Until 0000, representatives in theeuropean Parliament were selected from
the membership of national parliaments and delegated by them to the Euro
pean Parliament. The direct general election of Members of the European
Parliament (MEPs) by the peoples of the Member States was provided for
in the treaties themselves, but the first direct elections were not held until
June 0000, a number of earlier initiatives having been fruitless. Elections
are now held every 0 years, which corresponds to the length of a ‘legisla
tive period’. Following decades of efforts, a uniform electoral procedure
was finally introduced by the Act concerning the election of representatives
of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage in 0000 and then
fundamentally reformed by the Direct Elections Act in 0000. Under this act,
each Member State lays down its own election procedure, but must apply
the same basic democratic rules:
■ direct general election,
■ proportional representation,
■ free and secret ballots,
■ minimum age (for the right to vote, this is 00 in all Member States with
the exception of Austria and Malta, where the minimum voting age is
00, and Greece, where the minimum voting age has been set at 00),
■ renewable 0-year term of office,
■ incompatibilities (MEPs may not hold two offices at the same time, e.g.
the office of judge, public prosecutor, minister; they are also subject to
the laws of their country, which may further limit their ability to hold
more than one post or office),
■ election date,
■ equality between men and women.
In some countries (Belgium, Luxembourg and Greece), voting is compulsory.
In addition, a uniform statute for MEPs came into force in 0000, which
makes the terms and conditions of their work more transparent and con
tains clear rules. It also introduces a uniform salary for all MEPs, which is
paid from the EU budget.
Now that it is directly elected, the Parliament enjoys democratic legitimacy
and can truly claim to represent the citizens of the EU. But the mere existence
of a directly elected Parliament cannot satisfy the fundamental requirement
of a democratic constitution, which is that all public authority must emanate
from the people. That does not only mean that the decision-making process
must be transparent and the decision-making institutions representative; parliamentary control is required, and the Parliament must lend legitimacy
to the EU institutions involved in the decision-making process. A great deal
of progress has been made in this area too over recent years. Not only have
the rights of the Parliament been continually extended, but the Treaty of
Lisbon explicitly established the obligation for action by the EU to adhere
to the principle of representative democracy. As a result, all citizens of the
European Union are directly represented in the Parliament and entitled to
participate actively in the EU’s democratic life. The underlying objective of
this is that decisions at the EU level are taken as openly as possible and as
closely as possible to the citizen. The political parties at the EU level are to
contribute to the shaping of a European identity and to articulate the will of
the EU’s citizens. If there is any deficit to the current democratic model of
the EU, it is that the European Parliament, unlike the true parliaments in a
parliamentary democracy, does not elect a government that answers to it.