The Spitzenkandidaten in the European Parliament Election Campaign Coverage 2014 in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom

Heidi Schulze

doi:10.17645/pag.v4i1.457

Abstract

Elections to the European Parliament are characterised by a steady decline in voter turnout. To tackle this problem, in 2014, several groups of the European Parliament nominated pan-European Spitzenkandidaten who were expected to personalise the elections and mobilise European voters. Based on this development, this study analyses the media coverage of the 2014 EP elections with special focus on the role of the Spitzenkandidaten. A quantitative content analysis of European election campaign coverage in the opinion leading newspapers of three influential EU member states, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom was carried out. The results show large candidate- and country-specific differences regarding the visibility and thematic coverage of the EP elections in general as well as the presentation of the Spitzenkandidaten. The Spitzenkandidaten were not very visible in either the German, French, or British newspaper coverage. With respect to the presence and media personalisation of the Spitzenkandidaten, the newspaper coverage of the EP election does not demonstrate any mobilising effect and thus does not reflect the high expectations the European Parliament attributed to the nomination of the Spitzenkandidaten.

Highlights

The President was still officially to be nominated by the European Council, the five largest European Parliament (EP) groups used this reform to each nominate their preferred candidate for the position: Jean-Claude Juncker, former prime minister of Luxembourg and chairman of the Eurogroup (EPP); Martin Schulz, president of the EP since 2012 (S&D); Guy Verhofstadt, former prime minister of Belgium, member of the EP and leader of the ALDE faction (ALDE); Ska Keller, member of the EP since 2009 (Greens/EFA), and Alexis Tsipras, vice-president of the European Left and prime minister of Greece since 2015 (GUE/NGL)
In order to analyse the coverage of the EP elections and the pan-European Spitzenkandidaten, data was collected via a quantitative content analysis of the national daily press coverage in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom
The results demonstrate an adequate visibility of the 2014 EP election campaign in the newspaper coverage

Summary

Introduction

With this slogan the European Parliament launched the campaign for the 2014 elections to the European Parliament (EP) to announce that they expected these elections to differ substantially from previous ones (Chaucheprat, 2014). They were the first EP elections since the Lisbon Treaty, which strengthened the position of the EP, had come into effect. It was assigned the task of electing the President of the European Commission.

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Conclusion