In Luxembourg on Tuesday 17 April, none of the European affairs ministers of the EU rejected the Bulgarian compromise proposal for an a minima reform of EU electoral law (see EUROPE 12001). However, a unanimous agreement could not be officially reached, for instance due to the absence of a government in Italy.
“We hope we'll be able to reach consensus at the end of this month”, the Bulgarian Foreign Minister, Ekaterina Zaharieva, told the press. Thanking the Belgian and Italian delegations for their constructive attitudes, she stressed that the reform aims to make European elections more visible, promote electronic voting and prevent people from voting twice.
During the public debate, the acting Italian minister, Sandro Gozi, pointed out that his country would have liked to go further in the reform. This is the “absolute minimum”, he said, unable to commit Italy to anything, as he had no mandate from the Italian parliament.
Like Italy, Belgium, Greece and France regretted the fact that the legislative reform drops certain proposals, called for by the Parliament in 2015 but rejected in February, such as the creation of a European electoral constituency allowing MEPs to be elected from transnational lists.
By request of Germany, the legislative proposal provides for a minimum vote threshold (between 2% and 5%) to be introduced at European level for MEPs to be elected in single-constituency countries or countries with constituencies of at least 35 seats.
“Time is ticking, it is time for a solution. The text goes too far or not far enough, but it is the basis on which the European elections will take place”, said the German minister, Michael Roth. His Belgian colleague, Didier Reynders, said upon his arrival that the dossier could be taken off ice “next week”, against the backdrop of the Flemish nationalist party N-VA opposing the Bulgarian compromise proposal on minimum voting thresholds.
The legal services of the Council states that the adoption of the reform by written procedure would have to take place at the end of April, as this is the latest the member states could reasonably adapt their internal laws ahead of the European elections of May 2019.
The Bulgarian proposal is available at: https://bit.ly/2qD8d0z . (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)