(If I'll find the time, I'll put together a diary on some campaign slogans in Hungary).
Even at the one place where the EP elections seem to count something, in Bavaria, it's for local reasons: the Bavarian CSU is struggling to pass the 5% limit valid across all of federal Germany on its own. So the CSU is making a lot of noise, while various public interest groups try to push the CSU in its tight situation. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Methinks it also has to do with the nature of the campaigns: content-free, and almost only national in focus, making the elections pointless.
It also appears the European Parliament is the original second-order election
The term has appeared for the first time in Karlheinz Reif and Hermann Schmitt's "Nine second-order national elections -A conceptual framework for the analysis of European election results" article for the European Journal of Political Research, in 1980.
The power to accept or not a nomination, which the EP has if I'm not mistaken, is a power to appoint in effect. If the EP chooses to take that power. Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
Then again, without a Grand Coalition in the EP... different developments would have been possible. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
So for people who are not politically involved or aware, I am not surprised that there is little interest because unless you go looking you aren't likely to come across information that puts these elections into much context for you as an individual. The media aren't running with it yet. So what will motivate people to vote on something they have little concept of (in the UK at least)?
I'm wondering if any social research or more detailed opinion polls have been carried out looking at people's perceptions of the EU, MEPS etc. Ad astra per aspera
