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The June 1989 European Elections and the Institutions of the Community

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Vernon Bogdanor
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Extract

THE ELECTIONS TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT IN JUNE 1989 will be only the third ever to be held simultaneously in independent nation states. The first two direct elections, however, were marked almost everywhere by disappointment; not only was turnout low −60.7 per cent in 1979 and 57.0 per cent in 1984, but the elections seemed to be more in the nature of plebiscites on the performance of national governments, rather than genuinely transnational, and politicians found it difficult to demonstrate their relevance to a wider public. It is true that small radical new parties, such as the Front National were able to exploit the elections to their own advantage. But this, of course, did not endear the European elections to liberal democrats.

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Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , 01 April 1989 , pp. 199 - 214
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1989

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References

1 Sunday Telegraph, 25 September 1988.

2 European Parliament, Report drawn up on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs on the democratic deficit in the European Community: PE 111.236/fin. 1, February 1988, pp. 10–11.

3 One previously shared by the present writer. See Bogdanor, Vernon, ‘Britain and Europe: The Myth of Sovereignty’ in Holme, Richard and Elliott, Michael, 1688–1988: Time for a New Constitution, Macmillan, 1988, pp. 90–91.Google Scholar

4 Compare Spinelli, Altiero, ‘Reflections on the Institutional Crisis in the European Community’, West European Politics, 1978, p. 82.Google Scholar

5 These figures were obtained from Richard Corbett, ‘Testing the new procedures: The European Parliament’s first experience with the Single Act’, paper produced for an international symposium at Strasbourg, November 1988, under the auspices of the Trans-European Policy Studies Association, pp. 5—7.

6 See European Parliament, Report drawn up on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs on methods of consulting citizens of Europe on European Political Union, Part B: Explanatory Statement, PE 121.356/fin.B, September 1988.

7 Reif, Karlheinz, ‘National Electoral Cycles and European Elections 1979 and 1984’, Electoral Studies, 1984, p. 245.Google Scholar

8 European Parliament: Committee on Institutional Affairs. Report on the Presidency of the European Community. Part B: Explanatory Statement. PE 119.031/B. Dec. 1987.

9 Bogdanor, Vernon, ‘The Future of the European Community: Two Models of Democracy’, Government and Opposition, Vol. 21 no. 2, Spring 1986, pp. 161—76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 European Parliament, Committee on Institutional Affairs, Report on the institutional consequences of the costs of non-Europe, PE 118.040/fin. April 1988, p. 23.

11 Ionescu, Ghiţa, ‘The International Crisis and the Opinion-Formers’, Reading Notes, Summer 1988, Government and Opposition, Vol. 23 no. 4, Autumn 1988, pp. 391—2.Google Scholar