EP-elections 2014 in Sweden

The EP-elections In Sweden in 2014 were in many cases presented and recognised as the most important so far. The elections were regarded as vital because of issues such as the economic crisis, polices of the Eurozone and further political integration, compounded by popular perceptions of the social, political and democratic crisis. There were also other aspects such as EP`s role and legislative powers regarding single market regulations, free movement of persons, amendment and approval of the annual budget and the reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy. However, despite the EP-election campaigns, the voters, parties and the media were still focusing more on national rather than European issues. This development was confirmed by the findings concerning the “national focus” according to Statistics Sweden (Statistiska centralbyrån, SCB) explaining that the voters experienced that the electoral process regarded the EU-questions in a small scale.

To understand the electoral process during 2014 it is relevant to make a comparison with a similar process during 2009. The EP-elections in Sweden in 2009 were the fourth elections since Sweden became an EU-member state. The election process such as voting turnout, the performance of the parties and the political communication was in wide fitting into SOE concept, which I explained in the earlier posts. The political discussion was focusing on national issues, and the turnout was approximately 50 per cent of the national elections. The larger parties received a lower amount of votes while smaller parties received a higher amount of votes than during national elections. There were, at the same time specific and significant differences compared to the previous four elections. The elections process was characterised by the higher turnout than before, more EU-positive rhetoric, entry of the Piratpartiet (The Pirate Party) with two Members of European Parliament (MEPs) despite being outside of the Riksdag (The Swedish Parliament) and a more interesting internal political debate since the EP-elections took place one year before the national ones.

According to Table 1 the voting turnout increased since 2004 for both electoral categories, but the highest voter turnout is during the national elections. During the 2014 parts of the legacy and experiences from 2009 were influencing the 2014 campaign. Despite the national level rhetoric during the elections, the political communication regarding the “EU-dimension” was considered as higher than before. Comparing to previous elections, the rhetoric provided by the main political parties was not based on the perception “yes or no” to EU, but rather what EU should be. This development is an example that is encountering specific amounts of the existing knowledge and theoretical framework regarding the SOE, which therefore has been under critique from the scholars as Arjan H. Schakel.

The 2009 EP-elections were also regarded as more important for voters than the previous elections. The turnout was 46 per cent comparing to 38 per cent in 2004. And it was the first time when the national political parties were using election commercials on television. However, the situation regarding knowledge among the citizens, media reporting and political communication from the parties about the EU-level issues were not considered as improved. The behaviour of the political parties regarding argumentation, political mobilisation and realisation of the democratic values was in general not similar as during the national elections processes. This development can also be noticed in Table 2 observing that in 1994 EP-elections were held in 1995 in Sweden after the referendum on EU-membership, while during 2014 both EP- and national elections took place. One of the reasons was the constant political communication based on encouragement to vote, and the percentage of voters increased from 46 per cent in 2009 to 51 per cent in 2014. This means that this was the first time that voter turnout in EP-elections in Sweden was above 50 per cent.

The elections were also regarded as necessary by the political parties for the mobilisation process since the national polls were taking place four months later. The role of the political candidates for the EP was concluded as one of the vital factors for the outcome for the elections. This conclusion is based on that the process for electing 20 MEPs is providing a stronger influence on the elections process for the voters than the means of choosing 349 members of the national parliament.

One of the key topics was the principle of subsidiarity where several parties from left to right argued about in which areas EU should do more or do less, by leaving polices to be dealt with at the national level. This included areas such as democracy, human rights, economy, trade, migration, environment and the fight against crime. Among the arguments were also that the EU should not create common policy for media, tourism and culture. The discourse, with a focus based on labour market politics, was regarding the EU’s general ability to create new jobs. The Social Democrats argued that the focus on growth and employment regards fair terms of employment and also the environment. This was opposite to the Moderates who kept their focus on market liberalisation policies. However, the two parties shared similar rhetoric about the need for the EU to work for more free trade and to fight against protectionism.

The election process was, at the same time, a winning situation for the small parties. Except the Green Party which achieved four mandates, other smaller parties as the Feminist Initiative and the Sweden Democrats were considered as the winners of the elections. The success of Feminist Initiative being able to achieve one mandate in the EP meant that several other parties had to address issues regarding women rights and gender while the more substantial scepticism towards the EU, apart from the Sweden Democrats, also came from the Left Party. For the Moderate Party, which at the time was a government party, the results of EP-elections were regarded as electoral decline. Also for liberals, there was a declining electoral support despite political communication based on decentralisation and further EU-integration as well as human rights, citizenship and personal integrity issues. 

Climate, sustainable development and the environment were other significant issues in the political debate. The question of environment, together with the energy issues was regarded as more critical during EP-elections (33 per cent) than during national ones (21 per cent) if measured by the share of the voters. The Green Party, as expected, wanted the EU to focus on the environment, but also to reform the refugee policy, which was later considered to be a part of their winning success while both the Social-Democrats and the Moderates performed worse than during national elections despite being the largest parties. A more unique and visible feature of the electoral discourse was the issue of the growing populism and extremism in EU. Most of the parties were united in this question by providing rhetoric where voters were urged to participate in the elections process to reduce the amount of populist votes. This was especially regarding the number of votes for the Sweden Democrats. Overall from the populist parties, there was more disapproval than praise for the EU where a frequent target of criticism was connected to moving the parliament between Brussels and Strasbourg as well as the Brussels bureaucracy.

The overall process of the EP-elections in Sweden during 2014, despite the covariance regarding the SOE theory can, therefore, be regarded as a development where the “EU-dimension.” of the elections can be considered as more noticed. The short period between the EP- and national elections shows the results of the EP- elections process was undermining the opinion that the EP-election processes are “nationalised”, even when being close to national elections. The voting behaviour, such as choice of the party and the importance of the candidates as well as the political issues and respective programs were different in comparison between the national and EP-elections and the difference indicates the importance of “institutional difference” of electoral categories for the voters.


For more information about my work, please download the paper here.