Tuesday

19th Mar 2024

European elections marked by record low turnout

The turnout in the 2009 European elections was the lowest ever since direct elections for the house started thirty years ago, with Slovakia getting the lowest score for the second time in a row.

The 4-7 June election saw 43 percent of the 375 million Europeans entitled to vote go to the polls, according to preliminary results published on Monday afternoon (8 June) by TNS Sofres for the European Parliament.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Get the EU news that really matters

Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

  • Less and less Europeans have been voting through the years (Photo: European Parliament/Bruno Amsellem)

This result is more than two points lower than in 2004, which was then the lowest in the parliament's history at 45.5%.

Besides Belgium and Luxembourg where voting is compulsory and turnout is traditionally around 90 percent, the figures were highest in Malta, where almost 79 percent of the citizens cast their vote.

Other countries where a majority of people voted included Italy (66.5%), Denmark (59.5%), Cyprus (59.4%), Greece (52.6%), and Latvia (52.6%).

By contrast, only 19.6 of Slovaks voted on Saturday. In the country's first EU election in 2004, it registered the lowest ever score in the bloc's history at 17 percent.

Lithuania came second with 20.9 percent – a dramatic drop compared to its first election in 2004, when almost half of Lithuanians voted (48.4%).

Some 24.5 percent voted in Poland and 28.2 percent in the Czech Republic and in Slovenia.

The bloc's newest members, Bulgaria and Romania, showed opposing trends, with Bulgarians demonstrating more voting enthusiasm (37.5% - up from 29% in the country's first elections in 2007) than their northern neighbours (27.4% - down from 29.5% in 2007).

'Don't know why' it was so low

Speaking at a press conference after the announcement of the results, the leaders of the European Parliament's main parties said they were concerned about the low turnout and that it did raise a number of questions.

"I don't know why [the turnout is so low] and we need to study why people don't go out and vote," Liberal leader Graham Watson said.

According to Mr Watson, citizens' will to vote would increase if they saw a stronger link between their vote and EU decision-making, namely if the European Commission president were appointed from the ranks of the European Parliament, or a certain percentage of MEPs were elected from pan-European lists.

For Socialist leader Martin Schulz, the low turnout shows that "the vote doesn't have much to do with European policy."

"There's a trend towards the re-nationalisation of Europe," Mr Schulz said, adding that the issue could eventually raise the question of the legitimacy of the elections.

The parliament's outgoing president Hans-Gert Poettering from the conservative EPP-ED faction said: "We have to increase turnout if we can," but said this does not mean going back to the old system where MEPs were appointed by national parliaments.

For his part, European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso called on national politicians to introduce more a more European angle to their politics.

Opinion

Why do MEPs fear electoral reform?

As Parliament begins to prepare for the next elections in 2014, MEPs should ask themselves if the quality of the election campaign will be an advance on previous elections, writes Andrew Duff.

Borrell: 'Israel provoking famine', urges more aid access

70 percent of northern Gaza is facing famine, new data shows. There is one shower per 5,500 people, and 888 people per toilet. 'How can you live in these conditions?" asked Natalie Boucly of UNRWA at the European Humanitarian Forum.

Opinion

Potential legal avenues to prosecute Navalny's killers

The UN could launch an independent international investigation into Navalny's killing, akin to investigation I conducted on Jamal Khashoggi's assassination, or on Navalny's Novichok poisoning, in my role as special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, writes the secretary-general of Amnesty International.

Latest News

  1. Borrell: 'Israel provoking famine', urges more aid access
  2. Europol: Israel-Gaza galvanising Jihadist recruitment in Europe
  3. EU to agree Israeli-settler blacklist, Borrell says
  4. EU ministers keen to use Russian profits for Ukraine ammo
  5. Call to change EIB defence spending rules hits scepticism
  6. Potential legal avenues to prosecute Navalny's killers
  7. EU summit, Gaza, Ukraine, reforms in focus this WEEK
  8. The present and future dystopia of political micro-targeting ads

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersJoin the Nordic Food Systems Takeover at COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersHow women and men are affected differently by climate policy
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  5. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  6. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?

Join EUobserver

EU news that matters

Join us