Roundtable on the results of the European elections

On June 16th 2009, the Centre for European Studies organised a meeting to discuss the results of the 2009 European Parliament elections.

The CES Director, Tomi HUHTANEN, opened the meeting by congratulating the EPP for their victory in the European elections, and encouraged everyone to see these positive results as a challenge to take new initiatives to ensure a successful electoral term.

After his warm welcome, CES Head of Research, Roland FREUDENSTEIN, took the floor to present thorough analysis of the general elections’ results and general turnout, and compare the results in 2004 and 2009 in the six biggest EU countries: France, Germany, Italy, Poland, United Kingdom and Spain. Mr. Freudenstein explained that the EPP showed more competence in times of crisis, whereas PES was not able to offer a credible solution and is facing structural weaknesses in these key countries. At the end Mr. Freudenstein suggested some remedies to boost declining voter turnout, suggesting parallel elections, polarisation and personalisation as a means of achieving this but at the same time acknowledging their limitations.

The Deputy Secretary General of the EPP, Luc VANDEPUTTE, provided analyses on the EPP’s very online and audiovisual campaign, in which the EPP did not act as a campaigner, but rather as a service provider, respecting European diversity. In his inspiring presentation, Mr. Vandeputte stressed that the EPP’s campaign did not encounter dissonance amongst the EPP’s member parties; in fact, leaders and member parties displayed increased commitment to the EPP family in their national campaigns.

Researcher Wojciech GAGATEK from the European University Institute in Florence offered us a detailed overview of Europarties’ campaigns in the last presentation of the meeting. Mr. Gagatek provided us with a description of Europarties’ campaign efforts prior to the 2009 European elections. He concluded the presentation with some insight on the highlights of the 2009 campaigns, such as the economic crisis, better manifestoes, growing political conflict between EPP and PES, and the challenge of Libertas.

EPP Secretary General, Antonio LOPEZ-ISTURIZ, and the members of the CES Academic Council thanked all presenters for their very interesting analyses. Overall, Secretary-General Lopez-Isturiz and the Academic Council evaluated the EPP’s campaign as well-done: hailing the virtue of its humble approach as well as its simplicity, adaptability and manageability in aiming to reach out the European people.