Domènec Ruiz Devesa, the European Parliament’s rapporteur on the reform of the European Union’s electoral law, welcomed on Tuesday 29 March the broad political support for the creation of a European electoral constituency that had been obtained the previous day in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO).
This major political innovation would allow 28 MEPs to be elected on transnational lists led by ‘Spitzenkandidaten’ every 5 years on 9 May, Europe Day (see EUROPE 12920/20 and 12919/15).
The 19 MEPs who supported the compromise amendments included a majority of the EPP group in the AFCO Committee. This is “a very positive signal” ahead of the Parliament’s plenary vote, Mr Ruiz Devesa told journalists.
In 2018, the Christian Democrat family torpedoed the creation of transnational lists for the 2019 European elections (see EUROPE 11956/1).
“We’re confident that this time around we’ll have sufficient support in the plenary”, especially because “the EPP group line is in favour” of the reform, Mr Ruiz Devesa said. He will hold talks with the national delegations of the Christian Democrat group that do not support the reform before the plenary vote.
In the rapporteur’s view, the 2019 European elections, in which the European Council did not follow the process of head of list candidates despite pressure from the Parliament, were a turning point and convinced the European People’s Party of the need for political “innovation” for the 2024 elections. Thanks to the European constituency, we are making the ‘Spitzenkandidaten’ process a reality, which will allow the presidency of the European Commission to be chosen in a “transnational campaign”, added Mr Ruiz Devesa.
He also highlighted several “constructive ideas” from the EPP group introduced in the reform in order to build a broad compromise, among which: - an individual may be a candidate at both national and European constituency level; - maintenance of a minimum vote threshold (3.5%) for the most populous countries such as Germany.
For the reform to be supported in plenary, an absolute majority of MEPs is required in the vote scheduled for early May in Strasbourg. Once this stage has been completed, it will be up to the EU Council to take a decision by the spring of 2023, with the unanimous agreement of the Member States, so that the reform can be transposed into national law in time for the European elections in 2024.
Mr Ruiz Devesa welcomed the involvement of the French Presidency of the EU Council on this issue, even if a political agreement is not expected before the Czech Presidency in the second half of 2022. When he presented his proposal to the Member States in September 2021, he said that only one national delegation objected to the methodology envisaged for the creation of transnational lists.
Furthermore, the reform provides for gender equality in candidate lists and will increase the visibility of European political parties.
On Tuesday, MEPs also adopted a draft resolution accompanying the electoral reform, approving the following set of compromise amendments: https://aeur.eu/f/10t (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)