BLUE_EP: A local-level dataset for European Parliament elections

Abstract

This research note presents BLUE_EP, the first dataset of municipality-level results of European Parliament (EP) elections. Our dataset covers the 2019 and 2024 EP elections and provides results for approximately 90,000 Local Administrative Units (LAUs) in the EU27 and 500 parties or lists in each election, along with a classification of all parties into political groups and broader political families. The dataset was constructed by collecting, harmonizing, and merging 27 national datasets, closely following the standard European and national GIS typologies for LAUs. To the best of our knowledge, BLUE_EP is the first dataset to support a uniform, Europe-wide analysis of local voting behavior in EP elections. To showcase the usefulness of our dataset, we combine BLUE_EP with European Commission data on population demographics and degrees of urbanization. Using the combined datasets, we provide fine-grained evidence for a widening urban-rural gap in voting behavior between the 2019 and 2024 EP elections.