Brussels, 04/06/2009 (Agence Europe) - The European elections in which 375 million citizens are being urged to take part to elect a new European Parliament kicked-off on Thursday 4 June in the Netherlands and United Kingdom where 25 and 72 MEPs respectively will be elected. On Friday and Saturday (5/6 June) the Czechs will vote, followed by the Latvians, Maltese, Cypriots and Slovaks on Saturday. The polling stations in Italy will open on Saturday and close on Sunday evening. In the 19 other member states, the elections will entirely take place on Sunday 7 June. No national result is allowed to be revealed until Sunday evening at 10.00pm. The 1976 Act for electing Members of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage (Article 10) forbids the authorities in member states to “officially publish” their partial or final results before the last polling stations close in the whole of the EU (which in this case will be Italy and Poland). This was decided in an effort to prevent any influence being exerted in other member states that are still voting. This obligation of discretion was pointed out again to member states by the European Commission on 20 May. On Thursday, a Commission spokesperson underlined the fact that the media is obviously free to publish exit polls.
It is unlikely, however, that official or unofficial results will be published on Thursday evening in the Netherlands and United Kingdom, which was the case in 2004.
Voter turnout in European elections has been going down constantly since the first direct election of the European Parliament (63% in 1979, 61% in 1984, 58.5% in 1989, 56.8% in 1994, 49.8% in 1999 and 45.7% in 2004) and is of great concern to the Community authorities. The EP has even asked and obtained the help of high level sports stars (the footballers Luis Figo, David Villa, Oliver Kahn, Carlos Marchena Lopez, Cristian Chivu and the cyclists Frank and Andy Schleck) who, in You Tube videos, the European Parliament's MySpace and Facebook, urged citizens to go out and vote. José Manuel Barroso, the president of the Commission, also made a declaration on Thursday calling on European citizens to use their democratic right, “the best tribute that we can pay to all those who fought with courage and determination for freedom and democracy, in Poland and elsewhere, is to make use of our democratic rights. I ask all EU citizens: Raise your voice and cast your vote”.
The president of the European Council, Czech prime minister, Jan Fischer, declared that there is no excuse for not voting and stated: “I understand that people can feel tired of politics but in these elections we will vote on European issues, not domestic ones ... We often hear about a democratic deficit in the EU - voting in the European elections is the best way to eliminate this deficit. One cannot complain of the EU being undemocratic and at the same time refuse to go to the polls“. The president of the Party of European Socialists (PES), Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, also made a “a final call to vote” to citizens and affirmed that a Socialist vote is a “vote for a change and for a new direction for Europe”. In his declaration, Rasmussen stated: “Don't believe those who say that Barroso's second term is a 'done deal'. The conservatives cannot get a majority on their own, and no one has ever suggested they could. So there is still everything to vote for. Don't stay at home. Your vote really does count”.