Everyone Ignores Europe? Party Campaigns and Media Coverage in the 2009 European Parliament Elections

Abstract

This chapter seeks to disentangle the role of parties campaigns and media coverage in generating the Europe-shaped hole in European Parliament (EP) election campaigns. The chapter assesses whether the media coverage acts as a relatively neutral messenger of the way parties campaign for Europe, or whether the messenger matters, with the media coverage of EP campaigns emphasizing domestic dimensions more than the actual party campaigns. Parties and the media are usual suspects in explanations of why EP elections remain second-order national contests despite the considerable increase in the powers of the EP. A strong distinction emerges between the incumbent governing party and its opposition counterparts, with the latter focusing almost exclusively on domestic politics, while the former frames its campaign in a more EU-centric manner. However, while there is room for political agency in filling the Europe-shaped hole in EP elections, the question that remains is whether there is the political will to do so.