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5 months ago
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Between 6 – 9 June 2024, around 350 million people in the 27 member states of the European Union are eligible to cast their vote in the 10th European elections. This makes them the second largest in the world, after India’s and ahead of the United States.
Though in many ways a straightforward parliamentary election, the EU’s historically unique status as a supranational union of states still has some idiosyncrasies.
Euractiv presents the parties taking part in the election and their platforms, which voters will need to consider before casting their ballot.
In this explainer
- What is at stake in the elections?
- Who are people voting for?
- Who are the European groups?
- European People’s Party
- Socialists & Democrats
- Renew Europe
- Greens/European Free Alliance
- European Conservatives and Reformists
- Identity and Democracy
- The Left in the European Parliament
- Non-affiliated
In short, the European Elections decide who sits in the European Parliament as one of the 720 members of the European Parliament (MEP).
The Parliament is one of two lawmaking bodies of the EU, alongside the Council of the EU, which includes representatives of the member state governments. Most EU legislation must be approved by a majority of MEPs.
MEPs will play a vital role in shaping European lawmaking for the next five years, impacting the selection process of the next Commission president, the EU chief diplomat, and members of the college of Commissioners. All of them are nominated by the Council but must be approved by MEPs.
The Commission president heads the European Commission, the ‘EU executive’, which initiates legislation. The president nominates the 27 commissioners – one from each member state – who each oversees a specific department, such as the economy, energy, etc., similar to a ‘national government cabinet’.
National parties
Voters across Europe cast their vote for national parties/lists in their countries, according to their national electoral rules. The election result in each country determines how many seats/MEPs each national party gets in the European Parliament, out of the total allocated to each country.
The larger a country’s population, the more seats it is allocated in the hemicycle, which are distributed among its national parties according to the election results.
For example: In 2019, the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) party won around 15% of the 39 million German votes cast, translating into 16 seats in the European Parliament. Meanwhile, the Dutch Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) won 15% of the 5.5 million votes cast in the Netherlands, translating into five seats.
The European Parliament decided to increase the total number of seats from 705 in 2019 to 720 for this year’s elections. The 15 extra seats were divided between 12 member states to account for population growth.
European parties and groups in the European Parliament
Elected MEPs from other national parties sit together with like-minded representatives from other national parties, in pan-European parliamentary groups.
To form an official parliamentary group, parties need to bring together at least 23 lawmakers from a minimum of seven EU countries.
For example: MEPs from the German SPD sit with MEPs from other social democratic parties such as the Dutch De Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) in the Socialist & Democratic (S&D) group.
To complicate things, most national political parties are also simultaneously part of pan-European parties.
Take for instance the S&D group, which has mostly members of the social democratic Party of European Socialists (PES), including the SPD.
However, the European Parliament Greens/European Free Alliance group is made up of members from the European Green Party, including the German Greens, and the European Free Alliance, including the Spanish Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC).
Yet other member parties of the European Free Alliance are part of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group.
Lead candidates for the Commission presidency
Since 2014, European parties are invited to nominate a lead candidate or Spitzenkandidat, to run for Commission president.
Leaders of the member states, who nominate the next president after the election, are supposed to pick the lead candidate from the party that won the most seats in the elections and are consequently the biggest political group in the EP.
But EU leaders are not obliged to follow this convention: Since the candidate they pick must be approved by most MEPs, it is inevitable that they pick someone capable of rallying the support of the largest number of parliamentarians, but also backing from national governments.
As elections are run nationally, European parties and their lead candidates do not appear on national ballot papers, however, they still sometimes promote EU lead candidates during the campaign in collaboration with national members.
For example: In 2019, the European People’s Party (EPP) won the most seats. Instead of choosing the official EPP Spitzenkandidat, Manfred Weber, EU leaders selected Ursula von der Leyen, another fellow EPP politician.
Even though European parties organise multinational election campaigns, what ultimately matters are how many seats each of the seven EU parliamentary groups wins.
The group leaders broker the parliamentary majority that makes or breaks a candidate for the Commission presidency and thus organise majorities needed to pass legislation.
That is why this guide is focusing on the political groups as the key players in the fight for power in the European Elections.
In the following, they are introduced in order of the number of MEPs that they held in the 9th European Parliament (2019-2024).
* Aurélie Pugnet contributed to reporting.
[Edited by Aurélie Pugnet/Rajnish Singh]
The Left in the European Parliament – GUE/NGL (The Left)
[Edited by Aurélie Pugnet/Rajnish Singh]
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