Do you Always Toe the Line? The Influence of Party Cues on Public Opinion Formation in the 2019 European Parliament Election

Political parties are central actors in the process of EU public opinion formation. Party positions provide "cognitive shortcuts", which persuade citizens to adopt viewpoints accordingly and reduce their costs of gathering and processing information. However, the effectiveness of party cues should not be independent from the partisan context. Moments of intense political conflict around EU issues highlight the positions of different parties and provide individuals with tools to activate partisanship. In contrast, the absence of party competition makes citizens less prone to activate their partisan predispositions and to be aware of the position of their preferred political party. I exploit the case of the 2019 EP election as a moment of party politicisation of the EU and argue that it provides individual with party cues on the EU. The effectiveness of such cues, however, does not remain stable over time. The influence of party cues on public opinion formation depends on the temporal proximity to the election date. As the day of the election nears, citizens are very likely to be influenced by the positions of their preferred party. After this intense political event, individuals’ reliance on party cues should decline. Drawing on post-electoral survey data collected between late May and mid-August 2019, I leverage variation in the timing of interviews with reference to the election day as a measure of exposure to party conflict and EU issue salience. The results indicate that the positive effect of party position on public opinion formation on EU issues decreased after the 2019 EP election occurred. Partisan identification is more strongly activated for opinion formation on the EU in moments of intense party conflict. The moderating effect is stronger for strong and moderate partisans. On the contrary, this effect is not significant for individuals who are not so attached to the party.