European Parliament elections 2009 (113): The turnout panic ends - and nothing has changed

Sorry, but anyone putting any particular weight into the latest public opinion survey results showing that 49% of EU citizens plan to vote (instead of 34% in April) in the upcoming elections is not taking her/his job seriously.

When the last Eurobarometer results were published, announcing record low turnout intentions, and everyone (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here) was writing like hell about it, I made a remark, saying that the survey was conducted at a time where the campaign activities were so low, that the results necessarily had to be low, too.

Since then, this initial panic around the alleged record low turnout has remained the most important issue in many media and blog reports.

It has been this dominant, that I would recommend that, next time, the political parties should have a political position on turnout, so that they'll have at least something to campaign on with media attention.

Now, one week before the elections, with most member states being in the full campaign (although "full" sounds rather sarcastic in this context), with most initiatives having reached out to parts of the public, with most media having at least some basic coverage of EU- and EP-related issues in the context of the European Parliament elections, it is no surprise that the figures are "better" than they were in April (which covered a period in late January/early February).

If we reach 49% turnout Europe-wide, this would still be very low. But it sounds realistic. But now all the media and blogs finally have something to report on, again. First, they create a panic and now they can express relief. Isn't that beautiful?

More important is the question: Did it change anything? My answer: No!

Maybe some people were more motivated to motivate others, maybe some have become aware of the upcoming elections just by this kind of panic.

But the campaign has not been better thanks to this media herd instinct. Instead of making a better campaign, the parties have kept it low key. Instead of pushing the parties into better campaigns, the media have kept it low key.

So, now we have spent a lot of valuable time on discussing a hypothetical turnout - which still can be record low and which still can be average - instead of discussing actual campaigns.

Bravo, that was really helpful!

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Under the category "European parliament elections 2009" I am following up national and European activities on the path to the European Parliament elections 2009.

For an overview over all articles in this category have a look at the overview article.

For the five newest post see also the sidebar.

European Parliament elections 2009 (82): Eurotopics' press review on the Eurobarometer results

Eurotopics has a nice little press review with translated article extracts from Luxembourg, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and Finland on the recent Eurobarometer results that project a low participation rate for the EP elections.

That's worth reading!

Let me also use this opportunity to praise the work of the people from Eurotopics (background information) who provide me and other Europeans with an excellent English language multinational press review (which also exists in German, French and Spanish) every day.

It's taxpayers money involved here, but it is spent for a very good purpose, and it is done in a very pleasant way, so I can only applaud for this initiative!

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Under the category "European Parliament elections 2009" I am following up national and European activities on the path to the European Parliament elections 2009.

For an overview over all articles in this category have a look at the overview article.

For the five newest post see also the sidebar.

Tracking: European parliament elections 2009 (XVI)

Upon a request from the European Parliament, Eurobarometer has published a 93 pages long special report on the upcoming European elections.

And while Euractiv focuses on the finding that European Union citizens expect the next EP elections to be about the economy, there is much more in the report.

The field operation was done during this spring, so the findings are already six month old. Nevertheless, they are very interesting. The main quotation (p. 14) and main summary might be: "[A]t the current time the 2009 European elections are not a central issue."

When we look at the report, we see that this is actually true. Therefore some more extracts from the survey:

• Only 16% of respondents knew that the elections will be in 2009, an improvement of 6% to the last survey 6 month before. About 75% have no clue at all. People from Luxemburg and Greece were best informed (43% and 36% knew that the EP elections are in 2009), Finnish and British the least (both 3%).

• 8% are very interested while 22% are very desinterested in these elections. The highest interest in the EP elections can be found among Romanians, Maltese, Irish, and Cypriots (all above 60%), the least interested are Latvians, Czeques, Slovaks, and British (all below 40%). Young people are the least interested (Remark: This is a general trend in elections.), and those who trust the EU are much more interested than those who don't trust.
  

• The group most unlikely to vote are the students. 22% definitely do not want to vote (average: 14%).

• Those who do not want to vote think that they cannot change anything (68% of non-voters), do not know enough about the European Parliament in general (60%) or about the vote in particular (58%) or they are just not interested in the European elections (59%). Being against the EU, Europe or the European constitution is no sufficient reason not to vote (only 22% affirm this as reason not to vote).

• Regarding choice for particular candidates, the position on national issues is only minimally more important (somewhat exagerated by the headline Brussels Blogger has chosen) than the position on European issues (37% compared to 36%). However, this shows that national and European issues have an equal weight for voters , even though the elections are European.

• The most important topics are unemployment, economic growth, and inflation. The least important topics are the powers and competences of European institutions, European values and identity, and the preservation of the European social model. Immigration is most important in Spain, Malta, Austria and Great Britain (more than 50% of respondents rank this issue important), the least important for Poland and Bulgaria.

After presenting and interpreting all the data, the authors finish and conclude from their report that

"The two main challenges of the 2009 European elections will be to inform European citizens about the European Parliament’s role and the ability of candidates to offer practical solutions at European level to the economic crisis."

This is not very spectacular, if I might be very direct.

My conclusions are: National media need to give much more attention to the whole process and its political dimensions. Sure, there is a need to better explain the role of the European Parliament and yes, it will be nice if the election campaign will tackle issues that actually interest European citizens, but in the end it is much about the visibility of the process as such.

As long as around 75% of respondents are not aware that in 2009 there will be European Parliament elections while political parties are already preparing their candidate lists, how can we expect any interest in the matter...?!

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Under the category "European parliament elections 2009" I am following up national and European activities on the path to the European Parliament elections 2009.

For an overview over all articles in this category have a look at the overview article.

For the five newest post see also the sidebar.