After a brief overview of the Hungarian party system, the Socialist and the Liberal candidates, here are the likely winners. The EPP has two member parties in Hungary, and the smaller one just decided (and possibly split) over the issue of its party list.

Hungary's most popular party is Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Union. Fidesz entered the Hungarian parliament in 1990 as `Association of Young Democrats' or Fidesz. The alternative-Liberal youth movement later consolidated into a right-wing party, hence the name Hungarian Civic Union. It had an intake of the three original right-wing parties of the 1990 six-party parliament, and had been on government with two small parties between 1998-2002. Since 2006 it has the largest group of MPs in the national assembly but it failed to build a majority coalition. It has won the previous EP elections, and it is likely to win big again.

Unlike the other parties, Fidesz does not have to play tactical games with its list of candidates. It has a handsome 30% lead over the Socialist Party and thus it is free to nominate anybody. The party is list is full with heavy-weights, which has possibly two causes. One if is that Fidesz started as a youth organization and its major politicians entered the Parliament in 1990 in their early or mid-twenties, so some of their heavy-weight MPs who have been deputies during all their active life are in their mid-40s and eager to learn and try new things. The other cause is that Fidesz's charismatic president, Mr Orbán, who has been leading the Fidesz parliamentary groups and the government between 1998-2002, does not leave too much career opportunities for his co-founders. (Fidesz never had a chance to have president elected, and Budapest has voted for the same Liberal candidate on each mayoral election).

In the country currently holding the Presidency of the Council of the European Union - the Czech Republic - the EU Parliament campaign starts to develop.

On Euractiv, the following expectations have been formulated last week:

Internal rather than pan-European issues are largely expected to dominate debates during the pre-election period. The opposition CSSD [PES member] is widely expected to win the elections and will consider the ballot successful if it gains eight to ten of the 22 seats reserved for Czech MEPs.

Sounds like everything is clear in advance?!

I wonder whether the Council Presidency will not give a bonus to the governmental parties, especially if they will be able to create positive images in connection with certain EU-related events.

Interesting to see is also this Euractiv assessment:

The battle for seats in Brussels will mostly be fought on the Internet. The Civic Democrats [ODS], in particular, announced their intention to use social media, in a similar manner to US President Barack Obama [...] [And] CSSD was the first to launch a so-called "permanent campaign" aimed at keeping in touch with people at all times by means of "mini-campaigns". Such mini-campaigns include online advertising, special websites and so on.

Sounds like these elections will be the first Europe-wide elections where many parties, national and European, have decided to test the usage of internet and especially social media.