2014 European Parliament election

European Parliament election, 2014

June 2014
All seats to the European Parliament
Leader No presidential nominee yet No presidential nominee yet No presidential nominee yet Party EPP PES ELDR Alliance EPP S&D ALDE Last election 265 seats and 8 observers 183 seats and 5 observers 84 seats   Leader No presidential nominee yet No presidential nominee yet No presidential nominee yet Party Green AECR Left Alliance Greens/EFA ECR GUE/NGL Last election 55 seats and 2 observers 54 seats and 1 observer 35 seats Leader No presidential nominee yet Alliance EFD Last election 30 seats

Elections to the European Parliament will be held in all member states of the European Union (EU) during June 2014. It will be the eighth Europe-wide election to the European Parliament since the first direct elections in 1979.

Candidates for Commission president

The Lisbon treaty, which entered into force on 1 December 2009, provides that the European Parliament shall elect the European Commission president, head of the "EU Executive", on the basis of a proposal made by the European Council taking into account the European elections (article 17, paragraph 7 of the TEU). This provision will apply for the first time for the 2014 elections.

Basing on these new provisions, only one European party has already committed to designate its frontrunner and nominee for Commission president ahead of the 2014 election: the Party of European Socialists.

Selection process and primaires

Even though PES is the only party currently engaged in selecting a candidate for 2014, the debate about how to procede to such a selection takes place in many other parties:

• The PES primaries will take place in January 2014.

Following the defeat of the Party of European Socialists during the European elections of June 2009, the PES Congress gathering in Brussels in November 2011 made the decision that PES would designate its candidate for Commission president through internal primaries taking place in January 2014 in each of its member parties and organisations. Member parties and organisations are free to determine their own voting process, including by opening it to non-members.

This responded to a claim of PES activists and supporters who had campaigned for a PES primary since June 2010.

• Already in April 2004, a former British Conservative MEP, Tom Spencer, advocated for American-style primaries in the European People's Party.

Studies on leading candidate selection shows that different models of selection or primaries, especially in non-unitary political system such as the European Union:

• a closed-door centralised party decision. Presidential nominees would be designated by the European parties' decision-making bodies.
• A public centralised party decision. Under this model, the selection of the candidate is still made at the level of the party's bodies, but candidates are formally known in advance to allow for a collective debate.
• Closed primary. A closed primary would allow all individual party members (in this case, the members of national parties constitutive of the European political party) to designate the party nominee themselves.
• Open primary. A European party embarking on an open primary would enable any European citizen to elect its presidential nominee.
• A decentralised primary election such as (American-style primaries). Such a model allows to organise votes on a state-by-state basis, over several weeks, each national party remaining relatively free to define how it will decide itself between the different contenders, by giving them votes or electing pledged delegates.

The European think-tank Notre Europe also evokes the idea that European political parties should designate their candidates for Vice-president / High representative of the Union for foreign affairs. This would lead European parties to have "presidential tickets" on the American model.

Possible presidential candidates for 2014

So far, few politicians have been mentioned or have express the desire of being candidate for Commission president with a view to the 2014 election. According to Financial Times Deutschland, the following names are considered:

• European People's Party: Donald Tusk
• Party of European Socialists: David Miliband, Martin Schulz, José Luis Zapatero, Margot Wallström
• European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party: Guy Verhofstadt
• European Green Party: Daniel Cohn Bendit

Other alliances, such as the national parties forming the parliamentary group "Europe of Freedom and Democracy", are envisaging Nigel Farage to lead their campaign.

Constitutional issues

Apportionment of seats

Apportionment in the European Parliament

Constituency	2007	2009	Early 2014	Prop. A. Duff
Pan-European constituency	-	-	-	25
Germany	99	99	99	96
France	78	72	74	85
United Kingdom	78	72	73	81
Italy	78	72	73	79
Spain	54	50	54	62
Poland	54	50	51	52
Romania	35	33	33	32
Netherlands	27	25	26	26
Greece	24	22	22	19
Belgium	24	22	22	19
Czech Republic	24	22	22	18
Hungary	24	22	22	18
Portugal	24	22	22	18
Sweden	19	18	20	17
Austria	18	17	19	16
Bulgaria	18	17	18	15
Finland	14	13	13	12
Denmark	14	13	13	12
Croatia	14	13	13	?
Slovakia	14	13	13	12
Ireland	13	12	12	11
Lithuania	13	12	12	10
Latvia	9	8	9	8
Slovenia	7	7	8	8
Estonia	6	6	6	7
Cyprus	6	6	6	6
Luxembourg	6	6	6	6
Malta	5	5	6	6
total	785	736	754	776

It had been the stated desire of the member-state governments to ratify the Treaty of Lisbon before the 2009 election so that its articles governing the European Parliament could enter force as of this election. However, this was blocked by the Irish rejection of the treaty in a referendum. Therefore, in June 2009, the European Parliament was elected under the rules of the Treaty of Nice, which foresaw 736 seats, instead of the 751 foreseen in the Treaty of Lisbon.

The Lisbon Treaty was subsequently ratified, and it is planned to give the additional seats to the "increasing" countries already before the 2014 elections, without withdrawing the 3 extra-seats of Germany. The 18 additional MEPs would bring the number of MEPs to 754 for a transitional period until 2014. These 18 "phantom MEPs" would first have an observer statute, before becoming full members of parliament if an additional protocol is ratified by 2014.

As a consequence, the 2014 election will be the first to apply the apportionment of seats foreseen in application of the Lisbon treaty.

EU electoral law

Since October 2008, MEP Andrew Duff (ELDR, UK) has advodated within the European Parliament for a the reform of EU electoral law for the 2014 elections. He has been nominated rapporteur, as the European Parliament has the right of initiative in this field ruled by unanimity in the Council. After the 2009 election, Andrew Duff proposed a new version of his report, which was adopted by the parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO) in April 2011. However, the plenary session of the Parliament referred the report back to the AFCO committee in July 2011. A third version of the report was published in September 2011 and adopted by the AFCO committee in January 2012.

The report proposes the following measures:

• the election of 25 MEP by a single constituency formed of the whole territory of the European Union. The election within the single constituency would respect the following criteria:
  • election on the basis of pan-European lists composed of candidates drawn from at least one third of the States,
  • adequate gender representation.
  • each elector would be enabled to cast one vote for the EU-wide list in addition to their vote for the national or regional list.
  • Seats would be allocated without a minimum threshold in accordance with the D'Hondt method.
  • An electoral authority would be established at EU level in order to regulate the conduct and to verify the result of the election taking place from the pan-European list;
• a dialogue with the European Council to explore the possibility of reaching agreement on a durable and transparent mathematical formula for the apportionment of seats in Parliament, respecting the principle of ‘degressive proportionality’;
• to bring forward the timing of the European elections from June to May;
• amendments to the 1965 Protocol on Privileges and Immunities with a view to establishing a uniform supranational regime for Members of the European Parliament.

External links

• European Union website