EUROPEAN ELECTIONS AND THE DIVERSITY OF NATIONAL RULES, PROCEDURES AND PRACTICES

Although common EU principles and individual rights related to elections exist, the EP elections are characterized by a considerable diversity of national rules, procedures, and practices. In addition, the political dimension of EP elections is dominated by national political actors and dynamics. The EP has sought to harmonize frameworks and practices for decades, but the Member States have thus far resisted further integration in this respect.

The elections to the EP are characterized by 28 distinct political environments, cultures and traditions. Although many of the political challenges are similar among the EU Member States, and their interests converge to a large degree, the effect that overarching issues such as the financial/economic crisis, climate change, global trade and development have on national political dynamics is different from one country to the other. This makes it difficult for political parties on the European level to identify campaign themes of equal interest to all Member States and thereby also to create a feeling among the electorate that the EP elections are about the EU as a whole rather than a question of defending national interests.

The ways in which parties compiled their candidate lists also differ both within and between countries. In many cases, internal democratic processes take place, such as party congresses or voting by members or delegates. In some cases, the lists are decided by the party leadership.

The Euro-parties still lack the appropriate logistical and financial means to run an EU-wide election campaign. It should also be noted that national parties often choose to run their own campaign without associating themselves with Euro-parties, often due to the national political competition being perceived as more important. Some national parties may also not wish to fully support all the positions of the Euro-party with which they would normally associate themselves. The Euro-parties essentially work as service providers for national parties (e.g. by encouraging the use of common symbols and manifestos). But common manifestos tend to be vague, as national member parties (often more than one per country) distinguish themselves with their own programmes.

The low turnout rates have been interpreted by many as an expression of opposition or indifference to the EU and its key institutions. A number of parties across the continent campaign on an anti-EU message, which offers voters dissatisfied with European integration as such a means to elect representatives who share their views. The large number of abstainers can therefore not simply be explained in terms of opposition to the EU. On the whole, regular EU-wide opinion polls confirm that a majority of citizens in most Member States consider the membership of their country in the EU to be desirable. However, the complexity of EU level politics and its regulations does not facilitate citizens’ understanding of the political process. The EU and its Member States have not yet been able to bridge this awareness and interest gap, although considerable resources have been spent in an attempt to address it over the course of many years.

It has been suggested that a reformed electoral system may reverse the downward trend in participation and lead to more interest by voters in EP elections. While some steps could be taken to strengthen the link between the voter and the elected representative, electoral reform alone will probably not suffice to overcome the structural and political factors which negatively affect turnout.

The majority of rules governing the elections are still national rules. Thus, in combination with the election campaigns focusing more on national questions than on pan-European issues the EP elections can still in essence be considered as 28 separate elections to a supra-national body. Apart from basic EU level rules, the EP elections are held according to national legislation and are administered by national institutions. In most countries, there are some provisions for the EP elections in the respective Constitutions, and most have separate pieces of legislation which are applied in conjunction with the general electoral rules governing national and local elections.

There are also differences among Member States as regards the electoral system (proportional list or Single Transferable Vote (STV) [where voters rank the list of candidates in order of preference on an STV ballot paper], the existence and level of thresholds, the methods for distributing seats (formulas), the possibility to cast preferential votes (open[ where voters choose individual candidates provided by each party and individual candidates are elected according to the popular vote] , semi-open [where voters are given some influence over who is elected, but most candidates are elected in the list order] or closed lists [where voters vote for the party and therefore the list as a whole and candidates are elected in the order they appear on the list as decided by the party until all the seats have been filled], franchise, candidature, nomination of candidates, constituencies, polling days and times, and allocation of vacant seats.

Eleven Member States have closed lists and 17 Member States (and Northern Ireland) have open or semi-open lists. Open lists are implemented in different ways. Differences also exist between different models of using preferential votes. There is considerable variation between Member States regarding thresholds, which may vary from none at all to a maximum of five per cent. In some Member States the threshold is applied at national level, in others at constituency level.

There is a variety of models used by EU Member States for dividing their territories into constituencies for EP elections. In most of the Member States, the whole country forms a single constituency. Four Member States (Belgium, France, Ireland and the United Kingdom) have divided their national territory into a number of regional constituencies. Constituencies of merely administrative interest or distributive relevance within the party lists exist in Belgium (4), Germany (16, only for the CDU/CSU), Italy (5), Poland (13) and in the Netherlands (19).

The way in which an EU Member State is or is not divided into multiple constituencies – as well as the applicable thresholds – has a significant effect on the final election result in each Member State. Distribution formulas and open or closed lists have lesser influence on the outcome.