Less than 50% vote?

It is never late to remind that the next European Parliament election is coming, and that it will happen in June/2009. The next ballot will include all member states (27 countries) and will also be the first time that Bulgaria and Romania will simultaneously cast their vote with the rest of the EU population.

In the next election, about half a billion citizens will elect over 700 Ministers of the European Parliament (MEPs). But how many citizens will in fact show up on Election Day? The question is not pointless: as it is well known, in democracy, those that do vote make decisions also upon those that do not vote.

How many citizens will cast their vote next July for EU? Previous records can help us make a projection. It is also good to remember that until 1979, no direct elections were hold for EU Parliament. The European Coal and Steel Community’s (ECSC) “assembly”, the forerunner of the ‘parliament’ for the three European communities (ECSC, European Economic Community, and Euratom) was set in 1952. However, the Assembly (parliament) was a purely consultative institution without legislative power. Its members comprised 78 nominees from the national parliaments of the founding Six Member States of the ECSC. In sum, from 1952 until 1979 national populations haven’t vote for EU elections, but the situation changed since them. The following turnout records can be considered:

June 1979: First ‘direct elections’ ( 63%)

1981: First Euro-election held in Greece following its accession to the EC (compulsory voting)

1984: EC-10 Euro elections ( 61%)

1987: First elections to select Members of the European Parliament in Portugal and Spain following their accession to the EC

1989: EC-12 Euro elections ( 58.5%)

1994: EU-12 Euro elections ( 56.8%)

1995: Elections to select MEPs in Austria, Finland and Sweden following their accession

1999: EU-15 Euro elections (49.8%)

2004: EU-25 Euro elections (45.6%)

2007: Euro-election in Bulgaria and Romania

June 2009: EU-27 Euro elections

Based on the previous turnout rates, and following a linear statistical reasoning, we may project that out of the half billion European citizens at least 250 thousand of them are expected to cast their vote in the next 2009 election. Will they show up?

FURTHER information – starting points

The definitive work on the European Parliament’s role and powers is that by R.Corbett , F.Jacob & Michael Shackleton The European Parliament (latest edition, Harper).

Series of books on each Euro election edited by Juliet Lodge, (including The 2004 Elections to the European Parliament published by Palgrave Macmillan ); and Wouter van der Brug and Cees van der Eijk European Elections and Domestic Politics (Uni Notre Dame).

See too Election reports from the European Parliament and its party groups. On the background to mobilising voters and Euro election information programmes, and the role of the European Broadcasting Union, J.Lodge & V.Herman Direct Elections to the European Parliament: A Community Perspective (Macmillan).

Day-to-day updates : see the online press including EUObserver and EUActiv.