At a plenary session debate held on Tuesday 2 October, several MEPs deeply regretted the fact that it is impossible for certain European citizens living elsewhere in the EU to vote in national and European elections in their home countries.
“Six member states – Denmark, the United Kingdom, Malta, Cyprus, Germany and Ireland – deny their nationals the right to vote in national and European elections if they live abroad”, said the initiator of the debate, Cecilia Wikström (ALDE, Sweden).
According to the Liberal MEP, depriving these citizens of their voting rights is tantamount to “punishing them for exercising their right to free movement within the EU” by condemning them to become “second-class citizens”.
Two thirds of EU citizens find this situation unfair, according to a 2015 Eurobarometer survey.
The argument that citizens living abroad do not have enough of a link to their home country is “obsolete”, Wikström added, stressing the interconnectivity of today's world.
“National elections can create changes in the lives of European citizens without their getting a say”, she concluded, referring to the example of Brexit.
“2.5 million European citizens are affected”, said Ángela Vallina (GUE/NGL, Spain). The MEP referred to Spain, which “does not withdraw the right to vote, but has created such complex procedures that it is effectively impossible”.
Michela Giuffrida (S&D, Italy) spoke of “enormous gaps” and Peter Jahr (EPP, Germany) called upon the Council to take action against what he described as “discrimination”.
Council and Commission plead powerlessness
Juliane Bogner-Strauβ, who represented the Austrian Presidency of the Council, and the Commissioner for Justice, Vera Jourova, both of whom attended the session in Strasbourg, invoked the inability of the institutions they represent to do anything.
“The Council cannot issue injunctions against the member states, as voting rights come under their national competences and constitutions”, said Bogner-Strauβ, in reference to article 4 of the Treaty of Lisbon.
The representatives of the two institutions then went on to list the awareness actions already in place and recalled that a colloquium on democracy in the EU, to include a session on the exercise of voting rights by foreign residents, is to take place in Brussels on 26 and 27 November. (Original version in French by Mathieu Solal)