Why the EU is witnessing the birth of real European politics

Despite 60 years of union there are no real cross-border parties. But times are changing

There is a problem with European elections: they are not very European. When EU citizens go to the polls this month, they will vote under national electoral laws, for candidates representing national parties, campaigning on domestic issues.

The “Europarties” the newly elected MEPs will join are not parties at all but loose, often fractious coalitions, so a vote for Germany’s Christian Democratic Union party also amounts to a vote for the far-right populists of Fidesz – unless the Hungarian nationalist party is finally expelled from the European centre-right group, EPP, to which both belong.

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from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2LDLz5T