#voting
EPAA man in a suit with the colors of the European flag at the parliament in Brussels
NOS News•today, 10:09•Changed today, 11:55
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Aida Brands
editor Brussels
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Aida Brands
editor Brussels
The European Parliament elections are exactly one month away. The Netherlands kicks off and can go to the polls on June 6, other EU member states will follow in the following days. A total of around 360 million Europeans can vote until June 9. This makes it one of the largest elections in the world.
European citizens decide in the voting booth who can represent them in the European Parliament. 720 MEPs are elected. That is fifteen more than there are currently in parliament; the result of a post-Brexit redistribution of British seats, and the holding of even more of those seats in reserve for possible future expansions of the European Union.
Last week, election violence erupted in Maastricht, where the first election debate was held between the ‘Spitzencandidates’: the leaders of the European factions.
Many MEPs have now left Brussels to focus entirely on the campaign in their own country. From working visits to companies to organizing public evenings and hanging up many posters: in the coming weeks, politicians will do everything they can to convince voters to vote for them.
What exactly are you voting for?
Although not everyone will be familiar with the Dutch MEPs, they have a lot of influence on European regulations. For example, they negotiate laws with the EU member states. Each package of laws must also be approved by the European Parliament.
In recent years, for example, many new rules have been introduced about making the EU more sustainable. A number of those laws have been withdrawn or weakened after farmers took to the streets across Europe in recent months.
What exactly does parliament do? We explain it in this video:
Explained: the European Parliament
The war in Ukraine will likely keep security high on the European Parliament’s agenda. And migration to the EU will also remain an important theme in the coming years.
European groups
It will partly depend on the political parties which European rules are added or will change in the coming period.
Parliament is structured differently from the House of Representatives. The European Parliament is divided into seven political groups, which include political parties from 27 countries. For example, the CDA is among the European Christian Democrats and the VVD is among the European liberals. But the same European faction of the VVD also includes D66.
NOSThe Dutch parties and their European ‘families’. The accession of newcomers BBB and NSC to the EPP will be decided after the elections
Just as in the House of Representatives, these parties can also have strong differences of opinion in Brussels. In the European Parliament there is no strict faction discipline as in the House of Representatives. Parties may be in the same political family, but that does not mean they will vote the same.
New parties
New parties may also be added after these elections. For example, the New Social Contract and the BBB are participating in the European parliamentary elections for the first time. They will most likely end up in the same European faction as the CDA and the Christian Union.
That is not yet completely certain, because the European Christian Democrats absolutely do not want to cooperate with radical right-wing parties. Since NSC and BBB are currently trying to form a coalition with the PVV in the Netherlands, this could mean that they have to join another political family.
GroenLinks-PvdA is also taking a different approach to these elections. These two parties now have one electoral list, but after the elections they will again be in different European groups. GroenLinks joins the European Greens and the PvdA joins the European Socialists. The parties have agreed to vote the same in the European Parliament.
In the coming weeks, NOS will pay extensive attention to the European Parliament elections. Through this collection stay informed of all election news.
