TOWARDS THE 2024 EUROPEAN ELECTIONS

Translated by Giulia Maffeis

On June 9, 2024, after 5 years since last time, adult Italian citizens will be called to the polls to vote for their representatives in the European Parliament. The European Parliament is the only institution of the EU directly elected by citizens and, in this way, contributes to ensuring the democratic legitimacy of the Union.

Every citizen of the Union has the right to vote and to stand as a candidate in elections to the European Parliament in the Member State in which they reside, under the same conditions as nationals of that State.

Members of the European Parliament are elected by direct, free, and secret universal suffrage.

Art. 39, TEU

There will be 76 MEPs elected by Italians, out of a total of 705, representing approximately 450 million people (the number of members for each country is roughly proportional to its population).

But what are the functions of the European Parliament?

The Parliament has three main functions:

• It shares legislative power with the Council of the Union;
• It exercises democratic control over all EU institutions, bodies, and agencies, particularly over the Commission, as it has the power to approve and reject the appointment of European commissioners and to collectively censure the Commission;
• It shares the EU budgetary power with the Council of the Union and can therefore amend EU expenditure.

As such an important body, it is essential to exercise one's right to vote, which is not only a right but also a duty:

Voting is personal and equal, free, and secret. Its exercise is a civic duty.

Art. 48, paragraph II, Italian Constitution.

To do so consciously, it is also necessary to understand the methods of election and the electoral system.

The electoral system is regulated by common rules, but not only: electoral procedures are also governed by national rules, which on some points diverge significantly from state to state; the European electoral system can therefore be considered a polymorphic electoral system.

The Electoral Act of 1976, subject to changes over the years, provides common rules that are supplemented by the provisions of Law No. 18/1979, the Italian electoral law for the European Parliament.

The system adopted at the European level is proportional: this means that the allocation of seats ensures that the different lists receive a number of seats proportional to the votes received. Italy uses preferential voting, which allows voters to indicate, within the same list, from one to three preferences, voting, in the case of two or three preferences, for candidates of different sexes. Furthermore, lists must have obtained at least 4% of the valid votes cast nationwide to obtain seats (so-called threshold).

The Italian territory is divided into 5 voting constituencies:

• Northwest;
• Northeast;
• Central;
• Southern;
• Islands. Once the number of seats to which each list is entitled in each constituency has been determined, the candidates with the highest number of preference votes in each constituency are declared elected.

Once the parliamentary composition has been determined, the newly elected MEPs gather in political groups, coming together not by nationality, but by political affinity.

Currently, there are 7 political groups:

• European People's Party;
• Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament;
• Renew Europe Group;
• Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance;
• Identity and Democracy Group;
• European Conservatives and Reformists Group;
• Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left in the European Parliament. In addition to these, there are also non-attached Members (NA).

In the last elections, in 2019, the voter turnout in Italy was 54.50%, the lowest since 1979, the year of the first European parliamentary elections. This could be caused by a progressive increase in anti-European and Eurosceptic sentiment, but also due to the complexity of the European institutional framework.

June 9 will certainly mark the beginning of a new phase for our Europe; however, it is essential to remain committed, as citizens, to the democratic process: by exercising our right and civic duty, thereby contributing to shaping the future of the Union.