The European Parliament elections of 22-25 May 2014 had already been anticipated as potentially the first ÒtrueÓ European elections. The economic crisis has seen the emergence of EU institutions as key players of economic policy for Euro member states; and the Lisbon Treaty has reinforced the link between the popular vote and the election of the President of the EU Commission. Thus several commentators had anticipated an increased importance of European issues, and a potential success of Eurosceptic parties. So, what were electoral outcomes across Europe? Are we observing the first true first-order European elections? What factors might explain the heterogeneous electoral fortunes of Eurosceptic parties?
This book addresses these questions by presenting analyses performed by a large, international research group coordinated by the CISE. It collects concise electoral reports about all 28 EU countries, together with other analyses by the CISE core group, only few weeks after the elections.