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 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 broad view of the European political landscape and their individual positions within it.
It is important to note that EU&I is politically neutral. It is developed by academics for the wider public – it is not explicitly aimed at favouring any political party or group of parties. EU&I’s strong scientific background makes it interesting not only to the general public, but also to academics, experts and policy makers. Any interested person or organization can use EU&I completely free of charge.
The EUI has been at the forefront of VAAs for the European elections since 2009 when EU Profiler - the very first transnational VAA for European elections covering all EU member states – was created. 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 euandi (EU&I), continued in 2014 and 2019, when a record number of 1.28 million users was reached. With the aim of extending the scope of the project, EU&I was then replicated for several 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).
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 Mobilisation 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. This project is supported in part through a grant from the Open Society Foundations.