Abstract

Do ideas related to European integration influence vote choice in European Parliament elections in times of crisis? Economic crisis, bailout packages, and austerity measures have been the central agenda in Southern European countries for the last few years, and the strong, subsequent decline of trust in European and national institutions has been alarming. Citizens’ dealignment and realignment proved itself important in various demonstrations around Europe. This situation led citizens to cast votes for new political parties, and decreasing the vote share of older mainstream ones. Political scientists have a vivid interest in this topic, and there is an ever-growing literature available on the effects of economic crisis on elections. Voters, as well as political parties, have received a great deal of academic attention. Southern European countries have faced similar implementations of the crisis and congruent regulations from the European Union. However, there are different implications for their party system change and voting behaviour in these countries. Based on the European Election Studies (EES) data for the last three European Parliament elections of 2004, 2009 and 2014 this paper, however, does not find any major traces of EU issue voting.