Elections to the European Parliament

The hemicycle of the European Parliament in Strasbourg

Elections in the European Union take place every five years by universal adult suffrage. 736 MEPs are elected to the European Parliament which has been directly elected since 1979. No other body is directly elected although the Council of the European Union and European Council is largely composed of nationally elected officials.

Voting system

Further information: Apportionment in the European Parliament

There is no uniform voting system for the election of MEPs; rather, each member state is free to choose its own system, subject to three restrictions:

• The system must be a form of proportional representation, under either the party list or single transferable vote system.
• The electoral area may be subdivided if this will not generally affect the proportional nature of the voting system.
• Any election threshold on the national level must not exceed five percent.

The United Kingdom divides itself into twelve constituencies, these being the nine regions of England, and the three countries of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Constituencies in Great Britain (which include Gibraltar) use proportional representation from closed lists using the D'Hondt method . Northern Ireland uses the single transferable vote .

The allocation of seats to each member state is based on the principle of degressive proportionality, so that, while the size of the population of each country is taken into account, smaller states elect more MEPs than is justified by their populations. As the number of MEPs granted to each country has arisen from treaty negotiations, there is no precise formula for the apportionment of seats among member states. No change in this configuration can occur without the unanimous consent of all governments.

European Parliament Apportionment changes between the Treaty of Nice and the Treaty of Lisbon
(as calculated for purposes of the 2009 European Elections)

Member state	2007 Nice	2009 Nice	2014 Lisbon	2014c + Croatia
Germany	99	99	96	96
France	78	72	74	74
United Kingdoma	78	72	73	73
Italy	78	72	73	73
Spain	54	50	54	54
Poland	54	50	51	51
Romania	35	33	33	32
Netherlands	27	25	26	26
Belgium	24	22	22	21
Czech Republic	24	22	22	21
Greece	24	22	22	21
Hungary	24	22	22	21
Portugal	24	22	22	21
Sweden	19	18	20	20
Austria	18	17	19	18
Bulgaria	18	17	18	17
Finland	14	13	13	13
Denmark	14	13	13	13
Slovakia	14	13	13	13
Croatia	–	–	–	11
Ireland	13	12	12	11
Lithuania	13	12	12	11
Latvia	9	8	9	8
Slovenia	7	7	8	8
Cyprus	6	6	6	6
Estonia	6	6	6	6
Luxembourg	6	6	6	6
Malta	5	5	6	6
Total:	785	736	751b	751b
Italicised countries are divided into sub-national constituencies, except France which changed to full-country voting in 2019. a Included Gibraltar, but not any other BOT (including the SBAs), nor the Crown Dependencies. The United Kingdom and Gibraltar left the European Union on 31 January 2020. b The speaker is not counted officially, thus leaving 750 MEPs. c As proposed by European Parliament on 13 March 2013.

Political groups

Main article: Political groups of the European Parliament

Template:Political groups of the European Parliament (7th) The European Union has a multi-party system. Often no one party has a chance of gaining power alone, and parties must work with each other to form coalitions known as "groups". However, as no government is formed as a result of the elections, there are no permanent, formal coalitions.

The two major parties are the centre-right European People's Party and Party of European Socialists. They form the two largest groups, (called EPP and S&D respectively) along with other smaller parties. There are numerous other groups including communists, greens, regionalists, conservatives, Liberals and eurosceptics. Together they form the seven recognised groups in the parliament. MEPs that are not members of groups are known as non-inscrits.

Voter behaviour

It has been a common belief among analysis that European elections are fought on national issues and used by voters to punish their governments mid-term. Turnout has also been falling steadily since the first elections in 1979 indicating increased apathy about the Parliament despite its increase in power over that period. The turnout is an increasingly big issue. Despite falling below 50% since 1999, turnout is not yet as low as that of the US Midterm elections which usually fall below 40%. The turnout has fallen in every EU election since the first. In 2009, the overall turnout was just 43%, down from 45.5% in 2004. In Britain the turnout was just 34.3%, down from 38% in 2004. However that situation is not criticised so much due to the fact the US President is elected separately, whereas the EU Commission President is appointed. Some such as former Parliament President Pat Cox has also noted that the 1999 election turnout was higher than the previous US Presidential election. It is hoped though that by more closely linking that post to the elections, turnout should increase.

Results

Historical percentage results in union-wide elections of the three major groups by region.

REGION	1979	1984	1989	1994	1999	2004	2009
	3.6	6.3	6.3	22	35.3	31.2	10.9
Northern	3.6	2.7	4.5	6.8	16.7	18.1	20.3
	23.2	33	45.5	56.8	27.6	23.9	21
	33.6	30.9	26.7	31.9	36.4	34.9	37.3
Western	6.5	10.6	12	8.5	5.2	11.9	12.5
	34.1	32.7	32.7	29.9	27.9	30.2	20.8
	37	34.3	29.6	25.9	39.8	38.2	45.2
Southern	6.2	4.8	9.5	8.5	5	7.9	5
	16	21	29.1	29.9	30.8	33	35
	-	-	-	-	-	46.4	41
Eastern	-	-	-	-	-	14.3	10
	-	-	-	-	-	21.4	23.7
	26	25.3	23.4	27.7	37.2	36.9	36
Total	9.8	7.1	9.5	7.6	8	12.4	11.4
	27.6	30	34.2	34.9	28.8	28.3	25
Turnout	63	61	58.5	56.8	49.4	45.5	43

Legend:   [     ] Socialist (PES/S&D) – [     ] Liberal (ELDR/ALDE) – [     ] People's (EPP/EPP-ED)

List of elections

List of all union-wide elections and by-elections;

2009 – EU 27 Previous Elections: 2007 – Bulgaria and Romania 2004 – EU 25

1999 – EU 15 1995 – Austria, Finland and Sweden 1994 – EU 12 1989 – EC 12

1987 – Portugal and Spain 1984 – EC 10 1981 – Greece 1979 – EC 9

Further information: List of European Parliament elections by state

Commission President

Election	Largest Group	President	Party
1994	PES	Jacques Santer	EPP
1999	EPP-ED	Romano Prodi	PES
2004	EPP	José Manuel Barroso	EPP
2009	EPP	José Manuel Barroso	EPP

The third Delors Commission had a short mandate, in order to bring the terms of the Commission in line with that of the Parliament. Under the European Constitution the European Council would have to take into account the results of the latest European elections and, furthermore, the Parliament would ceremonially "elect", rather than simply approve, the Council's proposed candidate. This was taken as the parliament's cue to have its parties run with candidates for the President of the European Commission with the candidate of the winning party being proposed by the Council.

This was partly put into practice in 2004 when the European Council selected a candidate from the political party which won that year's election. However at that time only one party had run with a specific candidate: the European Green Party, who had the first true pan-European political party with a common campaign, put forward Daniel Cohn-Bendit. However the fractious nature of the other political parties led to no other candidates, the People's Party only mentioned four or five people they'd like to be President. The Constitution failed ratification but these amendments have been carried over to the Treaty of Lisbon which came into force in 2009.

There are plans to strengthen the European political parties in order for them to propose candidates for the 2009 election. The European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party have already indicated, in their October 2007 congress, their intention for forward a candidate for the post as part of a common campaign. They failed to do so however the European People's Party did select Barroso as their candidate and, as the largest party, Barroso's turn was renewed. The Socialists, disappointed at the 2009 election, agreed to put forward a candidate for Commission President at all subsequent elections. There is a campaign within that party to have open primaries for said candidate.

In February 2008, President Barroso admitted there was a problem in legitimacy and that, despite having the same legitimacy as Prime Ministers in theory, in practice it was not the case. The low turnout creates a problem for the President's legitimacy, with the lack of a "European political sphere", but analysis claim that if citizens were voting for a list of candidates for the post of President, turn out would be much higher than that seen in recent years.

The President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek proposed in 2010 that Commissioners be directly elected, by member states placing their candidate at the top of their voting lists in European elections. That would give them individually, and the body as a whole, a democratic mandate.

See also

Democratic deficit in the European Union Electoral calendar Electoral system European Parliament European Parliament election 2009 European Parliament political group History of the European Union Member of the European Parliament

National elections; Austria Belgium Bulgaria Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark

Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Ireland

Italy Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Netherlands Poland

Portugal Romania Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden United Kingdom

External links

• Section devoted to the 2009 election on the European Parliament website
• Adam Carr's Election Archive
• European Election Studies
• The European Parliament and Supranational Party System (Cambridge University Press 2002)
• Archive of European Integration (AEI) > Institutional Administration, Developments & Reform > Parliament > Elections