"The SOE Redux: The 2024 European Parliament Elections in the Romanian Context." L'Europe Unie 23 (2025): Print ISSN: 2780-8173. Online ISSN: 2743-4052. ISSN-L: 2743-4052. DOI 10.5281/zenodo.15191740

23/2025 L'EUROPE UNIE DOI 10.5281/zenodo.16495727 DOI 10.5281/zenodo.15191740 Filimon, Luiza-Maria; Ivănescu, Mihaela. "The SOE Redux: The 2024 European Parliament Elections in the Romanian Context." L’Europe Unie 23 (2025): 25–40. Print ISSN: 2780-8173. Online ISSN: 2743-4052. ISSN-L: 2743-4052. EAN: 99782749700519. Indexed in CEEOL (https://www.ceeol.com/search/journal-detail?id=1955), Ulrich’s Web (https://www.ulrichsweb.com/), ERIH PLUS (https://dbh.nsd.uib.no/publiseringskanaler/erihplus/periodical/info?id=497242), and Mir@bel (https://reseau-mirabel.info/revue/2815/L-Europe-unie). https://leuropeunie.com/. THE SOE REDUX: THE 2024 EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT ELECTIONS IN THE ROMANIAN CONTEXT Assist. Prof. Luiza-Maria FILIMON, Ph.D.* and Assoc. Prof. Mihaela IVĂNESCU, Ph.D.** “Ovidius” University of Constanta, Romania Abstract: The present article analyses the 2024 European Parliament (EP) election from the perspective of the Romanian political parties and their approach to the electoral campaign preceding the elections from June 2024. For this purpose, the analysis reassesses the Second Order Election (SOE) model in light of the Romanian electoral patterns emerging across five cycles of EP elections (2007-2024), noting that while in the last two cycles turnout exceeded 50%, the second order dynamic remained an electoral constant, the parties having failed to centre their agenda on European themes and on the role that the prospective candidates will play in their capacity as members of the European Parliament. The article finds that what accounts for the turnout outlier is influenced by domestic issues both in 2019 and in 2024, since parallel electoral contests were organised at the same time with the European elections in both occasions, namely, the referendum on the issue of corruption in 2019 and the local elections in 2024. Keywords: 2024 European elections, Europeanisation, European Parliament, Romanian political parties, politicisation, second order elections (SOE) model, party manifestos