More than 360 million European citizens are called to elect, between June 6 and 9, the 720 men and women who will make up the European Parliament over the next five years, which is presented as the only multinational parliamentary assembly in the world elected by direct suffrage. This year’s elections will be the tenth elections to elect the most democratic arm of the institutions of the European Union, which began to be held in 1979. The DNA of the community bloc is in the process of transforming in the face of the geopolitical challenges of the world, with enormous external challenges —such as Russia’s war against Ukraine— and internal —such as the predicted rise of political formations with Eurosceptic overtones that promise to blow up the current model. In the midst of this difficult situation, the EU has made a great effort to encourage voting and achieve high participation. The challenge is to maintain or exceed the 50.6% participation registered in 2019, the highest since 1994.
When do you vote in the European elections?
It depends on each Member State. The vast majority of countries vote on Sunday, June 9, but since the organization of the elections is a responsibility of each country, there are some in which voting takes place in the next few days or on several days. In Italy, for example, voting takes place over two days, June 8 and 9, the Czech Republic does so on June 7 and 8. The Netherlands will go to the polls on Thursday, June 6. Ireland will vote the next day, while Latvia, Malta and Slovakia will vote on the 8th.
The rest, including Spain, hold the elections on June 9.
What is voted on between June 6 and 9?
In these tenth elections to the European Parliament, the 720 MEPs from the 27 member states that make up the European Union are elected. The first elections were held in 1979 and, over time and the different treaties, the European Parliament has gained powers.
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Who can vote?
Unlike national elections, in the European elections in several countries the voting age has been raised: in Germany, Austria, Belgium and Malta, 16-year-olds will now be able to go to the polls on this occasion, while in Greece Those who have reached the age of 17 will do so. In the rest of the Member States, the minimum voting age is 18. Citizens of one European country residing in another can choose whether to vote for the list of their country of origin or that of their place of residence, although they cannot do so in the two.
Is the European Commission elected in elections?
No. The person who will preside over the European Commission is chosen by the heads of State and Government, taking into account the electoral result. However, the European Parliament can veto the appointment, since the chosen candidate must be subject to ratification by MEPs. Nor are the members of the College of Commissioners directly elected in the elections. These are designated by each government. However, it is once again up to the European Parliament to grant the required confidence to those elected. The European Parliament’s tasks also include approving the EU budget and monitoring how money is spent.
Do all countries have the same number of MEPs?
No. The EU’s largest country, Germany, will elect 96 parliamentarians; the smallest (Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta), six. The distribution is calculated based on the population. However, there are corrections to this basic criterion, since strictly speaking the youngest children would have very little representation. Thus, according to the population of each country, on January 1 of this year, there will be one German MEP for almost 900,000 citizens. Malta, on the other hand, will have one for every 90,000. Spain, for its part, will have one parliamentarian for every 788,285 inhabitants.
These numbers cannot be extrapolated to how many votes a party must get to have a representative, since these figures include citizens without the right to vote (minors). This will depend on the participation in the elections and will be significantly lower.
Who are the main candidates?
The best-known face of these elections is, without a doubt, the current president of the European Commission, the German Christian Democrat Ursula von der Leyen. But both she and the socialist leader, the Luxembourgish Nicolas Schmit, or the Leftist, the Austrian Walter Baier, are not eligible to be MEPs. They are the candidates of their political families to preside over the next College of Commissioners, but they do not stand for election directly.
The headliners chosen in each country by each party do go on the electoral lists. In the Spanish case, the third vice president of the Government, Teresa Ribera, heads the PSOE; the current head of the Spanish popular delegation in the European Parliament, Dolors Montserrat, leads that of the PP; Estrella Galán is the number one of Sumar, Jorge Buxadé, that of Vox, Irene Montero, that of Podemos; and Diana Riba, from Esquerra Republicana de Cataluña, will be the first option on the list that brings together ERC, Bildu and BNG.
How many political parties are there in the European Parliament?
It is not easy to answer this question until the elections are held. But you can try with the formation of the current legislature. Now there are 217 parties that are grouped into seven political groups. Each country sends delegations with several parties. For example, in 2019, Unidas Podemos had representatives from Podemos, Izquierda Unida or the Initiative for Catalonia. Another similar example is seen in 2024 with Sumar, which groups candidates from IU, Compromís or Comuns.
How many political groups are there?
This figure is much more stable. Since 2004, the different European families have been organized into seven political groups in the European Parliament. In the last one, from highest to lowest, they have been: the European People’s group (EPP), Socialists and Democrats (S&D), liberals of Renew, the Greens, Identity and Democracy (ID), European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and La Left. There is also a group of non-members that includes, among others, the parliamentarians of Fidesz, the party of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, since they were expelled from the popular group.
What do the polls say?
All known polls agree that the winner will be the European People’s Party, with a result very similar to what it achieved in 2019 (178 parliamentarians) or a slight advance that is explained by the increase in the number of MEPs that will be in the chamber, which goes from 705 to 720 seats. The Socialists and Democrats would also achieve a similar number of representatives as they did five years ago, although in this case a small decrease is noted, from 140 to 138. But this does not mean that they will constitute the second largest group in Parliament. European: that depends on the result of the far-right groups, now split into two. If the rise of the two groups (Identity and Democracy, and European Conservatives and Reformists) is confirmed and they unite, as the ultra-French leader Marine Le Pen has proposed, that second place could correspond to them.
The sharpest declines are expected among the liberal ranks and among the greens. For the most leftist group in the chamber (La Izquierda), the polls point to a small advance over the 2019 results.
When will the results be known?
Although the votes begin on June 6, it will not be until the night of June 9 when the estimates and projections of the configuration of the new European Chamber begin to be made. The European Parliament plans a first set of estimates by country on Sunday starting at 6:00 p.m. (Spanish peninsular time). The first projection of the composition of the new Parliament is scheduled between 8:15 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. It will be almost midnight, in any case not before 11:15 p.m., when the first provisional results from some Member States begin to arrive, as well as estimates from the others. A second projection of the distribution of seats will be added to this. The last updated projection will take place around 1:00 in the morning and, already on Monday the 10th, all the provisional results should be known.
