 Of particular interest in the European elections was the performance of the conservative CSU.The party only stands for election in the state of Bavaria, instead of its nationwide "sister party", CDU, where it has traditionally been the dominating party, winning absolute majorities for decades.As the CSU's share of votes has to be above 5% on the national level to gain seats in the European Parliament, it must gain at least 35% of the Bavarian electorate to pass this threshold.