Evropská demokracie
#TheFutureIsYours Posilování evropské demokracie
EU elections are currently 27 separate national elections, with limited possibility to vote on European topics. MEPs are elected from national (rarely regional) lists, and citizens vote for national candidates. As a result, campaigns focus on national issues, citizens vote on a purely national political affiliation, and MEPs feel accountable to the small fraction of voters that elect them. This entrenches the role of national politics and prevents the emergence of EU-wide movements promoting European solutions for European problems.
To solve this problem, we should have a major reform of European elections based on proven best practices that brings MEPs as close as possible to citizens, and ensures that all Europeans are given the chance to vote on common projects. This means that every European citizen should have two votes:
- one cast directly for a candidate on a local electoral district (~350 electoral districts across Europe); and
- one cast for a list covering the voter's Member States (for another 350 MEPs and a few more to ensure EU-wide party proportionality).
Crucially, direct candidates and lists will run under the name, logo and programme of a European political party.
This way, we bring MEPs as close as possible to the citizens they represent (especially MEPs elected locally who become a direct contact point for citizens) and we place European parties at the center of European elections, giving all European citizens the same political projects to choose from.
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Note: Transnational lists, on the other hand, move EU-wide MEPs even further away from citizens and do not challenge the complete control of national parties over EU elections, which they would continue to run on purely national programmes (simply telling their voters which EU list to support).
So, if the EU is to become a true representative parliamentary democracy, then let us look at other parliamentary federations (which never use country-wide lists for the legislature) and, instead of a quick fix adding a few common seats, adopt a bold and sensible reform of our elections to finally strengthen our European democracy.
There are several problems with your proposed system.
1.: Growing parliament or unproportional representation: If any list gains a lot of direct seats in comparison to their proportional Votes it is not possible to recreate proportions with just the 350 candidates. Germany has currently with 299 direct candidates 709 MPs and some experts predict the number to increase beyond 800 after the election in September.
2.: District rules: Which body makes the rules for the districts? Are the districts redrawn depending on changes in population? If yes, how is the population calculated? All these questions have to be answered, and each creates personal interests interfering with the system.
Thanks for your message. These are not problems, they are details that the character count for proposals did not allow space for.
1- Indeed, the current Bundestag shows an issue with the German electoral system. We can decide that overall party proportionality will not be exact: running the numbers with the 2019 votes shows that a fixed 350 number of seats for the second vote already give a good approximation of party representation. Otherwise, this number of seats can be extended, albeit not indefinitely; a ceiling for the increase in the number of seats can be provided for, for instance maximum 10% extra seats (from 700 to 770, in our case).
2- Local electoral districts of course need to be periodically re-drawn. As far as possible, they should follow existing administrative boundaries. A dedicated and apolitical commission, at the European level, should be entrusted with making proposals for the drawing and re-drawing of boundaries. Appeals should be possible to the European Court of Justice in case of suspected gerrymandering. Along with this re-drawing, a European census must be carried out periodically. I support mandate durations of three and six years (this is another discussion, though), so the census could take place every six or nine years.
As you say, all these points must be answered. There are, for instance, more answers here: https://europeanconstitution.eu/ and here: https://europeanconstitution.eu/adopting-the-improved-bundestag-model That's a start and discussion can continue on further details.
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see also idea
Enhancing the European Focus of European Elections with Transnational Campaign Platform Requirement?filter%5Bactivity%5D=myproposals&filter%5Bcategoryid%5D%5B%5D=&filter%5Brelatedto%5D=&filter%5Bsearchtext%5D=&order=recent
Interesting idea, Klaus, thank you. However, EPPGs are, by nature, intra-parliamentary entities. In order to ensure that campaigns are truly European, which is a goal we agree on, the central actors (the ones that ought to be running the electoral campaigns, among other things) are European political parties, and not Parliamentary Groups. It is ok for Parliamentary Groups to have some disagreements, as they just vote the way they want in Parliament (different parties in the same group can vote differently). What matters is for political parties to be truly coherent and propose a common project, since this is what voters are giving their direct support to.
I do not see the contradiction.
Currently not even the parties joined together in one EuPoPa are on one page. That's one of the reasons the Lead Candidate Idea can not work: How can a Lead Candidate represent party plattform A in country A, platform B in country B?
So using the Rule 33 leverage should enable, encourage, enforce, not only for EPPGs, but obviously for EuPoPa's as well, the need to focus on common, i.e. European, issues.
This mechanism is designed to make EuPoPas focus on common European issues as opposed to adding up national issues Europe-wide, lest they loose their status of EPPG.
As you say, national parties belonging to the same European political party are not politically coherent enough, but creating an obligation on Parliamentary Groups won't change this, especially since parliamentary groups come together after the elections.
So it's not a contradiction as much as, in my view, the wrong target: make European parties coherent and run on the same programme and you will increase the coherent of EPPGs, which are already required to be politically close. If we mean to improve the Europeanness of elections, then let's focus on those entities who actually run the elections (or make sure they are the ones who do) -- and losing prerogatives associated with the recognition as European party can be incentive enough.
Dear Mr. Drounau,
sorry for the long interruption of our discussion. I would like to pick up where we left off. Given the delay of the transnational list proposal in parliament the matter becomes more urgent.
As to your argument from 5/5/21: I fully agree that the European Political Parties need to be the agents of the necessary change. Actually, that is part of their mission as layed out in Reg.(EU, EURATOM) No 1141/2014.
I am not suggesting to bring in the Political Groups of the EP as agents of change. It is the EP I am asking for action: Change the Rules of Procedure (Rule 33) to incentivize EuPoPas to get their act together and commit to a joint platform.
PS: I'm a member of MeetEU, runner up in your 2021 Jean Monnet Price competition
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I would prefer an electoral system more similar to the current one. Having half of MEPs being choosen by the political parties without any local connection would make the EP even more centralised. In addition, I don't really see the point of having single-member districts on an EU level. Such districts would be so large (about 1.2 million people on average) that they would hardly be local or in any way close to the electors. It would also be a step away from the principle of proportional representation, which is crucial for ensuring fairness in the election.
Thank you for your message, Gustav. However, I am not sure I fully understand your argument. You say you prefer a system more like the current one, but then say that having half of MEPs not locally elected would be detrimental. The current system has no locally elected MEPs, they are all picked by national parties (and, in rare cases, run at the regional level).
You then go on to say that local electoral districts would still be too large. But, at any rate, the current system, which is mostly composed to Member State-based lists is much much further away from citizens. I know that 1.2 million citizens per constituency is not small in itself, but there's always a trade-off: if we make the electoral districts smaller, then the size of the EP balloons out of proportion. For what it's worth, almost all US Senators represent far more people than this.
Finally, you say this would be a step away from proportional representation. I must disagree: the second is not computed to only proportionally assign seats for half of the EP, but it takes into account the first vote in order to provide overall proportional representation.
There is a trick. If you really want pure proportionality, then you may need to extend the size of the EP, which is what Germany does -- the nominal size of the Bundestag is 598 and its current size is 709. So this is another trade-off: do we accept an increase? do we limit the proportional representation? do we accept an increase but place a ceiling on this increase? My preference goes to the later option and running the numbers shows that you easily get very close to true proportional representation. And, compared to the current system, MEPs will indeed be closer to citizens.
This is necessary for real European democracy. We need also a direct election of the president of the comission.
The Bundestag electoral system can hardly be applied alone in the EU context where national quotas still prevail. It could possibly be combined with the Tandem Electoral System (double-proportionality). See :
Making European elections an incentive for the emergence of transnational political parties using the Tandem Electoral System (double-proportionality)
Excellente idée ! Des listes transnationales permettraient de sortir enfin de l'égo et du tropisme nationaliste les listes électorales dans chaque pays
En tant que Fédéralistes (Union des Fédéralistes Européens- www.uef.fr ) nous privilégions une Assemblée Constituante, qui pourrait arriver, par exemple à renverser la hiérarchie des pouvoirs et instaurer le Parlement comme seul organe législatif, avec un gouvernement choisi par le Parlement dont la Commission serait l’administration. Le Conseil et le Comité des Régions constitueraient la seconde Chambre... Nous exhortons donc les partis politiques et les membres du Parlement Européen élus en 2020 et la Commission européenne, et le Conseil à faire de la réalisation d’un État Fédéral LE thème central de leurs activités.
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