Undecided about who to vote for in the upcoming MEP elections? – EUandI has answers! The European University Institute has just launched this online Voting Advice Application (VAA) in view of the European Parliament elections of 2014.
In some European countries, tools such as EUandI are rather popular. Even though Malta has only three main political parties (Partit Laburista, Partit Nazzjonalista and Alternattiva Demokratika), it is quite an interesting case for a European project of this extent.
The popularity of this project is widely growing; it has been featured on several well-known online newspapers including Huffington Post in France and La Repubblica in Italy.
EUandI is user-friendly and fulfils all the basic functions of VAAs, namely documentation of party positions and matching of a user’s positions with the political supply. Users can go through 30 questions, the last two being country-specific.
It also adds a fundamentally new feature, something which has never been attempted: through social media like Facebook or Twitter, you can connect with those who share similar views and act with them on a continent-wide level. EUandI will not only contribute to further the understanding of European politics; it will also offer a platform for developing what the EU has really been missing so far: a European public sphere.
The data gathered by this project would remain dynamic and continue to produce further connections between citizens. EUandI is possibly the largest tool measuring public opinion. It will continue to attract scholars who are analysing group formation, political mobilisation and partisan adaptation.
The project features 28 country teams (one per EU country) with the questions available in each of the country’s respective language. For Malta, the team included Dr Marcello Carammia, Mr Stefano Moncada (both lecturers at the Institute for European Studies at the University of Malta), Erica Pisani and Nicole Tabone (both students at the Institute for European Studies).
The project is led by Prof. Alexander H. Trechsel at the European University Institute, in close cooperation with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, directed by Prof. Urs Gasser.
You still have time to decide who to vote for! EUandI will give you your ideal party – http://euandi.eu/