In interpreting exit polls released on May 26, 2019 on the
E.U.’s Parliament election, The New York Times pointed to two issues, only
one of which pertained to the federal level. “Observers looked to [the
election] to gauge the popularity of the various anti-immigration, anti-elite,
Euroskeptic parties across the union.”[i]
Had the E.U. electorate focused on such a matter so central to the European
Union itself, democracy at the federal level would have been nearly perfect.
However, the encroachment of state-level politics in the federal election, the
other point, contributed to the democratic deficit at the federal level. This
takes away from the viability of the
federal system itself.
The full essay is at "Democracy Impaired in the E.U.: The State-Level Vortex."
1. Steven Erlanger, “European
Election Results: The Mainstream Loses Ground,” The New York Times, May 26, 2019.