Speaking to the members of the Committee of the Regions at the Committee’s plenary session on Wednesday, 4 December, David Sassoli (S&D, Italy), the President of the European Parliament, shared his hope that, in the future, all of the elected representatives in the European Parliament will be subject to the same rules in European elections.
In reply to a question from Committee member Karl Vanlouwe (EA, Belgium) about the situation regarding the three independent Catalan MEPs who were banned from sitting in the European Parliament by a law passed in Spain (see EUROPE 12354/17), the President began by stressing the need to apply current legislation while the EU Court of Justice judgment is pending in the case of the elected representatives from Catalonia, which should be made public on 19 December (see EUROPE 12367/14).
He went on to say that “It would be wonderful if, in the future, we could have common European electoral legislation whereby all members of a parliament would be elected according to the same rules”. This is a necessary change, in the opinion of the MEP, “an exercise in democracy that would allow (the) institutions to be more representative than they are”. He believes it is vital to seize the opportunity presented by the Conference on the Future of Europe, set up by the new President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen (see EUROPE 12375/7) to reflect on the possibility of drawing up a European legislative act to harmonise the rules. He acknowledged that “This would provide an opportunity to make our institution independent from national institutions”.
At the beginning of November, the opinion of the Advocate General of the EU Court of Justice in the Junqueras case (named after Oriol Junqueras Vies, the former Vice-President of the Autonomous Government of Catalonia) hit the headlines. In the Advocate General’s opinion, Members of the European Parliament win their term in parliament solely as a result of the votes cast by voters and so their term cannot be conditional on the subsequent fulfilment of any technicalities (see EUROPE 12367/14). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)