We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
from PART II - Key actors in EU politics: citizens, interest groups and political parties
Introduction
In the first week of June 2009 the citizens of the 27 EU member states headed to the polls to elect their representatives for the European Parliament. Although the BBC heralded the event as the ‘biggest transnational election in history’, the majority of the almost 400 million eligible voters stayed home. With only 43% of them going to the polls the election continued a trend of declining turnout ever since members for the EP were directly elected for the first time in 1979.
According to the Financial Times, those who did go to the polls ‘clearly opted for the safety of the right, because of the global economic downturn’. Many of the centre-right parties won seats or lost only a little, whilst many of Europe's social democratic parties suffered heavy losses. In the UK the Labour Party came in only third with a mere 15%. In Hungary the MSZP – the Hungarian socialist party – was almost halved and only gained 17% of the votes, a vote share similar to that of the Dutch labour party (the PvdA). The elections showed a strong performance of nationalistic, Eurosceptic parties, like the Dutch Freedom Party, the Hungarian Jobbik Party and UK's Independence Party, each of them gaining more than 10% of the votes.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
