The upcoming EP elections are the ideal opportunity for us as Manifesto Project to look at political parties' attitudes towards the #EU. In the first of a series of threads, we investigate the salience of and positions on in national election manifestos from 1945 until today:

The salience of the EU in national election manifestos thereby varies across countries and time. For example, our data shows that the EU has become an increasingly more important topic in most countries, particularly in France and Italy, but also in the UK, Austria or Slovakia.

First, we find an increasing general salience of the EU in national election manifestos. However, this is also accompanied by a steadily rising negative attitude towards the EU, particularly since the Maastricht Treaty.