BRUSSELS — With more than 400 million Europeans across the 28 countries of the European Union entitled to vote in the European Parliament elections that end on Sunday, the poll is, next to India, the largest democratic exercise in the world. But since these elections began 40 years ago, when the bloc was only 15 countries, turnout to vote for the Parliament — the bloc’s only directly elected branch — has decreased every five years. So the first thing to watch for is turnout. Will it decline below the 42.6 percent of 2014, or will Europeans respond to calls from both populists and mainstream politicians who suggest that this election is important for the future of Europe? With much attention on how the continent’s various strands of populists will do, another crucial question is whether the populist surge will produce a counterreaction among voters who support the European Union but are traditionally more apathetic.

Source: New York Times May 26, 2019 05:03 UTC