Based on the content of European Election manifestos, the article shows that parties play an important role in presenting the citizens a European view on issues, in discussing trans-national and the core EU issues and in offering the voters different choices on the EU and European integration. While there is a greater variance of party positions on the left-right dimension than on the pro-anti-EU dimension, most party systems nevertheless provide good choice options on the EU dimension as well. Compared to the ‘old EU’, party systems in the accession countries offer a greater variance in programmatic pro-anti-EU positions.
