European Parliament Elections - Voting System

Voting System

There is no uniform voting system for the election of MEPs; rather, each member state is free to choose its own system, subject to three restrictions:

• The system must be a form of proportional representation, under either the party list or single transferable vote system.
• The electoral area may be subdivided if this will not generally affect the proportional nature of the voting system.
• Any election threshold on the national level must not exceed five percent.

The allocation of seats to each member state is based on the principle of degressive proportionality, so that, while the size of the population of each country is taken into account, smaller states elect more MEPs than is justified by their populations. As the number of MEPs granted to each country has arisen from treaty negotiations, there is no precise formula for the apportionment of seats among member states. No change in this configuration can occur without the unanimous consent of all governments.