ABOUT
EU&I is a Voting Advice Application (VAA) aimed at helping citizens make an informed choice in the 2024 European Parliament (EP) elections. Available in over 20 languages, the online tool invites users to react to 30 policy statements covering a wide range of contemporary policy issues and political values in European politics. Developed by the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, in collaboration with a scientific committee of VAA scholars based at the Universities of Lausanne and Lucerne, EU&I provides voters with a clear view of the European electoral campaign and their individual positions within it. The tool’s strong scientific background makes it interesting not only to the general public, but also to academics, experts and policy makers. It is important to note that this tool is politically neutral. EU&I is developed by academics for the wider public – it is not explicitly aimed at favouring any political party or group of parties. Note also that EU&I can be used completely free of charge by any interested person, organisation or institution. The software code on which EU&I 2024 is based was originally developed by the Zurich (Switzerland) based company xUpery Ltd. under the name “Societly”. Societly is a functioning VAA software that is available for free, under an MIT licence, on www.github.com.
The EUI has been at the forefront of VAAs for the European elections. In 2009, EU Profiler was created: the very first transnational VAA for European elections, covering all EU member states. The initiative came from Alexander H. Trechsel, at the time director of the European Democracy Observatory (EUDO, the predecessor of EGPP) and with strong support from the late Peter Mair. The project, under the new name of EU&I, continued in 2014 and 2019, when a record number of 1.28 million users was reached. For the third time after the EP elections in 2009 and 2014, this European-wide Voting Advice Application helped citizens find which party best matches their preferences in their country and across Europe. With the aim of extending the scope of the project, EU&I was then replicated for several important national elections: the German federal elections of 2021, the French presidential elections and the Italian general elections in 2022. In 2023, the Estonian elections were covered with an exclusive partnership with ERR, the Estonian national broadcasting company, while the Slovak voting advice application was developed in partnership with Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica (UMB). EU&I, in all its renditions, is designed to provide a politically neutral source of information to voters, detailing parties’ positions while explicitly not favouring any political party or group of parties. It relies on independent academic expertise, it is entirely free and can be used by all interested persons, organisations, or institutions.
In addition to offering a useful tool to voters (and parties), EU&I produces highly relevant scientific data for researchers and practitioners interested in political parties and elections, which is regularly made available to the academic community, in full compliance with privacy standards. Read more.
The EU&I 2024 platform is part of a larger project called ‘European Elections Mobilization and Participation Hub 2024’ (EUROHUB24). Its central ambition is to develop and make available for the general public the most important information provider, across Europe, for the 2024 European Parliament (EP) Elections. Besides EU&I, the project will develop two additional web portals. The first one, named SpacEU, is an interactive database informing users on their electoral rights allowing them to compare the conditions and requirements for voting in their country of residence and/or citizenship. The second online tool, developed by Prof. Simon Hix and called EuroMPmatch, is a Voting Advice Application based on the past voting behaviour of Members of Parliament in EP.