Eurobarometer on the 2009 European Elections

The recently-published Eurobarometer on the 2009 elections has presented its findings on awareness of and interest in the European elections. The survey also looked at likely levels of voting, voting criteria and the campaign themes that are attracting voters.

Face to face interviews were carried out in each of the 27 EU member states and the information was compiled to see whether attitudes and trends have changed. The aim of the survey was to see whether the 2009 elections will be truly European or simply an accumulation of 27 national elections.

Surveys were carried out around 18 months before the elections, and then again around a year before. Compared with the first wave of interviews, ‘awarenesss of the date of the European elections has improved’ but given that this only represents 16% compared with 10%, overall ‘European citizens are not particularly aware of this event.’ This result was not split along lines of older and newer member states. Luxembourg and Slovakia were near the top of the poll, with 43% and 32% of their citizens knowing the elections were to be held next year; while only 8% of Bulgarian, and just 3% of Finnish and British respondents knew the year.

When talking about interest in the elections however, the survey notes that ‘in numerous new member states, an absolute majority of respondents are not interested in the European elections.’ This is also true of British respondents, who are notoriously uninterested in a wide range of European matters.

The survey found that in countries with a long tradition of European political life, European criteria were more important than national criteria when asked how they would choose which candidate to vote for. In new member states however, respondents gave priority to candidates’ positions on national issues, presumably because of ‘the relative newness of European political life in these countries’.

In terms of campaign themes, Europeans want to see a primary focus on economic themes, then on global and security-related themes and finally on themes related directly to the EU. One issue where there is a clear divide between old and newer member states is agriculture.

The survey concludes by noting 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.’

The full Eurobarometer report is available from: http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_299_en.pdf
For more information (eg. a summary or country fiches in national languages) see:
http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/eb_special_en.htm#299

Information provided by Rebecca Steel, TRIALOG