ANALYSIS OF SLOVENIAN ELECTIONS OF MEMBERS TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

Diplomsko delo obravnava dosedanje volitve poslancev iz Republike Slovenije v Evropski parlament. Uvodoma je predstavljen okvir delovanja Evropske unije z njenimi najpomembnejšimi institucijami na čelu. Samo ob ustrezni teoretični umestitvi Evropskega parlamenta v zapleten pravno-institucionalni okvir Evropske unije lahko parlament obravnavamo samostojno in celostno. Na kratko smo orisali zgodovino Evropskega parlamenta, predvsem pa smo se osredotočili na njegove pristojnosti in sestavo. V ospredju našega diplomskega dela so volitve poslancev v Evropski parlament. Pojasnili smo pravila za te volitve, tako na nacionalni kot na ravni Evropske unije. Podrobno smo analizirali troje volitev poslancev iz Republike Slovenije v Evropski parlament. Ugotovili smo, da je bila na vseh volitvah volilna udeležba relativno nizka in je bistveno odstopala od povprečja EU. Nizko volilno udeležbo na evropskih volitvah v Sloveniji smo pojasnili skozi različne teorije. Najbolj prevladujoča je teorija o drugorazrednosti evropskih volitev. Prav tako smo analizirali volilne rezultate in, na podlagi različnih teorij, izpeljali zaključke o tem, zakaj se volilno telo tako odloča. Na volitvah v Evropski parlament prevladujejo notranje-politične teme, pridobivajo stranke, ki v času volitev niso del vladne koalicije . To naj bi bili, poleg strankarskih programov in strankarske pripadnosti, ključni kriteriji, po katerih se volivke in volivci odločajo, katero listo bodo volili. Izvedli smo spletno anketo, ki kaže na to, da ljudje v Sloveniji posebne pozornosti Evropski uniji in njenim institucijam ne posvečajo. Pričakovanja mnogih ljudi v zvezi s članstvom Slovenije v EU niso bila izpolnjena. Med anketiranci namreč prevladuje mnenje, da Evropsko unijo vodijo najpomembnejše države članice. Evropski parlament naj bi imel bolj obrobno vlogo. Ključna ugotovitev ankete in analiz, ki so jih opravili tudi že drugi avtorji, kaže na demokratični primanjkljaj Evropske unije. Slednja se bo morala v prihodnosti bolj povezati, če bo hotela obstati ter biti kos številnim novodobnim izzivom.The thesis deals with the previous elections of Slovenian Members to the European Parliament. Firstly, it presents a framework of European Union with its most important institutions. Only by relevant theoretical placement of the European Parliament in a complex legal and institutional framework of the European Union parliament can be treated independent and holistically. We briefly outline the history of the European Parliamentin particular, we have focused on its mandate and composition. At the forefront of our diploma thesis there are the elections of Members to the European Parliament. We explained the rules for these elections, at both national and European Union level. We analyzed in detail three elections of Slovenian Members to the European Parliament. We found that in all elections turnout was relatively low and significantly deviate from the average of the EU. We explained the low turnout in the European elections in Slovenia through various theories. The most prevalent theory is the theory of secondary importance of the European elections. We also analyzed the election results and on the basis of different theories we created the conclusions about why the electorate decided so. On the elections to the European Parliament, dominated by the inner-political issues are obtaining the parties who during the elections are not part of the government coalition. This should be in addition to party programs and party affiliation, the key criteria by which voters decide which list to vote. We conducted an online survey, which shows that people in Slovenia do not pay particular attention to the European Union and its institutions. The expectations of many people in relation to Slovenia\u27s membership in the EU have not been fulfilled. The opinion among respondents is that the European Union led most Member States. The European Parliament should play a more marginal role. A key finding of the survey and analyzes, also already made by other authors, points to the democratic deficit of the European Union. In the future it should be more connected to deal with contemporary challenges