New EU electoral law?: Strasbourg votes narrowly for a reform

Things got tense as MEPs voted on dozens of amendments on Tuesday: would they approve the reform of electoral law in the European elections as the parties' negotiators had agreed?

One of them, Sven Simon, was under particular pressure.

Thomas Gutschker

Political correspondent for the European Union, NATO and the Benelux countries based in Brussels.

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The result was "unpredictable," said the CDU MP, who is a constitutional lawyer by profession.

He had campaigned in the parliamentary group for the political compromise: on the one hand, a binding threshold clause, on the other hand, a second vote for the citizens in order to be able to elect the top candidates of the parties across Europe.

A number of EPP colleagues were not convinced of the latter.

And so things got very tight with this article: 314 MPs voted in favor, 297 against – a wafer-thin majority.

The German Christian Democrats supported the compromise in order to finally enforce a threshold clause.

This now stipulates that at least 3.5 percent of the votes must be achieved in national constituencies that have at least sixty seats.

There are only so many MPs in Italy, France and Germany anyway.

De facto, however, it only affects Germany, because France already has a national electoral threshold and there are five constituencies in Italy.

Unanimous decision of the Council

The price for the change: In addition to the 705 national MPs, 28 MPs are to be elected in a Europe-wide constituency.

Since the leaders of the parties would apply.

The top candidates should thus gain additional legitimacy in order to underpin their claim to the presidency of the Commission.

The parties should draw up union-wide lists that are filled equally by men and women and equally by candidates from large, medium-sized and small countries.

Citizens elect them with a second vote.

That was the core concern of the left-liberal forces.

However, all this will only happen if the member states agree.

On Wednesday only the parliament committed itself to a reform;

exceptionally, it has the right of initiative on this topic.

Actual reform of the electoral law requires a unanimous decision of the Council.

That shouldn't be a problem for the blocking clause, provided the federal government is behind it.

However, when it comes to transnational lists and lead candidates, Parliament has to reckon with headwinds.

This is about a question of power: Who fills the top positions, the heads of government or the European party families and the citizens?

Parliament will try to negotiate informal compromises with governments.

There is bargaining chip.

MEPs voted to hold European elections in all countries on May 9th, Europe Day.

In addition, the voting age should be reduced to 16, unless national constitutions provide otherwise, and postal voting should be possible everywhere.

In the end, 323 MPs voted for this overall package, with 262 votes against and 48 abstentions.

While that was somewhat clearer support than the contentious issue of transnational lists, it was not a brilliant result that put states under pressure.

It is therefore uncertain whether a reform will succeed by the next European elections in 2024.

Several small parties in the European Parliament

In fact, this is one of the most difficult issues of all, because electoral law interferes with national regulations.

EU law, the direct election act, regulates only a few framework conditions that apply to all states.

Since 1979, deputies have been elected directly, in general, direct, free and secret ballots.

Since 2004, all Member States have also had to apply the principle of proportional representation.

They can also set a minimum threshold of up to five percent of the votes cast.

Whether they do it, how high the threshold is – that is regulated in national electoral laws.

Likewise, whether there is one or more constituencies and whether the vote takes place on a Sunday or the previous Thursday.

The desire of the German Christian Democrats for a European electoral threshold has a long national history.

There was such a thing in the national electoral law, five percent – ​​until it was declared unconstitutional by the Federal Constitutional Court in 2011.

The reduction to three percent was also accepted by the judges shortly before the 2014 election.

They saw this as an unjustified interference with voting rights and equal opportunities.

This led to a number of small parties moving into the European Parliament, including Martin Sonneborn's fun party - and correspondingly fewer MPs from the established parties.

Since then there have been repeated attempts to enforce a threshold clause at European level, for which Karlsruhe left the door open.

This almost succeeded in 2018, and the member states agreed on a change.

At that time, however, the Greens in the Bundesrat were so strong that they were able to prevent ratification.

The transnational lists, in turn, go back to French President Emmanuel Macron.

In 2017, he campaigned to give at least the 73 seats that would become vacant when the British left the country to candidates applying from across Europe.

In the European Parliament he was initially rejected, especially by the Christian Democrats.

But after he prevented their top candidate Manfred Weber as head of the commission in 2019, it was clear that the top candidate could only be obtained in this way.

Weber and parts of his EPP got involved;

they ensured that there should only be 28 pan-European candidates.

Now Macron has to fight in the circle of governments to keep it that way.