Europe at Stake during First European Parliament Elections Organized in an Enlarged Europe

This paper's primary goal is to theorize and measure the potential dimensions impacting on voter's decisions during the 2004 EP elections organized in Europe. Explanatory models on EP electoral behavior in old member states Europe focus on 'the second order election model' whose major statement is that EP elections are 'not real' European contests but mainly national contests. However, with respect to the newly democratized member states, 'the SOE election model' does not yield accurate predictions. Moreover recent research on the last two waves of EP elections challenges the perspective that EP elections are strictly national affairs, even from the old Europe's perspective. This paper builds on previous research on EP elections and EU referendums and posits that there is more room for Europe to matter in the context of the post-communist party system. In such recent member states, the notion of 'Europe', understood as 'Europhile attitudes' towards the EU institutions and the EU as a political system, 'egocentric Europeanness'-- reflecting satisfaction with democracy in the EU, and especially 'national Europeanness' (reflecting voters' perceptions with regard to country's benefits accruing from EU membership) has a stronger impact on the decision to participate at EP elections than second order considerations