Elections in the European Union
The hemicycle of the European Parliament in
Strasbourg
Elections in the European Union take
place every five years by universal adult suf-
frage. 785 MEPs are elected to the European
Parliament which has been directly elected
since 1979. No other body is directly elected
although the Council of the European Union
and European Council is largely composed of
nationally elected officials.[1]
Voting system
European Union
This article is part of the series:
Politics and government of
the European Union
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• President José Manuel Barroso
• Barroso Commission
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• President Hans-Gert Pöttering
• MEPs (2004-09 term
• Council
• Presidency: Czech Republic (Mirek
Topolánek)
• High Representative
• Voting
• European Council
• Other & Future Institutions
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Elections
• Last election (2004)
• 2007 by-election
• Next election (2009)
• Constituencies
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Further information: Apportionment in the
European Parliament
There is no uniform voting system for the
election of MEPs; rather, each member state
is free to choose its own system, subject to
three restrictions:[2]
• The system must be a form of proportional
representation, under either the party list
or Single Transferable Vote system.
• The electoral area may be subdivided if
this will not generally affect the
proportional nature of the voting system.
• Any election threshold on the national
level must not exceed five percent.
The allocation of seats to each member state
is based on the principle of degressive
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Elections in the European Union
1
Group
Leader(s)
MEPs
EPP-ED
Joseph Daul
288
PES
Martin Schulz
217
ALDE
Graham Watson
100
UEN
Brian Crowley
Cristiana Muscardini
44
G-EFA
Monic