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Will voters really have the EU itself in mind when they cast their ballot at the European elections in June?

The countdown to this year's EU parliament elections is well underway, but in many countries, the battle for votes seems to be being fought along national, not continental, lines.

The dynamic is especially strong in France, where the EU elections are being framed by some parties as a forerunner to the 2027 presidential race or"first and foremost mid-term elections", in the words of Jordan Bardella, head of list for the far-right Rassemblement National party, who is calling to "sanction Macron's Europe".

"If I'm in the lead, I'll obviously ask for the National Assembly to be dissolved that very evening," Bardella said in an interview with French broadcaster RTL. (Under the French Constitution, only the President of the Republic can take such a decision.)

"The attempt and temptation (...) to use the European elections as 'mid-term elections', as they say in the United States, is strong,"says Pascal Perrineau, professor emeritus at Sciences Po Paris and author of A Taste for Politics.

"People use them to vent their anger against those in power. Of course, the European far right plays this game a lot when it's not in power."

In France, this is the only major election before the next presidential election in 2027," points out ric Maurice, political analyst at the European Policy Centre. "It is a national list election, so there is a strong temptation to nationalise the ballot."

And based on studies of EU politics going back decades, this "nationalisation" of bloc-wide elections is hardly a new phenomenon.

A year after the first European elections in 1979, researchers Karlheinz Reif and Hermann Schmitt described the ballot as a "second-order national election".

Perceived as being of little importance, the elections were being used by political forces to gauge their popularity at national level, especially where the elections fell in the middle of a president or government's term.

Researchers also described the European elections as "national" because they are organised at national level, according to national rules, and pit national candidates against national candidates on national issues. The voting method, voting day and the legal age for voting or standing also differ between member states.

"For the moment, there are only slight trends towards the 'Europeanisation' of voting trends,"says Perrineau. "It's not massively obvious. They were somewhat visible during the last European elections in 2019, when there was a surge in voter turnout. We had the impression that more Europeans were interested in the European elections and in the power of the European Parliament."

Recent crises involving the European Union, such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the knock-on effects from Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine, have put European action at the forefront of voters' minds.

But will this be enough to bring European issues front and centre come 9 June? According to ric Maurice, the work of the European institutions still remains too little-known to the general public and many electorates' attention is focused on elections of their own.

Around ten national elections are being organised across the European Union in 2024. Several have already taken place, but in Belgium, federal and regional elections will be held on the same day as the European elections, on 9 June.

Presidential elections are due in Lithuania and Romania, while voters in Austria are expected to be called to the polls for legislative elections.

The European elections could also be an opportunity for parties in power or in opposition to gauge their popularity ahead of future elections, whether to see if they can cling on at their next national polls or to try and identify their best way back.

Ultimately, says Pascal, "Voters are more likely to vote for national, economic and social reasons at the moment the rise in energy costs, the problems of inflation than for European issues, be they European institutions, European policies or even the war in Ukraine."

In France, national issues take precedence over European issues for half of those polled, according to an Ipsos survey conducted for Le Monde, Cevipof, the Jean Jaurs Foundation and the Institut Montaigne.

53% of the French sample said that they would take account "above all of the parties' proposals on national issues" to determine their choice of vote, while only 47% named European issues as their top concern.

What's more, 52% of those polled said that they would "vote first and foremost to show their support for or opposition to the President of the Republic or his government".

According to the study, the Europeanisation of concerns is socially divided.

"In certain circles, I'm thinking in particular of white-collar workers, executives and working people under 50, there is an awareness that Europe is more than something far away in Brussels or Strasbourg," explains Perrineau, who contributed to the study.

"On the other hand, in certain circles that are further removed from Europe - I'm thinking of blue-collar workers, white-collar employees, the unemployed (...) national concerns often take precedence over European concerns," he explains.

And at the end of the day, European issues such as immigration, the Common Agricultural Policy and support for Ukraine also feature in national elections proving thatnational and European issues are so intertwined that it is sometimes difficult to disentangle them.

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European elections: are national issues overshadowing European ones? - Euronews

With the announcement of its latest investigation of a global social media company this time, Meta the European Union is providing an illuminating lesson on how to regulate tech behemoths without threatening free speech. One would like to think that U.S. politicians and policymakers are taking notes. Unfortunately, thats probably a fanciful hope.

On April 30 the European Commission, the E.U.s executive arm, said in a press release that it has opened formal proceedings to assess whether Metas Facebook and Instagram platforms have breached the Digital Services Act (DSA), a Europe-wide law that took full effect in February 2024 and is designed to deter online manipulation and force tech companies to take greater responsibility for their impact on elections and other aspects of civic life.

Specifically, the Commission said it is investigating suspected infringements related to deceptive advertising and political content on Metas platforms, as well as the companys diminishment of CrowdTangle a tool that formerly provided outsiders, including journalists and researchers with insight into how content spreads on those services. The Commission added that, based on preliminary assessments, it suspects that Metas external and internal mechanisms for flagging illegal content are not compliant with the requirements of the Digital Services Act and that there are shortcomings in Metas provision of access to publicly available data to [outside] researchers.

European regulators are clearly trying to pressure Meta to invigorate its self-policing of disinformation, including content generated by artificial intelligence. The timing is no accident. In early June, the E.U.s 27 member States will hold elections for representatives serving in the European Parliament. The Kremlin has been targeting many of those countries with political disinformation and is expected to step up its online propaganda efforts in an attempt to discourage support for Ukraine in its defensive war against Russian President Vladimir Putins forces.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyens written statement about the investigation is worth quoting at length:

This Commission has created means to protect European citizens from targeted disinformation and manipulation by third countries. If we suspect a violation of the rules, we act. This is true at all times, but especially in times of democratic elections. Big digital platforms must live up to their obligations to put enough resources into this and todays decision shows that we are serious about compliance.

The DSA has teeth. The Commission can fine companies up to 6 percent of their global revenue and has the authority to interview company officials and even raid corporate offices. E.U. regulators are already investigating the content policies and practices of TikTok and X, formerly known as Twitter.

In its response to the Commissions announcement, Meta said in a statement that: We have a well established process for identifying and mitigating risks on our platforms. It added: We look forward to continuing our cooperation with the European Commission and providing them with further details of this work.

In contrast to their European counterparts, U.S. lawmakers, with one striking exception, have failed for over a half-dozen years to pass any of the myriad laws that have been proposed to rein in major tech companies in this country. The exception is the bill that U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law on April 25 that requires ByteDance, the Chinese parent of TikTok, to sell the short-video platform within nine months under threat of a sweeping ban of the service in the United States.

The highly unusual TikTok sale-or-ban law reflects heightened geopolitical tension between Beijing and Washington, as well as the Chinese governments practice of exerting influence over tech companies operating in China. The U.S. State Department issued a reportlast year finding that China employs a variety of deceptive and coercive methods, including propaganda, disinformation and censorship, to influence the international information environment.

TikTok has vowed to challenge the new U.S. law as an unconstitutional government restraint on free speech under the First Amendment. That argument is at least plausible, if not necessarily one that the U.S. judiciary will embrace when it weighs the governments claim that China could use the platform to try to interfere in U.S. elections. Past attempts to ban TikTok by the Trump administration and the state of Montana have been blocked by federal courts.

But setting aside the rather unique dispute over TikTok, the striking thing about U.S. regulation of social media at the national level is its absence. This regulatory vacuum is typically ascribed to two conditions: the extreme political polarization that renders the U.S. Congress dysfunctional on so many fronts and the First Amendments instruction that Congress shall make no lawabridging the freedom of speech.

European nations do not operate under as rigid a prohibition of government regulation of speech, an important factor explaining how the E.U. managed to enact the DSA. But the newly unveiled investigation of Meta illustrates that, possibly with modest modification, European-style regulation could pass muster under the First Amendment.

Forming the foundation of the DSA are a range of provisions requiring that social media platforms disclose how they address problems like deceptive political advertising and other kinds of misleading or hateful content. The European Commission noted in its Meta investigation announcement that the opening of the probe was based on a risk assessment report that Meta (and all other large social media companies) were required to file in 2023, as well as on the companys responses to the Commissions follow-up requests for additional information.

First Amendment absolutists might be skeptical of this sort of mandatory disclosure, seeing it as a precursor to intrusive regulatory action. But theres a strong argument under existing free speech doctrine that requiring businesses to reveal factual information about how they operate does not constitute censorship or anything close to it. Companies in numerous regulated industries from airlines to chemicals are routinely subjected to disclosure requirements, so using this approach would not be novel.

In fact, from what we know so far, nothing about the E.U. investigation of Meta would violate First Amendment strictures. The regional bodys regulators are not dictating that Meta or other social media companies adopt particular policies, let alone specific content practices or decisions. Instead, the E.U. appears to be interested in whether these companies, in general, are providing the kind of resources, personnel, and digital tools that are needed to mount a vigorous defense against manipulation by the likes of Russia or China.

It may be that one or another E.U. demand might turn out to stray over the First Amendment line if it were examined in a U.S. court. But in the main, the European authorities seem concerned about whether powerful social media companies are providing procedurally adequate protections against disinformation and other harmful content that the companies themselves profess not to want on their platforms.

In this sense, early efforts to enforce the DSA shed light on what is at least theoretically possible in the U.S. The NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, where I work, has advocated for Congress to enhance the consumer protection authority and resources of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission so that the FTC could demand procedurally adequate safeguards by social media companies, based on a disclosure regime roughly similar to that imposed by the DSA. If the FTC were restrained from dictating substantive policies or content decisions, this approach ought to be able to survive First Amendment scrutiny. Full disclosure: Less ambitious versions of this idea have appeared in some proposed U.S. legislation, but havent made much progress toward passage.

Under our approach, the U.S. government would not tell platforms what content they could host. Instead, it would require them to institute procedures that follow through on promises they have made in their terms of service and community standards to protect users and society at large.

It is too soon to tell whether the DSA will prove to be a successful experiment in regulation. Meta, TikTok, and X doubtless will push back and appeal any adverse findings. Its not clear whether in this process the European Commission will demonstrate the courage of its convictions. Keeping 27 member States on board wont be easy. But the Commission seems to be trying to make the DSA meaningful, and that alone is something policymakers in Washington could learn from.

Congress, Democracy, Digital Services Act, Disinformation, elections, European Commission, European Union, Facebook, Instagram, Meta, Misinformation, Russia, Social Media Platforms, Technology, TikTok, Twitter, United States

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What U.S. Policymakers Can Learn from the European Union's Probe of Meta - Just Security

The EU has achieved much in the last term and faces big challenges in the next. Its citizens can set the priorities in June.

Twenty twenty-four is being billed as the ultimate election year, with almost half the worlds population having the chance to vote. When it comes to the European Parliament elections this Junethe second largest democratic exercise in the worldwhat will motivate Europes citizens to take to the polls?

Some say the European Union should sell itselfbe proud of what it has managed to achieve in the face of numerous crises. Others say that lauding the key achievements of the EU over the last five years is not the way to go.

What should spur voters is a belief that a united Europe can achieve remarkable results, focused on a desire to tackle the very real challenges it faces. Policies at EU level have far greater potential than national measures to tackle common crises, in line with values we all share, making the union stronger.

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What follow are five social-policy successes of the past five-year EU term and five key challenges that only a strong Europe, supported by an active electorate, can hope to solve.

First, the SURE instrument(Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency) kept employment rates high during the pandemic. With resources borrowed from the financial markets and channelled to the member states, some 31.5 million workers and self-employed and 2.5 million businesses received support during the Covid-19 lockdowns. Sustained employment served as a macro-economic anchor and economic recovery took less than two years.

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Compare the six years of austerity implemented after the financial crisis of 2007-08. Recovery then was slow and unstable, marked by declining EU gross domestic product in three out of the five years between 2009 and 2013, with a 4.3 per cent fall in 2009 alone. Yet the record 5.6 per cent fall in GDP in 2020 was compensated in just over a year, with rapid recovery in 2021 and 2022. The lesson is simple: preserving jobs pays offaccelerating recovery, reducing potential poverty and preventing deep negative economic and social consequences.

Secondly, the 2022 minimum-wages directive now safeguards workers with a wage floor. A few years back, it would have been unthinkable to address minimum wages and wage setting at EU level. The directive leaves sufficient room for adaptation to the national context during transposition while bringing union-wide benefits: it increases transparency, levels the playing field in a competitive cross-border labour market, stimulates a more prominent role for social partners and limits the precarious jobs that restrain EU competitiveness.

Thirdly, the new platform-work directive will protect workers in a context, particularly after the pandemic, of evolving digital tools and new forms of work, including platforms. Innovation and flexibility in labour markets should be welcomed but there are risks: of circumventing labour regulation, disadvantaging existing businesses, depriving a large number of workers of adequate social protection and decent working conditions, and challenging social systems and the integrity of societies. These motivated the EU legislature to forge a directive, striking a balance between digital development and preservation of basic rules, principles and rights in labour markets.

Fourthly, the 2023 pay-transparency directive addresses the fact that, still, women in the EU are paid on average 13 per cent less than men. There are of course countries where the gap is much smallerincluding most of the central- and eastern-European member states, where women and men have worked and been paid equally for decades. But there are also countries where this flagrantly unjust differentiation is even greater. After years of consultations and negotiations, the directive provides much stronger instruments to defend the rights of all workers.

Fifthly, a new, enhanced mechanism to boost social partners participation at national and EU level is unfolding. Social dialogue ensures accountability in decision-making: any key decisions for the future of the economy are sustainable as long as the social partners are involved. Amid deep transformation in the world of workcaused by digitalisation, demographic trends, geopolitical developments and the green transitionemployers and workers have to be part of the decision-making process at corporate, sectoral, national and EU levels.

Social partners can however only participate as far as legislation allows. Over the last few years, the European Commission and the Council of the EU have made substantial efforts to promote social dialogue, to increase the capacity of the social partners and to involve them in important discussions, such as over the National Recovery and Resilience Plans and achieving the collective-bargaining coverage required to uphold minimum wages.

These are not the only success stories of the EU over the last five years but they are landmark achievements. Social policies are mainly the competence of the member states, yet in many cases the European public looks to Brussels for solutions: the EU has far greater potential to generate resources quickly and to apply measures, avoiding the disastrous race to the bottom where labour-market regulation is lax. This is beneficial for businesses, for workers and for economies and societies across Europe.

Of course, there are also challenges where the EU is expected to do more. But these expectations are often not matched by adequate budgetary resources or decision-making powers. If the EU is to do more, it needs to be equipped with more than todays budgetthe sum of member states budgets is about 40 times as big. But these challenges represent another five reasons for voters to make their voice heard at EU level.

First, the future of work is very much to the fore. While the EU is an attractive place to work and live, which helps in the global competition for talent, these advantages should be enhanced. Job quality is critical. Not just wages but the balance between demands (work intensity, physical and psychological risks, job insecurity, irregular working hours and so on) and resources (including autonomy, possibilities for training and promotion, work-life balance and support from managers and colleagues) is what makes a job attractive. Focusing on job quality can provide tools to address labour shortages, promote mobility, improve productivity and make the EU labour market even more competitive, as well as boosting quality of life more generally.

Of course, the new world of work must also address the challenges associated withhuman-machine interaction, including the role of algorithms and artificial intelligence. The rapid development of digital technologies does not only necessitate rapid and large-scale upskilling and reskilling but also clear rules in terms of ethics, data protection and individual and collective rights. To reap the benefits from these technologies requires human-centric regulation.

Secondly, unaffordable and inadequate housing is a hot political issue in almost all member states, while careformal and informalis an issue in almost every family. On the former, at this point there is not much that can be done at EU level beyond sharing experience and best practices. But as the negative impacts on demography, labour mobility and work-life balance emerge, a common EU approach will almost certainly be foreseen. On the latter, today in Europe we have about six million official and 60 million unofficial domestic carers. Addressing their conditions is of wide European interest and could also affect demography, labour supply and quality of life.

Thirdly, ensuring access to these and other public services will be a critical element in trying to address the variousinequalities in our societies. These encompass those between rich and poor, young and old, men and women, and urban and rural.

This will in turn be fundamental, fourthly, to a truly just transition. The ambitious climate goals of the EU are timely and relevant. Still, a constant analysis and swift response should guarantee that the public benefits it brings are balanced by affordable efforts on the part of different social groups, in terms of age, income, location and so on. The green transition is a top-down policy that will be realised only if society consciously supports the political decisions. It should not lead to widening gaps in society.

All of these, not least the last, will be best addressed in a context, finally, of improvedtrust in institutions across the EU: between people, in their legal systems, the police, the media, their governments and the EU itself. Without trust social cohesion crumbles and efforts, at EU or national level, to implement the goals set out above are severely hampered. (Re)building trust is a crucial challenge in its own right.

The European Union has created one of the worlds largest economiesa leader in areas such as the environment and attractive working and living conditions. These achievements cannot be ignored. But of course, we all want more, and better. That is why the elections for the European Parliament are so critical. This is one of these pivotal moments, where EU citizens can have a direct say on the priorities to be addressed and the solutions to be expected. The union can and does add value, above and beyond national specificities, and works for the benefit of all European citizens.

It is for these ten reasons (though there are many more) that everyone should use their vote come June.

Additional resources related to this article are available ateurofound.europa.eu

Ivailo Kalfin is executive director of Eurofound. A qualified economist, he has served twice as deputy prime minister of Bulgaria and is a former MEP.

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Ten reasons to vote in the European elections - Social Europe

Over the past 20 years, the EU has invested substantially in infrastructure to make Europe a better place to live and work - from highways to pipelines, public transport, connectivity, data centres and cross-border infrastructure.

Our integrated energy market has helped us to weather crises, for instance when Russia cut gas deliveries. EU countries have worked together to source more secure and sustainable energy supplies, driving the clean energy transition and reducing our dependence on Russian fossil fuels.With substantial EU investments, coverage of high-speed broadband networks and internet access have surged across the EU. Digital leaders such as Estonia, are helping to pioneer e-government services. In all parts of Europe, millions of people have gained access to the 5G network.

Today, we are taking things further with NextGenerationEU. Worth 800 billion, it is funding hundreds of projects, from offshore wind farms to electric trains, from top-notch digital services to world-class medical centres, creating quality jobs in all 27 Member States.

As the strategic environment around us continues to change and Europe needs to step up on defence, all Member States are taking part in the effort - from Estonian defence research to Swedish aircraft development and Polish ammunition production.

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20 years together: Facts and figures about the benefits of the enlargement for the EU - European Union

Foreign Ministers concluded two days of talks in Brussels on Thursday (4 April 2024) with a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council, and another meeting with Indo-Pacific partners and the European Union. Thursday marked 75 years since NATOs founding. Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg welcomed the landmark, saying: "since 1949, we have been the strongest and most successful Alliance in history."

Speaking at the end of the ministerial, Mr Stoltenberg welcomed that Allies continue to step up with new support to Ukraine. In recent days, this includes nearly 600 million euros from Germany for the Czech-led artillery initiative; as well as 10,000 drones from the United Kingdom; more missiles and armoured vehicles from France; and just yesterday, a new package of aid from Finland worth 188 million euros, he said. He added: we need to do even more, and we need to put our support on an even firmer and more enduring basis. Allies have now agreed to move forward with planning for a greater NATO role in coordinating necessary security assistance and training for Ukraine.

Foreign Ministers also discussed the global implications of Russias war against Ukraine, including support for Moscow from China, North Korea and Iran. Allies were joined by Indo-Pacific partners Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and the Republic of Korea, as well as the European Union. Together, ministers discussed how to enhance cooperation in responding to cyber and hybrid threats, as well as new technologies and defence industrial production. As authoritarian powers increasingly align, NATO and its partners must stand united to defend a global order governed by law, not by force, said the Secretary General.

On Wednesday, NATO Foreign Ministers met to address NATOs support to Ukraine, as well as security challenges in the Alliances southern neighbourhood.

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Foreign Ministers mark NATO's 75th anniversary, meet with Ukraine, Indo-Pacific partners, European Union - NATO HQ