• carry out sample surveys among all candidates for the pilot study of European Elections of 2009 in all 27 member sates of the EU.
• To ensure that the data can be linked to the other PIREDEU data.

The survey builds on a general framework of the so-called 'responsible party model', in which parties play a central role in the recruitment, supply and electoral behaviour of candidates, but within which voters also have their input in mandating parties and related candidates. The model implies both an electoral and representative link.

We invite the involvement of the user community in several stages of designing and implementing the survey (cf Open Forum). They will be asked to evaluate questions; propose new questions; translate and check the questionnaire; identify relevant parties; identify postal addresses of the candidates; and perhaps help with the fieldwork. Yet the survey will be managed centrally in terms of coordination, support for national teams, printing of questionnaires and coding of data.

The survey includes all 27 countries. The core analytical foci are on political experience; relationship to parties; contacts with voters and mass media; political attitudes; attitudes towards EU, representation roles.

The team will first develops a draft questionnaire for the pilot study, which (once approved) will be translated into all languages of the member states, and translated back. The group will be in close contact with the polling institute that carries out the fieldwork. After collection and cleaning, we will make the data and associated codebook publicly available. During the final phase of the design study, the team will evaluate the pilot study and provide a report that will outline technical and design aspects of the pilot study. This general evaluation will eventually lead to the conceptual design report.