The governments of member states of the European Union are doubly accountable to their colleagues in the Council and to national electorates. To achieve a consensus that will increase EU cohesion, governments must take into account the views of other national electorates and to represent their country at the EU level they must take into account the views of their national electorate. This paper will present an original examination of the extent to which electoral shifts have put pressure on European Council members to give priority to maintaining national cohesion as against European cohesion. It will do so by examining changes in the votes and MPs of national parties that protest against the country’s commitments to the EU and in the extent to which governing parties moderate their commitment to EU cohesion in response to national pressures. In doing so it will draw both on national election results and on the unique Euorpoean University Institute data base of the programmes that both pro and anti-EU parties presented to their national electorates in the 2009 and 2014 European Parliament elections.
