The long-lasting consensus Europe is a side-or even a non-issue in the public discourse has been challenged. Europe and European issues have gained attention. However, little research analyzed who drives this EU attention-the media or parties-what the optimal time lags for these influences are and, finally, how cross-national variations in these media-party interactions can be explained. To answer those questions, we rely on quantitative content analysis of newspaper articles and party press releases in seven countries (Austria, France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the United Kingdom) during the twelve weeks prior to the 2014 European Parliament (EP) election. Our results from daily-level vector autoregression (VAR) analysis shows parties are the main driver and the influence occurs in most countries within a short timeframe of one day. However, our findings also indicate elite's opinion polarization and elite's EU salience cannot fully explain cross-national variations.

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