European integration and minority politics: ethnic parties at the EP elections

This article examines the behaviour of ethnic parties and their electorates in four new EU member states at the 2009 European Parliament (EP) elections. Building on earlier arguments from within the literature on Europeanisation, the propositions of this article are that the ethnic minority parties are more EU-enthusiastic than the mainstream political parties; that they treat the EP elections both as a more important arena of political contestation than do the mainstream political parties and as equally important to national elections; and that they will use the elections as an opportunity to further their minority-specific agendas. Using the EuroManifesto and the Voter Studies of the 2009 European Elections Study this article tests these propositions and finds support for the first two, but only limited support for the third one.