Broad Consensus with a Few Outliers: Russia’s War Against Ukraine in the Manifestos for the 2024 European Elections
摘要
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 shocked EU governments and citizens alike. In response to the attack, the EU demonstrated surprising unity, condemning Russia’s actions and supporting Ukraine in various ways. By the time of the 2024 EP election, the EU’s overall position on the war remained largely intact but had not gone unchallenged. There were debates about the necessary level of support for Ukraine and the broader implications of the war. This chapter analyses the way in which the war was addressed in the 2024 EP election by studying the manifestos of the Europarties and of national parties in selected member states. The centrist Europarties—the EPP, the PES, ALDE and the Greens—promoted broadly similar positions, championing further aid for Ukraine, showing support for the country’s EU integration process and calling for more European defence cooperation. The ECR was aligned with them on the question of helping Ukraine but showed little enthusiasm for EU enlargement. There was a much wider range of views further to the left and to the right. The positions of some far-right parties, most notably the AfD and the FPÖ, were the furthest away from the EU’s mainstream.