Robert Hajsel, head of the European Parliament’s office in Slovakia offered this as an explanation for the extremely low voter turnout at Slovakian polls for the 2004 European Parliament elections. In the lead up to the June EP elections, low voter turnout has been a widely discussed topic across the EU. Concern is perhaps greatest in Slovakia, where only 17% of citizens voted in 2004, the state’s first time participating in EU elections. This was the lowest number in any member-state since EP elections began in 1979. Hajsel claims that Slovaks didn’t vote because they were satisfied with the EU as is – ‘if you fully trust and support something, you don’t want to change it and if you don’t want to change it, you don’t care to come and vote.’

Image: www.flickr.com/ antaldaniel

VoteWatch.eu is an independent website that aims to make EU decision-making more transparent. Employing complex statistical methods developed by scholars from LSE and Université Libre de Bruxelles, it tracks attendance and voting records of MEPs in the European Parliament. Citizens can view this analysis by nationality, national political party, or European party grouping. Votewatch.eu is a particularly useful tool for citizens considering who to support in the upcoming EP elections.

Image: www.flickr.com/ *bene*

The Daily Telegraph gained obtained records of MPs’ expenses, and have been revealing new details of these records in their newspaper everyday for the past week. Extravagant, exaggerated and incorrect claims made by many MPs from all parties have been exposed. Second home allowances in particular have been abused. This scandal comes at a crucial time for British political parties, as they rally behind MEP candidates on the campaign trail. Labour’s opinion poll ratings reflect a dramatic drop in public confidence – falling to their lowest level ever. This will undoubtedly make it even more difficult for politicians to convince the largely Euroskeptic public in Britain of the importance and validity of voting in the upcoming EP elections.

Image: www.flickr.com/ andrewpaulcarr

The website of this week is known to all YouTube. The latter has teamed up with the EuroNews in an attempt to cover the 2009 EU elections. It is an effort to increase the interest and the participation of the EU’s citizens to the elections of June. In the framework of EU 2009 Elections Communication Campaign, YouTube launched the Questions for Europe video which encourages voters to “share their views and preoccupations.” Moreover, the video asks for the voters questions, informing them that “we’ll make it our business to find the answers, whether it’s seeking expert advice or even relaying your questions to the MEP candidates themselves.” The outcome did pay off considering that in two days the channel managed to become the third most subscribed reporter channel in France.

This was the reaction of controversial French MEP Jean Marie Le Pen to news that MEPs from several parties are moving to block him from chairing the European Parliament immediately following the June elections. It is customary that following elections, the oldest MEP chairs the Parliament until a new president is elected. Among his more controversial statements are remarks that Nazi gas chambers are a mere ‘detail of history.’ Le Pen was fined for making said claim in 1987, but repeated the remark again, prompting Socialist leader Martin Schulz to express concern over the prospect of a ‘Holocaust denier’ presiding over the inaugural session of European Parliament. The Green Party has suggested changing the tradition to allow the youngest MEP to open the session, as ‘a sign of the future.’ ALDE leader Graham Watson disagreed with his EP colleagues (admittedly before Le Pen repeated his gas chamber comment), seeing no justification to handle Le Pen differently, ‘even if we hate his politics.’

Image: www.flickr.com/neno

The website of the European Parliament is itself not new, but interesting new updates have just been added, namely images drawing attention to the upcoming EP elections, and will be seen on billboards around the EU as of April 1st. Distribution of the advertisement campaign will be uneven, with more billboards placed in member states which had the lowest voter turnout in the 2004 EP elections, such as Poland and Slovakia. Nevertheless, billboards will be printed in all 23 of the official EU languages, and will be displayed in every EU member state. The billboard campaign will cost €3 million, and a further €1 million will go towards a print and online campaign using the same images, which were created by Berlin-based advertising agency Scholz & Friends.

2009 election billboards on flickr

The European meeting-point of the year 2009 will most definitely be the elections of the European Parliament. Be rprepared for June 2009. Although there is still some way to go, the election of the next president of the European Commission is at the heart of the current debate – will the Portuguese Manuel Barroso be reappointed? While the European People’s Party (EPP) supports Barroso, the Party of European Socialist (PES) has no common candidate as of yet. An interesting factor in this debate is the fact that the European Parliament elections have no direct influence on the election of the president of the European Commission. He will be appointed by secret vote by the European Council. However the Parliament has then to approve the entire Commission. Furthermore, it is more than likely that the Parliamentary elections will, once again, be second order national elections, where parties look for approval of their national policies. The legitimacy of the elections will be determined by the voter turnout. Will the reinforced communication policy of the Commission show any results? The Euros are covering the European elections with different articles and audio-visual documentaries about the role of the European Parliament.

Photo: www.sxc.hu