When do European election campaigns become about Europe?

This article examines which parties included European issues in their 2014 European Parliament campaigns, and what influenced whether they did so, based on innovative data from the content analysis of 9,100 press releases in seven countries.   Between-party-type comparisons indicate that successful leaderships of governing parties facing strong internal divisions are even less likely to put EU issues on the agenda. With respect to the co-orientation model, parties’ EU focus seems to be mainly determined by the communication of (other) opposition parties.