[cataphract]

The average voter knows even less about how the EU works than they do about their own country. The press rarely covers EU business, except for ECB policy.

People treat them as some sort of low stakes national election and they generally penalize the governing party (let's send them a message) and the small parties get a boost. They have no idea which parties/coalitions exist at the European level and where the national party they're voting for fits.

In sum, it's a big joke, to an even larger extent than democratic elections usually are (as argued in books such as Democracy and Political Ignorance or Against Democracy).

[toyg]

Some of that is due to the national press (the UK for example has a disgraceful sector, the result of a classist society unbefitting of a modern country); some to voters who have forgotten the lessons of the past. Democracy, like most of civilization, has to be earnt anew every day.