Les partis autonomistes: Vers la disparition de l'avantage des élections européennes

Abstract

The performance of autonomist parties at the 2009 European elections confirmed the downward electoral cycle of the party family at the European level. Some autonomist parties managed to recover from the generalised defeat in 2004, but they did not approximate their scores in 1999, when they managed to elect 22 MEPs (or 3.6% of all 626 MEPs). Thus, a general trend can be discerned'as for other party families in these European elections, as the decline of the social-democrats and the success of the centre right, far right and eurosceptiscs (see other articles in this issue). However, there are also some exceptions to this downward trend, such as the SNP and the Lega Nord. This article describes first the electoral performance of the autonomist party family at the aggregate and regional level. First, we will start with a descriptive analysis of the electoral results of autonomist parties at the 2009 European elections region by region. Then, we test some hypotheses and explaining this quasi-general downturn in the second part of this article. Last, we examine the strategies of representation of autonomist parties in the European Parliament in different parliamentary groups, and how they affect the functioning of the autonomist «Europarty», the European Free Alliance.