On Tuesday 26 May, the Council of the European Union adopted a directive aimed at facilitating the exercise of the right to vote and the right to stand as a candidate in local and European elections for the 13.5 million European citizens living in a country other than their Member State of origin.
Adopted unanimously by the Member States, the new rules will oblige host countries to proactively provide people with information on their civic rights within the EU. This information, transmitted in at least one of the official languages of the host country, includes the terms and conditions for registering on the electoral roll. This information will have to be made accessible to people with disabilities, by appropriate means, modes and formats of communication.
In the annex, the directive introduces standard declaration forms for mobile citizens to facilitate their registration and the exchange of information between Member States, which must ensure that a person registered on these electoral registers is not deprived of their rights.
In accordance with the general rule, a European citizen exercising their right to free movement in the EU may choose to vote in local and European elections and/or to stand as a candidate in these elections.
The provision allowing an EU country whose voting-age population is made up of more than 20% non-national EU citizens, such as Luxembourg, to reserve the right to vote to EU voters who have been resident there for at least five years and to reserve the right to stand as a candidate to eligible EU citizens who have been resident there for at least ten years has been maintained.
The European Parliament, which was only consulted on this piece of legislation, called for this restrictive provision to be removed (see EUROPE 13121/11).
Finally, safeguards have been introduced to prevent citizens from being automatically removed from the electoral roll in their country of origin when they register in another EU Member State.
Member States will have two years from publication of the directive in the Official Journal of the EU to comply with the new rules.
See the directive adopted by the Council of the EU: https://aeur.eu/f/m1f (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)