Trans-nationalising Europe’s Voting Space

Building on MEP Andrew Duff’s proposal to create a limited pan-European constituency for electing representatives to the European Parliament, this paper argues that there are good reasons for believing that such an institution would better be built around national parties rather than Europarties as they currently exist. Using data from a Voting Advice Application (VAA), the EU Profiler, we demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of individuals who used this device would be better represented in the European Parliament, in terms of their policy preferences, if they could vote for a party from a different member state than their own. Furthermore, we find that there is significant active demand to be able to vote in this manner, and that such demand is positively correlated with citizens who found that they would be better represented given the opportunity to vote transnationally. Ultimately, we argue that a transnational electoral constituency administered by a VAA that could match individuals with the closest partisan offer in Europe would not only improve the level of representation in the EP but also contribute to forging deeper transnational links in the EU.