Past Event

The Centre for European Studies and the Canada-Europe Transatlantic Dialogue invite you to

a roundtable discussion of the 8th European Parliament Election Results

With Klaus Hänsch, Achim Hurrelmann, and Jon Pammett

Registration for this event is required.  Please see form below.

The European Parliament elections in May 2014 were the first European voting opportunity after the Eurozone financial crisis. They resulted in a surge of Euroskeptic parties in some member states, but produced no consistent Europe-wide partisan trend. In spite of attempts to turn the elections into a decision about EU leadership personnel, voter turnout did not rise. This event analyzes the outcome of the elections. It examines the main themes of the campaign, voter mobilization, and the results in different member states. It also analyzes the composition of the new European Parliament, paying particular attention to the strength of Euroskeptic parties. Finally, the event discusses whether the elections – the first held under the rules of the Lisbon Treaty – have constituted a step forward in the creation of EU-wide democracy.

Klaus HÄNSCH was President of the European Parliament from 1994 to 1997, and Member for Germany (SPD) in the European Parliament from 1979 to 2009. Klaus Hänsch’s activities in the European Parliament focused on European Foreign Affairs and Security policy, on enlargement of the European Union towards Central and Eastern European Countries, especially Poland, and on the institutional development of the European Union. He was Presidium-Member of the Convention drafting a European Constitution, and Member of the Intergovernmental Conference on the Constitutional Treaty for the European Union from 2002 to 2004. He has twice been front-runner for the German Social-democrats in the European election campaigns.

Achim HURRELMANN is Associate Professor of Political Science at Carleton University, and Associate Director of Carleton University’s Center for European Studies, where he coordinates the research group on ‘social integration and citizenship’.  He is also an elected member of the governing board of the European Community Studies Association – Canada.  He teaches in the areas of comparative politics, European integration, and state theory; he is currently researching whether/how the Eurozone financial crisis has led to an increased politicization of EU affairs in the European population, meaning that citizens follow EU politics more attentively and participate more actively in EU-related political discourse, and comparing trends in the discursive politicization and legitimation of European integration to equivalent developments in North American regionalism.

Jon PAMMETT is a Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science at Carleton University.  He is one of Canada’s premier specialists on elections, voter turnout, electronic voting, and survey research.  He has  participated in the design of many Canadian national election surveys and has written on the impact of the economic crisis on the 2009 European Parliament elections, as well as on the nature of the electorate in previous European Parliament elections.  His work has resulted in numerous books and articles, including Political Choice in Canada and Absent Mandate: Interpreting Change in Canadian Elections; he is co-editor, with Chris Dornan, of The Canadian Federal Election series, most recently The Canadian Federal Election of 2011 (Dundurn, Toronto).  Pammett also has led Canada’s participation in the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) since 1998.

The event is supported, in part, by a grant from the European Union, and in collaboration with the SSHRC-funded Canada-Europe Transatlantic Dialogue and the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Ottawa.

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Short URL: https://carleton.ca/ces/?p=7264