2019 European Parliament election



The next elections to the European Parliament are expected to be held between 23 and 26 May 2019. A total of 751 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) currently represent more than 512 million people from 28 member states. In February 2018, the European Parliament voted to decrease the number of MEPs from 751 to 705 if the United Kingdom were to withdraw from the European Union on 29 March 2019. However after an extension of the Article 50 process, the United Kingdom is now due to participate alongside other EU member states.

New law
According to the European Council, on 7 June 2018 the Council agreed at ambassador level to improve the EU electoral law and to reform old laws from the 1976 Electoral Act.

The purpose of the reform would be to improve participation in elections, raise understanding of their European character and prevent irregular voting while at the same time respecting the constitutional and electoral traditions of the member states.

The proposed draft would forbid "double voting" and voting in third countries, thus improving the visibility of European political parties. To avoid double voting, contact authorities would be established to exchange data on voters. This process would have to start at least six weeks before the EP elections.

The European Parliament gave its consent on 4 July 2018 and the Act was adopted by the Council on 13 July 2018. It will come into effect following ratification by the Member States.

Parties and candidates
The Spitzenkandidat process involves the nomination by European political parties of candidates for the role of Commission President, the party winning the most seats in Parliament receiving the first opportunity to attempt to form a majority in Parliament to back their candidate (akin to how Prime Ministers are elected in national parliamentary democracies). This process was first used in 2014 and was opposed by some in the Council. The future of the process is uncertain, but the Parliament has attempted to codify the process and the parties are almost certain to select the candidates again. On 23 January 2018, the Constitutional Affairs Committee adopted a text stating that the Spitzenkandidat process could not be overturned, and that Parliament "will be ready to reject any candidate in the investiture procedure of the commission president who was not appointed as a Spitzenkandidat in the run-up to the European elections".

In May 2018, a Eurobarometer poll suggested that 49% of the 27,601 individuals from all 28 EU countries surveyed think that the Spitzenkandidats process will help them vote in the next European elections while 70% also think that the process requires a "real debate" on European issues.

European People's Party
Incumbent Jean-Claude Juncker has stated he will not seek a second term as President.

Two candidates sought the nomination of the EPP:
 * Alexander Stubb, the Vice-President of the European Investment Bank, former prime minister, foreign minister and finance minister of Finland.
 * Manfred Weber, current group leader for the European People's Party in the European Parliament and member of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria has been backed by Angela Merkel as Spitzenkandidat for the party

At their 2018 Congress in Helsinki, the EPP elected Manfred Weber as their Spitzenkandidat for President of the European Commission.

Party of European Socialists
Previous candidate Martin Schulz left the European Parliament in 2017 to head the Social Democratic Party of Germany, but has stepped down from the latter position in 2018.

Two candidates were nominated by PES member parties and organizations:
 * Maroš Šefčovič (Vice-President of the Commission) announced in September bid to head Commission.
 * Frans Timmermans (first Vice-President of the Commission, previous Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister) announced in October bid to head Commission.

Šefčovič announced his withdrawal in November and supported Frans Timmermans as the Common Candidate.

The party will convene an extraordinary Congress in Lisbon to ratify the election of the candidate and to vote upon the manifesto.

European Conservatives and Reformists
Jan Zahradil, an MEP for the Czech Civic Democratic Party, is the Spitzenkandidat of the European Conservatives and Reformists.

European Green Party
Like in 2014, the Greens adopted the principle to have two leading candidates for the European Elections 2019. Unlike in 2014 where the candidates were chosen through an open online primary elections, the two leading candidates will be elected by the Council of the Party in Berlin in November 2018. Four people, two of them being currently MEPs, have declared their candidacy:
 * Petra De Sutter (Senator and member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and candidate of Groen in the 2019 elections)
 * Ska Keller (MEP and candidate of Alliance 90/The Greens in the 2019 elections).
 * Bas Eickhout (MEP and candidate of GroenLinks in the 2019 elections)
 * Atanas Schmidt (nominated by Zelena Partija, Bulgaria)

At their 2018 Congress in Berlin, the party elected Ska Keller and Bas Eickhout as their Spitzenkandidat for the President of the European Commission.

Alliance of Liberals and Democrats

 * Guy Verhofstadt (President of the ALDE group, MEP and former Prime Minister of Belgium)
 * Sylvie Goulard (Deputy Governor at Banque de France, former French Minister of the Armed Services and MEP).
 * Margrethe Vestager (Commissioner for Competition, previous Danish Minister for Economy and Interior).
 * Cecilia Malmström (Commissioner for Trade, previous Commissioner for Home Affairs and Swedish Minister for European Affairs).
 * Hans van Baalen (President of the ALDE Party, MEP and previous president of the Liberal International).
 * Emma Bonino (Former European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, former Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs)
 * Violeta Bulc (Commissioner for Transport, former Deputy Prime Minister of Slovenia)

Party of the European Left
The designated candidates are Violeta Tomič from Slovenia and Belgian trade-unionist Nico Cué.

New parties
The year 2019 will see the debut of new parties such as Kukiz'15 and Spring of Poland, Czech Pirate Party of Czech Republic, Alliance and Liberal Initiative of Portugal, USR and PLUS of Romania, LMŠ of Slovenia, Human Shield, Most and Workers' Front of Croatia, L'SNS and Sme Rodina of Slovakia. For the liberals, the biggest hope is that the new La République En Marche! party of French President Emmanuel Macron will choose to join ALDE after the elections. However, En Marche is expected to be more likely to try to form a new parliamentary group of pro-European centrists who support Macron's plans to reform the European institutions, thus drawing away members from ALDE, EPP and S&D. Possible partners for such a project might include Spanish Ciudadanos, Progressive Slovakia and the Hungarian Momentum Movement. While it is likely that En Marche will put together the minimum of 25 MEPs needed to form a group, the requirement to include MEPs from at least seven member states would be more difficult.

The European Spring initiated from the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 will run as a pan-European party alliance with one unified vision for Europe, the European Green New Deal. The most prominent figure is the former Greek minister Yanis Varoufakis, who will run as candidate in the constituency of Germany.

Volt Europa, a pan-European progressive movement, will run in several countries under the same name in the attempt to form its own group.

The leader of the Italian Five Star Movement has expressed a desire to form an anti-establishment faction of their own within the EU.

Pablo Iglesias, Catarina Martins, Jean-Luc Mélenchon and several others have formed an alliance in Maintenant le Peuple opposed to the PEL, but they are likely remain in GUE/NGL.

The Movement is an alliance of right-wing populist parties set up by Steve Bannon with the purpose of contesting the European elections. Participating parties include Lega Nord, People's Party of Belgium and Brothers of Italy, and possibly French National Rally. Originally envisioned as an attempt to unite the right-wing populist parties in Europe, The Movement has so far been snubbed by the Alternative for Germany, the Freedom Party of Austria and the UK Independence Party.

Apportionment of seats
If the United Kingdom leaves the European Union before the newly-elected MEPs are seated on 1 July 2019, the numbers of seats will be altered to what is considered by the S&D co-rapporteur Pedro Silva Pereira as "a fairer allocation of seats, finally complying with the Lisbon Treaty and the principle of degressive proportionality".

Decisions on the apportionment of seats in the Parliament are governed by article 14 of the Treaty of Lisbon. This article lays down that "[t]he European Parliament shall be composed of representatives of the Union's citizens. They shall not exceed seven hundred and fifty in number, plus the President. Representation of citizens shall be degressively proportional, with a minimum threshold of six members per Member State. No Member State shall be allocated more than ninety-six seats".

Due to the Brexit process, the United Kingdom's 73 MEPs were expected to be removed a few months before the 2019 European Parliament election, but this now looks unlikely to happen because of the Brexit extension until October 31. In April 2017, a group of European lawmakers discussed what should be done about the vacated seats. One plan, supported by Enrico Letta, Gianni Pittella and Emmanuel Macron, was to replace the 73 seats with a pan-European constituency list. Other options which were considered include dropping the British seats without replacement and reassigning some or all of the existing seats from other countries to reduce inequality of representation.

A plan to reduce the number of seats to 705 was approved by the Parliament in February 2018. It involves redistributing 27 seats to under-represented members and reserving the remaining 46 for future EU expansions. A proposal by the Constitutional Affairs Committee to create a pan-member constituency was rejected by the Parliament at the same time.

In January 2018, the French government unveiled a bill which would switch the country from using regional constituencies to a single nationwide constituency.

The allocation of seats for Ireland increased from 11 to 13. There had been a proposal that the two additional seats be allocated to Irish citizens living in Northern Ireland. This was supported by Sinn Féin and the Social Democratic and Labour Party, and also by Guy Verhofstadt, but was strongly resisted by the Democratic Unionist Party. Danuta Hübner (Committee on Constitutional Affairs) said: "It is amazing what you are saying because it is the Republic of Ireland which is against this idea of giving the right to vote to nationals in third countries – so we have a problem here". The two additional seats were instead allocated to two of the three constituencies in Ireland, with a special provision that the last candidate elected in these constituencies be designated to account for circumstances where the United Kingdom had not left the European Union at the time of the sitting of the Parliament.

Seat projections
There are no pan-European polls for the European elections in all 27/28 member states. There are, however, several organisations calculating the theoretical seat distribution in the European Parliament based on national polls in all member states. The table below displays these different projections.

Since the United Kingdom notified its intention to leave the European Union in March 2017, the United Kingdom was expected not to participate in the European elections and was therefore excluded from projections. Due to recent political developments, some organisations have started providing projections for a 'with-UK' scenario. On 10 April 2019, the European Council extended the Brexit deadline to 31 October 2019, or the first day of the month after that in which the Withdrawal Agreement is passed, whichever comes first. Consequently, the UK will probably have to participate in the European elections (23-26.05.19), unless an agreement in the UK Parliament is reached. The political and legal situation remains highly uncertain.

Some observers consider that the European People's Party might remain the dominant political force in the chamber while populists might be stronger than they were. However, Eurosceptics could be the first force in the chamber according to Charles de Marcilly whilst centrist parties such as European People's Party and the continent's Socialists could decline. . The following table shows projections with percentages instead of seats.