The European Parliament elections will be held the next 22 to 25 May. These elections are crucial for the future of the European Union, ever more now that the European Parliament has an increased influence in key decisions such as the elections of the European Commission’s President.
From ‘Lights Brussels´ we also would like to promote a better understanding of these elections by analyzing the content of the programs of the main European parties at EU level.
In order to better understand the priorities of the main European political families, we have analyzed which are the seven most used words in the electoral manifestos of the five core European political forces: the European People´s Party (EPP), the Party of European Socialists (PES), the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), the European Left (EL) and the European Greens (EG).
List of the seven most used words:
|
EPP
|
ALDE
|
EG
|
PES
|
EL
|
|
countries
|
jobs
|
social
|
rights
|
public (sector)
|
|
economy
|
market/ single market
|
food
|
citizenship
|
social
|
|
security
|
economy
|
climate
|
social
|
rights
|
|
growth
|
energy
|
energy
|
economy
|
people
|
|
common policies
|
common policies
|
sustainable
|
tax
|
countries
|
|
citizens
|
world
|
economy
|
women
|
freedom
|
|
world
|
people
|
rights
|
change
|
development
|
* Some general words that are present in all analyzed political programs such as "Europe, Europe, European Union have not been taken into account in the analysis.
The manifesto of the European People´s Party (EPP) emphasizes the word "countries” probably reflecting the importance for EPP of the role of member states. The economic situation and the priorities are expressed by the presence of “economy” and a related word such as “growth”. It is interesting to note the relevance of the word “security” (used both in the sense of economic security and public security), which only appears in EPP’s list.
PES’s manifesto highlights the use of words such as "rights" or "citizenship". As it would be expected from a social-democrat party, the word “social" is also among the ones more used. Its manifesto includes two words that no other political group used: "tax" and "women". The PES has stressed the need to put the fight against tax evasion and tax havens among the priorities of Europe. The high presence of “women” reflects the relevant emphasis that the PES wants to give to gender equality and the rights of women as priority issues for Europe.
In the case of ALDE’s manifesto, the analysis of the seven words more used shows that the stress is done on employment issues with numerous references to promoting "job” creation. Additionally, there are extensive references to "markets" in general and the European "common market” as a relevant priority for the European Union.
In the case of the European Left (EL), the word most used in their manifesto is "public" mainly referring to EL’s priority to defense the public sector. The Greens manifesto differs from the rest in using words such as "food / food", "climate" or "sustainable" closely related to their green priorities.
The ideological left (PES, EL) and the Greens (EG) give high importance to "social" and "rights", showing some similarities in the content of their manifestos. Moreover, the current context of economic crisis explains the high presence of words related to the "economy” among most the political families.
Finally, both EPP and ALDE very frequently refer to the term "world" in their manifesto, indicating that for these groups the European Union’s role in the world is a relevant aspect in their main priorities for Europe.
Without claiming to be an exhaustive analysis, this quantitative examination of the manifestos allow us to have a quick overview of which issues these five European political families consider as more relevant for Europe and to identify their differences.
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