Last time around, there were celebrations at the turnout rate. Will the upward trend continue?
March 22, 2024 4:00 am CET
BRUSSELS — The EU election campaign is kicking into high gear — but will Europeans decide to vote in anything approaching large numbers?
During the last elections in May 2019, senior figures in the EUcelebrated a historic result — 50.7 percent of eligible voters had cast a ballot, the highest participation rate in over two decades.
Manfred Weber, head of the conservative European People’s Party, said the result showed a “clear strengthening of the European Parliament” that would boost the institution’s “credibility and legitimacy.” Dutch Green MEP Bas Eickhout called it a sign that “these elections really matter for Europe.”
That may sound like a lot of hype for a rather underwhelming outcome — after all, nearly half of voters stayed home — but it does make sense in light of the European Parliament’s long-standing turnout issues.
“The 2019 election was a turning point,” Philipp Schulmeister, director for campaigns in the European Parliament, said. “It was the beginning of a change that I expect to continue in 2024.”
Schulmeister argued that events like Brexit, the migration crisis and Covid have made voters take note of the EU’s impact on their daily lives and of the benefits of their country’s EU membership.
“Through these crises, people have learned that the European Union — if we get our act together — can deliver in times when it’s needed,” Schulmeister said.
“There is a broadening debate on Europe and how Europe’s decisions impact people’s daily lives,” he added. “It’s become almost impossible to discuss nearly any policy or political issue without the notion of the European Union, and by consequence the European Parliament.”
Turnout: A long-standing issue
If 2019 was indeed the start of a new era of European democratic participation, it would be a shift of historic proportions, but academics are cautious.
“The ‘surge’ in participation in 2019 — as it has often been presented — is to be largely tempered,” Camille Kelbel, an associate professor of political science at the Catholic University of Lille, said.
She pointed to turnout declining in eight countries, and to some of the largest increases being in countries such as Poland and Slovakia, where turnout has historically been very low.
Turnout declined in every vote held between 1979 — when EU citizens voted in the European Parliament election for the first time — and 2014, when it reached an all-time low of 42.6 percent.
These numbers raise a real legitimacy issue for a forum representing nearly 450 million people from 27 countries that is responsible for passing legislation that affects their daily lives, from agriculture to trade and the environment.
EU treaty reforms that expanded the assembly’s powers were supposed to “make the Parliament more important, hence EU politics more salient, and ultimately increase turnout,” said Kelbel. Instead, “giving more power to the European Parliament has led to less participation,” she said.
The reason? While the European Parliament’s remit might have increased, many still don’t think the vote matters.
“Citizens, political parties and the media see the European election as less important than other electoral contests,” said Kelbel. “There is … less at stake, so less of a reason to go to the polls.”
Kelbel added that when citizens do mobilize, they often do so on national, rather than European, issues. She explained that voters may go to the polls to “send a signal to their national government” — or the ruling party might use the vote to prove its popularity.
The EU voter crowd isn’t the most diverse, either.
Kelbel noted that “younger, more socially deprived, and less educated people vote less.” She underlined that this is true for all elections but especially those for the European Parliament, as these groups, who “may already feel ‘out of the game’ due to their perceived lack of competence in national elections, are likely to be all the more so” in this case.
“Many perceive the EU as too distant and too complicated,” she said.
Schulmeister, the European Parliament campaigns director, argued the success of 2019 proved that the Parliament — and EU politics more broadly — was starting to become more relevant in citizens’ eyes.
“The European Parliament has managed to increase its profile by working on issues that are relevant to citizens … and we were successful in communicating what we are doing,” he said.
Schulmeister acknowledged that greater effort needed to be made to reach voters “sitting on the fence … those who know the European elections are important, but have a million reasons for not going to vote on election day.”
He further emphasized the importance of working with “professional organizations, civil society organizations, private and public [groups]” to communicate on the elections.
“We want to spread the message out as much as possible,” he said. “And to do that, we want and we need as many partners as possible.”
Getting people to care
Even if EU citizens are starting to care more about the European election, awareness of the upcoming vote isn’t yet widespread.
In a December poll published by Eurobarometer, only 28 percent of respondents could identify the month and year of the upcoming vote.
Still, the survey did conclude that interest in the election is growing.
Kelbel suggested that one simple way to bring more citizens to the ballot box would be tweaking national electoral calendars.
Holding another election on the same day as the European Parliament ballot, for example, has been shown to boost turnout. But only one country, Belgium, will hold multiple votes on the same day this year.
Schulmeister stressed the importance of the June vote as a defining issue for the future of democracy in the EU and beyond.
“Democratic processes are under threat, and this is also the case on our continent,” he said. “Voting in these elections is our way to safeguard and support democracy.”
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