What Poland’s electoral law change can tell us about improving European elections - commentaires

What Poland's electoral law change can tell us about improving European elections

Juuso Järviniemi, thank you for clarifying for me that the EP does not embody the principle of ‘one citizen one vote', although I am now struggling to understand how the EU can portray itself as a democratic organisation if that is not the underlying foundation of its representative system. (I am reminded of George Orwell's dictum “All citizens are equal but some are more equal than others”.) You seem to be more interested in the ability of small parties to be returned rather than the best possible representation of majority of elector's wishes. So the regressive proportionality system used for the EP allows relatively tiny numbers of voters in smaller countries to theoretically elect a range of parties at the cost of much poorer levels of representation for very large numbers of people in other countries. To examine the specific case of Malta, in 2014, 93% of Maltese votes went to the two main parties each of which was given 3 seats, indeed they are the only parties that have ever returned MEPs. The minor parties missed being elected by a very considerable margin and realistically it is extremely unlikely they ever would be. The system is as it is, but let's not pretend that the actions of the Polish government is any more inherently undemocratic than the actions of the EU.

What Poland's electoral law change can tell us about improving European elections

Ian Beckett's comment above presents a valid criticism : if you think that the European Parliament should embody the principle of 'one citizen, one vote', then the Parliament is obviously failing. The current arrangement, of course, is designed to protect smaller member states' representation - in that sense, by criticising the current arrangement, you declare yourself in favour of more of « Europe of citizens » and less of « Europe of nation-states ».

However, I'd be happy with the current arrangement. The idea behind proportional representation is to get many different parties' voices heard in the parliament. If you want to ensure that even countries(/constituencies ?) like Malta can theoretically elect people from multiple parties, and you don't want to turn the European Parliament into a mammoth of thousands of MEPs, the current system is the best.

What Poland's electoral law change can tell us about improving European elections

“The European elections are a foundational pillar of European democracy ; EU governments and MEPs must ensure that all European citizens receive equal treatment and equal representation" Are you serious ? In France each MEP represents 880,000 citizens, in Malta it is only 70,000. In other words a Maltese vote is worth over 12 times that of every French vote. In what way is that equal representation ?