At the May 2014 European Parliament elections, the European continent was swept by a rise in euroscepticism and anti-political sentiment, which had a lot to do with the deep recession and the austerity policies put in place to address it. These policies have had particularly negative effects on the younger and weaker cohorts of the labor force, especially women, who have had a strong anti-establishment reaction in the polls.
The questions driving this research are twofold. First, have the demographic changes we have seen at the national level been consistently transferred to the EU level? Second, if yes, how will these changes affect the political behavior of the 73-member Italian EP contingent? In turn, will the Italian MEPs, who represent almost one tenth of all MEPs, be able to influence the broader outcomes of EU policy-making, revolutionizing EU politics in the same way that they have revolutionized national politics—namely, in the direction of more youth- and women-friendly, anti-austerity, pro-growth policies?
