consist of umbrella organisations for national parties. This note examines the present state of affairs, distinguishing between the desirable and the possible, the short-and long-term. In the immediate future, emphasis must be placed on developing synergies between national and European parties, with the emergence of transnational parties in mind. Legal incentives are needed. In particular, the electoral law of the European Union (EU) should not only promote a European public debate, it must also encourage all political parties to take on a transnational dimension. It is therefore proposed to modify the election mode of MEPs by adopting the method of "double proportionality". This paper is an argument, without any pretention to join the academic debate on partisan systems. I. State of Play A. Role of political parties: the wrong way It is commonplace to denounce the shortcomings of the current system of affiliations between national parties and "political parties at European level" (in official terminology, hereafter "Europarties"), which is complex and hardly visible. Occasional alliances without any effect on public debate. Europarties are in an institutional rather than activist logic 2. There is therefore a consensus on the need to "strengthen" them. But then one makes a double mistake: • Europarties are formally recognised for the first time by the Maastricht Treaty. But the original conceptual error of giving them a specific role persists. The Lisbon Treaty states: "Political parties at European level shall contribute to forming European political awareness and to expressing the will of citizens of the Union". As an extension of this statement, it is generally advocated that Europarties should provide direct links with European civil society; connect EU-level democracy with Union citizens; stimulate citizen mobilisation on European issues; and more generally contribute to the making of a demos. Yet, this mission is not exclusive to, nor even the preferential role of, Europarties. National parties have a territorial base and are therefore best placed to provide European integration with a local foundation citizenry participation. Thus, it is a mistake to demonise and seek to marginalise them. Instead, one has to "europeanise" national parties. This is just as important, if not more so, than strengthening Europarties. • In our concern to strengthen Europarties, one suggests that they should evolve towards full-functioning organisations, thus becoming true laboratories of ideas and militant forces. However, in so doing, one wrongly suggests that they should exist on their own. For instance, when it is argued that Europarties should emancipate from their institutional members, national parties, and broaden their base. There is thus an unfortunate tendency to make a clear distinction between two categories of parties, and even oppose them against each other, whereas in the perspective of 1 We are referring here to a "political" space because this paper only deals with the role and organisation of political parties, thus excluding other actors in the public debate such as medias, think tanks and NGOs. This analysis puts aside the controversy over the loss of credibility of political parties, taking for granted representative democracy within the Union's institutions. Also taken for granted is the perspective of the "ever closer Union" envisaged by the Treaties. 2 They are in line with the intergovernmental logic of the EU: bringing together decision-makers of their political family ahead of European summits or Council meetings; coordinating action by party members within EU institutions and peripheral organisations, and shaping agendas; facilitating exchange of information; and organising congresses where electoral programmes and manifestos are adopted by consensus on the lowest common denominator.

Although EU Law provides that Member States have to organise European elections at universal direct suffrage, there is no explicit provision in EU law granting Union citizens the right to vote and to stand as a candidate for these elections. This right was discovered only recently by the CJEU. It has a broad scope of application vis-à-vis Member States, since it is applicable to national electoral legislation, including in purely internal situations. All this combined has the potential of blurring the distribution of powers between the European Union and the Member States in the field of election law, potentially allowing EU institutions in general, and the Court of Justice in particular, to assess the compatibility of national elections with democratic standards.

Mit der ersten Fernsehdebatte der europäischen Spitzenkandidaten am 28. April 2014 erlebte der Europawahlkampf seinen ersten Höhepunkt. TV-Duelle können vor allem bei knappen Wahlen durchaus wahlentscheidend sein. Damit erlangt das erste europäische TV-Duell eine besondere Relevanz für den Ausgang der Europawahl, die sich laut unserer letzten Prognose durch ein spannendes Kopf-an-Kopf-Rennen auszeichnet. Wie wirkt sich das TV-Duell auf unsere aktuelle Wahlprognose aus?

The chapter analyses Twitter as one of the several fora where the general public sphere manifests itself.
The Twitter debate generated in Italy during the campaign for EP2014 is used as a prism for looking
in depth into the mutual shaping between the specific grammar of the micro-blogging platform and
the ongoing politicization of the EU within and across national politics. The contribution looks at the
ways in which specific socio-communicative features of Twitter have became deeply interlaced with the
emergence of Europe-related structure of meanings. Special attention is paid to the performative role of
hashtags in summoning publics and in triggering a peculiar kind of ambient affiliation that is more than
mere connectivity and rather involves the opening of a discursive space where negotiation of meanings
becomes possible.

In May 6th 2010, the Greek parliament voted the bailout treaty, so called the Memorandum of Understanding, with the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. In simple terms, the bailout program offered guaranteed loans to Greece, conditional on the implementation of severe economic policies – such as austerity measures, privatizations and deep structural reforms - so as to diminish the country’s fiscal debt. The crisis and the subsequent harsh economic policies have brought about significant transformations in the Greek political sphere and have challenged previous pro-European attitudes among several Greeks. This context profoundly influenced the pre-electoral campaigns of the Greek parties during the 2014 Euro-elections. In this study we content analyse the pre-electoral campaigns of the Greek political parties during the 2014 EU elections. The research objective is to comparatively present the different foci of the campaigns and critically assess their pro or anti-European stance within the context of crisis. The study involves the examination of the 37 TV political spots and 40 political posters by 8 Greek political parties, namely: New Democracy, PASOK (Socialist party represented through “Elia, Democratic Coalition”), SYRIZA (Coalition of Radical Left), KKE (Communist Party), ADARSYA (Anti- Capitalist left coalition for overthrow), DIMAR (Democratic Left), AN. ELL. (Independent Greeks), and Golden Dawn.

Este artículo ofrece una descripción de la cobertura que la prensa de Aragón (España) otorgó a las elecciones europeas de 2014. La metodología empleada es el análisis de contenido. La investigación parte de la hipótesis de que el tratamiento sigue siendo propio de unas elecciones de
segundo orden pese a las novedades introducidas por el Tratado de Lisboa. Las conclusiones confirman la hipótesis en cuanto a la primacía del enfoque nacional frente al europeo, pero la refutan por lo que respecta a
los protagonistas de la cobertura: tienen más peso los candidatos que los líderes de los grandes partidos. / This article shows a description of the coverage given to the 2014
European Elections by the Aragonese press (Spain). The methodology consists in a content analysis. The starting hypothesis of this piece of research is that these elections are considered as second-order in the analyzed newspapers, even after the changes due to the Treaty of Lisbon. Conclusions confirm the hypothesis regarding the pre-eminence of the national frame as against the European frame. However, conclusions also reject the hypothesis regarding the leading protagonists: Candidates have a higher profile than the leaders of the main political parties.

This article systematically investigates, in a comparative perspective, the support for new extreme right-wing political parties (ERPs) in national elections across the Western European Union countries (WEU). The objective of the research is not to explain why or how the ERPs platforms can be convincing and persuasive, but to describe conditions that contribute to identify when this has occurred. Since the reactionary nature of ERP discourse met the spreading phenomenon of Euroskepticism, a vote for ERP candidates and platforms is considered Euroskeptic voting behavior. Our hypothesis is that the greater the political power a member state enjoys in European Union institutions, the fewer the incentives for voters to support ERPs. To test this hypothesis, a great amount of data was organized and a set of econometric exercises was established using panel data with fixed effects. Given the intertemporal variation captured by the panel data with fixed effects, it is possible to assess the political conditions for the growth of electoral support for ERPs across the WEU as a function of three classes of variables: representative variables, economic variables, and variables of perception. The findings suggest that representation in European institutions has greater impact on ERP support than economic circumstances.

Building on MEP Andrew Duff’s proposal to create a limited pan-European constituency for electing representatives to the European Parliament, this paper argues that there are good reasons for believing that such an institution would better be built around national parties rather than Europarties as they currently exist. Using data from a Voting Advice Application (VAA), the EU Profiler, we demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of individuals who used this device would be better represented in the European Parliament, in terms of their policy preferences, if they could vote for a party from a different member state than their own. Furthermore, we find that there is significant active demand to be able to vote in this manner, and that such demand is positively correlated with citizens who found that they would be better represented given the opportunity to vote transnationally. Ultimately, we argue that a transnational electoral constituency administered by a VAA that could match individuals with the closest partisan offer in Europe would not only improve the level of representation in the EP but also contribute to forging deeper transnational links in the EU.

Am 26. Mai 2019 haben die Duisburgerinnen und Duisburger gewählt. Lange galt die Europawahl als Nebenwahl. Die neunte Direktwahl zum Europäischen Parlament wurde hingegen zur Schicksalswahl erklärt.
Dies blieb nicht ohne Folgen: Zum ersten Mal seit Jahren stieg die Wahlbeteiligung europaweit wieder deutlich an. Auch in Duisburg gaben so viele Wählerinnen und Wähler ihre Stimme ab, wie zuletzt in den 1990er Jahren. Vor diesem Hintergrund stellt sich die spannende Frage, was die Einwohnerinnen und Einwohner Duisburgs zu ihrer Stimmabgabe mobilisiert hat und wovon letztlich ihre Wahlentscheidung beeinflusst
wurde. Welche Themen waren ihnen wichtig? Und vor allem: Wie stehen sie allgemein der Europäischen Union gegenüber? Exakt zu diesen Fragen haben Studierende des Instituts für Politikwissenschaft der Universität Duisburg-Essen insgesamt 599 Duisburger Bürgerinnen und Bürger im Rahmen eines Lehrforschungsprojekts befragt. Diese Veranstaltungsform im Bachelorstudiengang Politikwissenschaft ermöglicht es den Studierenden zur Mitte ihres Studiums,
sich in der Anwendung politikwissenschaftlicher Erhebungsinstrumente und Auswertungsmethoden auszuprobieren. Zwischen dem 17. und 28. April 2019 führten sie in ausgewählten Stadtteilen eine standardisierte
Befragung durch, deren Fragen sich an den Eurobarometer-Umfragen der Europäischen Kommission orientieren. Die Ergebnisse der Umfrage wurden von den Studierenden unter Anleitung systematisch
dokumentiert, vergleichend analysiert und schließlich im Rahmen eines öffentlichen Dialogforums in Kooperation mit dem Europe Direct-Informationszentrum der Stadt Duisburg am 15. Mai 2019 vorgestellt und diskutiert. Die hiermit vorliegende Veröffentlichung fasst die entsprechenden Erkenntnisse der Befragung zusammen und wirft zu Beginn auch einen vergleichenden Blick auf die Ergebnisse der Europawahl 2019 auch über Duisburg hinaus.

Questo capitolo mira a presentare l’evoluzione e il rafforzamento dei gruppi politici del Par-lamento Europeo e dei partiti politici europei in una prospettiva comparativa. In particolare, si analizza la relazione tra questi due volti del sistema politico dell’UE. Anche se sono stati condotti numerosi studi sugli aspetti organizzativi dei gruppi politici del Parlamento Euro-peo e dei partiti politici europei, la letteratura è ancora scarsa per quanto riguarda la relazione tra questi due attori. In questo senso, si forniscono prove empiriche della ben nota (ma spesso non dimostrata) predominanza dei gruppi rispetto ai corrispondenti partiti europei. In real-tà, ciò è vero dal punto di vista sia materiale (i gruppi sono più forti in termini di personale e risorse finanziarie) che della capacità di limitare l’istituzionalizzazione di nuovi concorrenti (gruppi o partiti che mirano a partecipare alla distribuzione delle risorse pubbliche assegnate a questi attori). La nostra analisi, con l’ausilio di una serie di indicatori, conferma che i gruppi politici del Parlamento Europeo sono, da tutti i punti di vista analizzati, più forti dei corri-spondenti  partiti  politici  europei.  Ciò  rappresenta  sicuramente  una  debolezza  che  limita  il  pieno consolidamento di un sistema partitico adeguato a livello europeo