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.’

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