Magyar pártok – európai választások. Négy eshetőség, hat szempont – a tizenkét csillag árnyékában
Hungarian Parties and European Elections

Summary/Abstract: The task of ‘defending national interests’ was stressed intensively by most of the Hungarian political parties during their European election campaigns of 2004 instead of using this opportunity for political debates on European issues and for analysing the results of Hungary’s fresh membership inside the EU. The public could not receive necessary information in order to make the difference between supranational and intergovernmental institutions, or to understand the basic decision-making processes on the European level. In general, the Hungarian media was not able to set the agenda independently from the PR messages of top politicians and could not change the traditional and polarised domestic political characteristics of the contest. However, as the role and influence of the European Parliament has been continuously growing in the last two decades as well as Hungary’s accommodation to the norms and methods embedded in the enlarged EU-25 might be soon completed, it could even happen that there would be much more Europe in the next party competition for European mandates in 5 five years in this fast developing, middle-sized member state.

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