On 3rd May, the European Parliament adopted a report on the reform of the EU electoral act, harmonising several voting modalities and providing for the creation of a second vote aimed at electing 28 MEPs on a Union-wide constituency. Under the French and Czech presidencies of the European Union, the Council has discussed its own position, and joint discussions will soon be taking place.
While the EP’s proposal — and, with it, the push towards the creation of a transnational constituency — was welcomed by the pro-European community, European Democracy Consulting remains concerned by specific shortcomings and limitations in the way candidates are elected on this transnational constituency.
Following research on the matter, European Democracy Consulting published a report for the benefit of the Council showing that, beyond its objective contribution to geographical diversity, the arbitrary re-ordering system introduced by the European Parliament does not actually prevent the over-representation of Member States large and small, that it suffers from a high degree of volatility, that it fails to sufficiently respect parties’ and movements’ preferences in the ordering of their lists, and, most importantly, that it introduces a structural and unavoidable discrimination favouring the largest Member States of each group.
Given the technical nature of the discussion, European Democracy Consulting endeavoured to focus on the main issues at hand in its recent brief presentation, and today publishes a more detailed outline of the shortcomings and limitations of the Parliament’s proposal.
It is our hope that this document will make it easier for Member States to understand the issues deriving from the EP’s proposal and its group system, and to remedy them with an alternative design for a European transnational constituency in the interest of all European citizens and of our common European democracy.
Download the detailed outline here.
