In the
wake of the E.U.’s parliamentary election in 2014, the media reported the
results as though a number of “national elections” had just taken place. Unlike
the European Council, the Parliament does not represent states; in fact, the
representatives of the people do not even sit by state, but by federal-level party,
renders the reportage as distortive at best. Moreover, its ideological bent can
help us situate the E.U. along the interval of federal-state relations possible
in federal systems; this situs in turn can tell us something about the likely
trajectory for the Union—the electoral success of the Euro-skeptic parties
being only a symptom. To situate the election results, I briefly cover a bit of
federalism theory before discussing the election-results coverage itself.
