EU citizens will head to the ballot boxes between June 6-9 to vote in elections for the European Parliament taking place at a tumultuous time for the European continent.
The war in Ukraine, migration and the EU’s contentious Green Agenda are looming large in the contest for 720 seats at the Strasbourg-based assembly representing 27 EU member states during a five-year term.
Voting systems vary from country to country, as does voting age, with Austria allowing 16-year-olds to vote. Turnout in the contest for the EP tends to be lower than in elections to national parliaments but in the last elections in 2019 it hit 51%, the highest level since 1994.
The first elections for the then fledgling legislature were held back in 1979, and the institution is now concluding its 9th term.
Parliament’s role in the EU legislative and decision-making process has increased steadily along with the deepening integration of the bloc. A succession of treaties has increased its power with the 2009 Lisbon Treaty, for example, giving parliament power over the EU budget.
The parliament itself is broken up into political, rather than national, factions with MEPs huddling together on broad, or sometimes tenuous, ideological lines. The biggest group, as a rule, has the most clout although the parliament has become a byword for political horse-trading as factions wheel-and-deal with each other when it comes to legislation and who gets the top jobs in the European Commission.
At the moment there are seven “political families” in the parliament, ranging from the left to the hard right on the political spectrum, with the biggest being the European People’s Party (EPP), a center-right group that brings together parties such as Germany’s CDU and Civic Platform from Poland. Centre-left Socialists and Democrats (SD) form the second biggest caucus. Together the two groups had traditionally dominated the assembly, but their hold has been weakening in the last few elections.
According to Piotr Maciej Kaczyński, an expert in EU affairs and a senior expert at the Bronisław Geremek Foundation in Warsaw, polling suggests that the EPP could see its seat-count rise from 170 to around180. The S&D are expected to barely hold on to their 144 seats. The Greens are expected to take a hammering and could see their number of seats fall from 75 to 50.
Meanwhile the hard-right, sometimes representing a Eurosceptic agenda, could see their numbers surge. The European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), who include Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy as well as Poland’s Law and Justice party, might win an extra 15 seats, bringing their total to 80, according to Kaczyński. The Identity and Democracy Party (ID)could also jump to 80 from its current 62 as its largest national faction, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, leads the race in France.
Numerically, the two far-right groupings could overtake the Socialists and Democrats. However, the far-right is riven by divisions and squabbles along national lines. In May, the ID, at the urging of Le Pen, decided to expel Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) party from its ranks after a series of scandals.
The strength or weakness of the various groups can determine who becomes president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, and set the general direction for EU policy in contentious areas such as climate, energy transition or migration for the next five years.
Members states nominate candidates for the presidency, but any candidate must get the approval of the parliament, thus giving the groups considerable sway over who gets the job. Countries know that they have to get the groups on side if they want their candidates to succeed.
The largest group after the elections also has the right to put a candidate forward on parliament’s behalf.
Voting systems vary from country to country, as does voting age, with Austria allowing 16-year-olds to vote. Turnout in the contest for the EP tends to be lower than in elections to national parliaments but in the last elections in 2019 it hit 51%, the highest level since 1994.
The first elections for the then fledgling legislature were held back in 1979, and the institution is now concluding its 9th term.
Parliament’s role in the EU legislative and decision-making process has increased steadily along with the deepening integration of the bloc. A succession of treaties has increased its power with the 2009 Lisbon Treaty, for example, giving parliament power over the EU budget.
The parliament itself is broken up into political, rather than national, factions with MEPs huddling together on broad, or sometimes tenuous, ideological lines. The biggest group, as a rule, has the most clout although the parliament has become a byword for political horse-trading as factions wheel-and-deal with each other when it comes to legislation and who gets the top jobs in the European Commission.
At the moment there are seven “political families” in the parliament, ranging from the left to the hard right on the political spectrum, with the biggest being the European People’s Party (EPP), a center-right group that brings together parties such as Germany’s CDU and Civic Platform from Poland. Centre-left Socialists and Democrats (SD) form the second biggest caucus. Together the two groups had traditionally dominated the assembly, but their hold has been weakening in the last few elections.
According to Piotr Maciej Kaczyński, an expert in EU affairs and a senior expert at the Bronisław Geremek Foundation in Warsaw, polling suggests that the EPP could see its seat-count rise from 170 to around180. The S&D are expected to barely hold on to their 144 seats. The Greens are expected to take a hammering and could see their number of seats fall from 75 to 50.
Meanwhile the hard-right, sometimes representing a Eurosceptic agenda, could see their numbers surge. The European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), who include Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy as well as Poland’s Law and Justice party, might win an extra 15 seats, bringing their total to 80, according to Kaczyński. The Identity and Democracy Party (ID)could also jump to 80 from its current 62 as its largest national faction, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, leads the race in France.
Numerically, the two far-right groupings could overtake the Socialists and Democrats. However, the far-right is riven by divisions and squabbles along national lines. In May, the ID, at the urging of Le Pen, decided to expel Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) party from its ranks after a series of scandals.
The strength or weakness of the various groups can determine who becomes president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, and set the general direction for EU policy in contentious areas such as climate, energy transition or migration for the next five years.
Members states nominate candidates for the presidency, but any candidate must get the approval of the parliament, thus giving the groups considerable sway over who gets the job. Countries know that they have to get the groups on side if they want their candidates to succeed.
The largest group after the elections also has the right to put a candidate forward on parliament’s behalf.
Source: TVP World
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