The 2019 European elections: Have European elections entered a new dimension?

The European Parliament’s Post-Election Eurobarometer is one of the most comprehensive quantitative surveys available, analysing citizens voting behaviour and motivation in the elections for the European Parliament. Conducted directly after the elections in May, 28,000 people throughout the EU were personally interviewed.

Starting from the significant increase in voter turnout in the 2019 elections (50.6%, +8 pp compared to 2014), this report looks in detail at who voted in the 2019 European elections, analysing the variations between EU countries, socio-demographic and socio-professional groups. The study specifically shows the impact younger voters had on turnout, topics and results: +14 pp among those aged under 25 and +12 pp among 25 to 39 year olds. A sense of civic duty, mentioned by 52% of respondents, has become more ingrained in Europeans when they think about European Parliament elections, while increasingly favourable views of the EU have also impacted on voter turnout.

The main issues that encouraged citizens to vote are economy and growth (44%), combating climate change (37%) as well as promoting human rights and democracy (37%). 36% of respondents who voted cited the way the EU should be working in the future as their top priority, 34% named immigration. Economy and growth and combating climate change and protecting the environment are the most mentioned issues in 16 and 8 countries respectively.

While the number of Europeans who feel that their voice counts in the EU has increased significantly by 7 points to 56%, support for European membership remains at a historically high level, with 59% of respondents seeing their country’s membership in the EU as a good thing.

The survey results show that Brexit also played a role, with 22% of respondents saying it influenced their decision to vote, at least to some extent.

Parliament’s post-electoral survey also contains, for the first time, a full set of concrete voting recall questions, allowing for an in-depth analysis of respondents’ voting decisions and an unrestricted cross-examination with all other survey indicators.

The fieldwork of this post-electoral survey was carried out from 7 to 26 June 2019. 27,464 Europeans aged 15 or more were interviewed face-to-face in all 28 Member States.