EU elections ‘not about Europe’

European elections should be seen as “second-order national elections,” according to Professor Cees Van der Eijk of the University of Nottingham. He was speaking at an April conference on EU governance hosted by the European Commission’s research directorate-general.

If and when the Lisbon Treaty comes into force, both the European Parliament and national parliaments will see their democratic mandate considerably strengthened. However, while this may have a positive impact on the legislative power of national parliaments, it is unlikely to lead to any dramatic increase in voter turnout at European Parliament elections. 

It is unrealistic to view European Parliament elections as “real elections,” claimed Van der Eijk as in reality, these elections are “not about Europe, the EU or European integration”. Instead, voters make decisions based on national issues, he insisted. 

Voters’ strategic considerations are different at European elections, said Van der Eijk, firstly because there are no direct consequences for government power and secondly because voters are informed by media that there is very little power at stake. The second-order character of European elections accounts for a number of facts, argued Van der Eijk, notably low voter turnout and frequent electoral losses by government parties and large parties.

However, none of these patterns signify any particular pro- or anti-EU message, he claimed. Rather, they demonstrate that European integration is weakly politicised in most EU countries. Voter behaviour is therefore driven by national factors. This is the case in both old and new members of the EU, he pointed out. 

Part of the problem, argued Van der Eijk, is that the media pays very little attention to European elections. EU actors are generally invisible, and the elections are labelled boring even before they take place, he claimed. Moreover, when the media constantly predict low voter turnout, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, he added.

Van der Eijk concluded that even though “voters choose on the basis of national contexts, because European Parliament party groups are cohesive, voters broad political preferences are still – albeit indirectly – represented in EU policymaking”. 

Therefore, despite low voter turnout and the lack of politicisation of European issues, the European parties are surprisingly coherent in policy terms, roughly coinciding with the left-right continuum of most EU member states, he said. 

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