Much has been made of the declining trend in voter turnout by Eurosceptics such as Eamonn Fitzgerald here who predicted an overall turnout figure of 32% for this election. In fact the actual figure was 43%.
Still not a lot to crow about, I hear you say, but what this table makes clear is that most of the decline from 62% in 1979 to 43% in 2009 is explained by the expansion of the EU from 9 to 27 members with most of the new members having below average turnouts. Even the 2% decline since the 2004 elections can be explained in part by the very low turnout in new member states Bulgaria and Romania.
This is very disappointing. One might have expected newer member states to be more enthusiastic about the EU and democracy, particularly as many of the newer states have recently emerged from one party Communist rule.
Amongst the oldest 9 member states, the turnout has actually gone up since 1979 in Denmark, Luxembourg, and the UK, although there have been declines in the other 6 older member states.
So what is to be done to revive enthusiasm for voting - and to generate it in those newer member states who are dragging down the average? One controversial!!! suggestion I would have is to make the number of seats allocated to a member state proportionate to its turnout. Thus Slovakia with a 20% turnout would only receive 20% of its 13 allocated seats, but Belgium with 90% turnout would receive 90% of its 22 allocated seats!
Vote or lose your seats and proportionate level of influence ion the Parliament! That would give people an incentive to go out and vote!!! It would also reduce the size of the Parliament from its current unwieldy 736 members.
Voting and not voting should have clear and measurable consequences. If you don’t care about democracy, why should it care about you?
(7 votes, average: 3.57 out of 5)
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Frank, I agree with your proposal. This exactly the pint I’ve made over 2 months ago in this post:
http://elections.thinkaboutit.eu/2009/04/first-proposal-500-meps-and-each-state-receiving-a-number-of-meps-depending-on-the-electoral-turnout/
Hi George,
My apologies, I missed your earlier post which gives a slightly more sophisticated formula for working out parliamentary representation for member states. Of course there would be a lot of practical problems with the proposal, especially for countries like Ireland which don’t use a list system and which have multiple constituencies. The number of seats has to be determined in advance for such systems to work, and so the number of seats would have to be based on the results of the last election.
I’m in two minds whether introducing an element of inter-member competition - a la Eurovision song contest - is a good or a bad thing. For one thing it would require each country to trust the accuracy of turnout figures produced by others.
But I do think we need a debate around how we can make the elections more relevant to people, and introducing an international competitive element is one way of doing that.
I think it would be much better to turn the elections into a proper political contest - why should people care about the amount of seat their country gets, if they don’t think the EP has that much power anyway?
If it was changed so that the Commission was elected by the EP without the Council or member states appointing Commissioners (though the Council would have to approve the overall Commission), then more people might vote. It would give the elections a clearer political significance if it resulted in a more direct political change in the executive. It would also force political parties to campaign more on a European manifesto.
Also, making the Council more open like a proper legislature would mean there could be more focus on the day-to-day work it does, instead of the media just paying attention during the summits.
Sadly, the Council, despite going on about making the EU more democratic, is the least transparent institution, and the member states have little inclination to give up control over the Commission.
I agree with Eurocentric: a proper political contest detrmining the colour of EU level government.
By the way, if people voted freely for candidates on Europe-wide party lists, the turnout would solve the turnout problem, because only the ones who vote get represented.
QUOTE: “… most of the decline from 62% in 1979 to 43% in 2009 is explained by the expansion of the EU from 9 to 27 members with most of the new members having below average turnouts. Even the 2% decline since the 2004 elections can be explained in part by the very low turnout in new member states Bulgaria and Romania.” UNQUOTE
I do get the feeling this article is attempting to put a positive spin on the dire reality that we’ve had 7 consecutive falls in turnout. That newer states are even less interested than older states doesn’t fill me with optimism, quite the opposite as they should still be full of bright enthusiasm.
I really like your reading. Great post, very useful indeed…
most of the decline from 62% in 1979 to 43% in 2009 is explained by the expansion of the EU from 9 to 27 members with most of the new members having below average turnouts
the 2004 elections can be explained in part by the very low turnout in new member states Bulgaria and Romania
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