Tracking: EP elections 2009

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Next year, from 4 June to 7 June 2009 there will be the next elections to the European Parliament, no matter if the Lisbon Treaty will be ratified or not.

From today until June 2009, I will keep track of the political preparations for this huge transnational electoral process involving 27 member states of the European Union.

So far, the European parties represented in the Parliament are showing quite different stages of preparation with regard to their public websites' frontpages:

For the European Peoples Party (EPP), the elections do not yet seem a frontpage issue.

In contrast, the Party of European Socialists (PES) invites visitors of their website to go to http://manifesto2009.pes.org/ and have a say on the PES manifesto for the 2009 elections.

The European Liberal Democrats (ELDR) have no reference to the upcoming elections. In fact, on their frontpage we can still find the link to their 2004 manifesto.

Looking at the European Greens, we can only find a press release from April 2008 on the very bottom of the page. It is stating that the "European Greens Council makes great progress on preparation of 2009 European Parliament election campaign". (The release is likely to disappear in the near future.)

The United European Left/Nordic Green Left (UEL/NGL) as well as the Union for a Europe of Nations, which (as far as I know) both do not have fully fledged European parties behind them, do also not have any hints to the elections on their frontpages.

I am aware that frontpages are not the only measures for party activities. However, (not) putting up an issue like the EP elections is a quite good sign of how far the preparations have gone so far. And for now, eleven month before the elections, only the Socialists seem to be ready to inform and involve the public.

But let's see, how things will develop - I will keep track!