The EU elections in May will see a clash between ultra-conservative and liberal ideas on what it means to be European.
The election theatre includes a Russian phantasmagoria of EU-painted devils and rapists, in a years-long propaganda campaign designed to undermine the Western bloc.
Many far-right EU voters also want a "white and straight" Europe, going hand-in-hand with Russia's culture war.
But the EU mainstream has its own compelling stories and one set of European voter...
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Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.