Summary “Potential for contestation on European matters at national elections in Europe”

- Cees van de Eijk

Citizens of EU differ in attitudes regarding Europe. On the one hand, people differ in attitutes
regarding EU in terms of more or less integration. On the other hand, citizens differ in their attitude
towards the EU based on the left-right orientation. Past research has shown that the EU position
doesn’t have much impact on the party choice during the EU elections. EP elections are thus second
order, i.e. the arena of the EU is subordinate to the national arena. To add on this, the national arena
is a typically left-right arena.

Regarding the data there are two interesting things to notice. First, the measures we have of EU
orientation do not contain random data. Secondly, people differ among themselves regarding the
question if EU integration has gone too far or not.

In the graph below, voters are located according to the probabilities they gave for voting different
parties. Seen that the points are much more spread out vertically than horizontally, shows the
dispersion of opinions regarding Europe. This graph also shows us that extreme attitudes towards the
EU are not more common at any particular point on the left-right scale.

The important question now is why such potential for contestation has not so far been realized in
elections to the EP.

One reason would be that political parties did not provide the vehicles for contestation. Which means
that the voters are not provided with a choice between different visions on Europe. So the question
now would be, is there a large variety of choice or not so much? This can be measured through the
consideration of the range of party positions in terms of the Europe issue.

When measuring this, it can be noted that parties offer voters more choice on the left-right
dimension than on the EU dimension. This explains why there is so little contestation on European
issues at EP elections.

A second way to look at the contribution of parties to contestation over EU matters, is the extent to
which the party space corresponds to the attitude space in two dimensions. For most countries the
dispersion of parties in terms of left-right is considerably greater than the dispersion of parties in
terms of attitudes towards Europe. We can see that more right-wing parties are more inclined to
favor EU integration, whereas another pattern is the inverted U where extreme parties at both ends
oppose integration. So where the voters show no evidence for anti/pro EU attitudes to be related to
left/right attitudes. Which means that voters vary considerably in terms of their EU attitudes over the
full range of left/right scale, but this is not true for parties. As parties do not over much choice
regarding EU integration, voters are forced to choose between either expressing their party choice
through left/right concerns, or choosing on the basis of their positing regarding Europe, at the cost of
not being able to select the party they would have preferred in left/right terms.

It is important to note though that the inverted U, especially the extremities of it are largely
populated by small parties.

The sleeping giant

We do already see, and will be seeing more in the future, more politicization regarding pro/anti EU
policy dimensions. This could mean that voters will make decisions that they wouldn’t have on a left-
right dimension. There are four conditions under which EU matters can become more politicized:

1. as a result of the activities of elites

2. as a consequence of external events

3. as a consequence of change

4. as a consequence of shifts in voter orientations

The current sentiment also is that national party leaders have not much trouble on European issues,
as this is mostly a case of foreign policy. By hiding behind the EU as a shield from voters, governments
increase the likelihood that voters will respond to any proposals that may be made to address that
shield directly.

The evolution of the EU in terms of its internal market and in terms of its external enlargement are
guaranteed to generate contentious political issues within the member countries for years (probably
generations) to come. Events are going to be the greatest challenge to existing major party leaders
and to their success in keeping European issues off the domestic political agenda in their countries.