By the time this edition of The Budapest Times hits the stands, the world’s second-largest democratic elections are already going to be under way – in fact they already will have concluded in the Netherlands and the UK – and the latest numbers suggest that the European Union could be heading towards yet another record-low turnout. This would be the seventh time in a row and for the first time participation could dip below the 40% mark, which is significantly lower than the 61.99% recorded in the first European Parliament election in 1979. This despite the fact that the European Commission even launched a campaign to familiarise voters with European parties and narrowed the election period to four days to increase participation. This campaign was powered by a study, which revealed that 84% of Europeans think more voters would turn out if they had more information about the EU’s impact on their daily lives. This means the vast majority of European citizens believe that the EU has little or no effect on their life. Whether this is because it is actually so or because the EU fails on a spectacular level to communicate its achievements to its citizens should be a part of a larger study, but as long as we feel that the institutions of Europe do not care about us, we will not care about the EU either. And for most people the only way to show this is by staying away from the polls this weekend. (Pictured is a flyer of Jobbik’s Youth Division . The captions say: “Their Europe” and “Our Europe”.)
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