Introduction

The European Electoral Act of 1976 provided a framework of common principles for the European Parliament elections (including the EU-wide introduction of proportional representation). Many elements are still decided at Member State level however, (such as the minimum age to vote and stand as a candidate ; out of country voting ; electoral campaign length and silence periods ; electoral thresholds ; modalities to help persons with disabilities exercise their voting rights; and electoral quotas ). There is therefore wide variation from one Member State to another when it comes to organisation of the European Parliament elections. For the elections to the European Parliament (hereafter referred to as the European elections), 28 electoral laws have to be considered: the European Electoral Act plus 27 national electoral acts. Some argue that the absence of a uniform EU procedure to elect Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) contributes to the 'democratic deficit', because there is neither a truly European electoral campaign nor a genuinely European public debate. Moreover, EU citizens do not cast their votes on the basis of European issues, but in consideration of national issues (effectively making the European elections 'second-order national elections'). Ultimately, this has led to low turnouts in European elections.

Some consider the distance between EU policy-makers and voters to be a key factor driving the alleged 'democratic deficit', and that European political parties could help reduce this distance. The European Parliament itself in 2021 recognised the role of European political parties in building a true EU public sphere, forming EU political awareness and expressing the will of EU citizens. The role and importance of European political parties is clearly recognised in EU primary law.¹ Article 10(4) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) clearly states that the 'Political parties at European level contribute to forming European political awareness and to expressing the will of citizens of the Union'. While Article 12(2) of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights recognises their role in helping to express 'the political will of the citizens of the Union'.

Many factors can contribute to 'Europeanise' the European elections, as recognised by the European Parliament itself over the years. These include, not least, the running of the ' lead candidate ' process well ahead of the elections and the creation of transnational lists. An EU-wide cross-border campaign focusing on EU issues becomes crucial to achieving EU-wide awareness among the electorate. This means referencing European political parties on campaign material (manifestos, posters, programmes, etc.) and displaying EU political parties and their connection with candidates supported by national parties on the electoral ballot (which presupposes that citizens have been informed about national parties' affiliation to the European political parties). Public debates between lead candidates and the definition of a coordinated strategy to ensure media coverage of the European elections at national level are also key to Europeanising the electoral campaign.

Parliament has expressed its disapproval of the lack of a uniform procedure for European elections repeatedly and has put forward multiple proposals to address the identified shortcomings. It has launched a number of initiatives on the visibility of the European political parties in the European elections and, more specifically, on the electoral ballot.

In 2013 , Parliament's Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO) adopted a report (rapporteur: Andrew Duff (ALDE, UK) ), which was adopted in plenary in July 2013 . It asked European political parties to adhere to the lead candidate process and urged Member States and political parties to ensure that the name and, where appropriate, the emblems of European political parties were shown on the ballot. In the same resolution, Parliament asked national political parties to inform citizens before and during the electoral campaign about their affiliation to European political parties and make visible their support for their preferred candidate as president of the Commission.

In November 2015, Parliament adopted a resolution as part of the AFCO legislative initiative on the reform of EU electoral law (rapporteurs: Danuta Hübner (EPP, Poland) and Jo Leinen (S&D, Germany) ). The resolution proposed some fundamental changes to the EU Electoral Act: namely the introduction of a more formalised lead candidate process and the establishment of transnational lists.² Moreover, in continuity with the Duff report, it recommended providing more visibility to the European political parties during the political campaign leading up to the elections and also on the electoral ballot papers.

In 2018, the Council approved Parliament's above-mentioned legislative initiative ( Council Decision (EU, Euratom) 2018/994 ) to modify the 1976 EU Electoral Act. The main innovations introduced by the 2018 amendments to the 1976 Electoral Act fall into two main categories: those that would be optional for Member States and those that would be compulsory. For example, the reform prescribed a minimum 3-week deadline before the election period for submitting electoral candidacies for those Member States whose legislation provided a deadline for the submission of candidacies. Similarly, Member States remained at liberty to provide for a minimum threshold of up to 5 %. However, a threshold of between 2 % and 5 % became compulsory for constituencies comprising more than 35 seats. Member States would meanwhile be free to offer advance voting, postal voting, and electronic and internet voting, and to allow citizens residing in third countries to vote in European elections.

Parliament initially proposed binding measures to enhance the visibility of European political parties on the ballot, but Council retained them only as non-binding recommendations in Council Decision 2018/994 . Whereas Article 3a of Council Decision 2018/994 states that: 'Member States may allow for the display, on ballot papers, of the name or logo of the European political party to which the national political party or individual candidate is affiliated', Parliament's resolution in Article 3e stated that: 'The ballot papers used in elections to the European Parliament shall give equal visibility to the names and logos of national parties and to those of the European political parties' (emphasis added by the authors). The same article also required Member States to encourage and facilitate the identification of those affiliations during the electoral campaign, for instance during television and radio campaign broadcasts and electoral campaigns.

At the time of writing, the reform brought in by Council Decision 2018/994, which was supposed to enter into force ahead of the 2019 European elections, is still not applicable pending ratification by one Member State (Spain) according to its own constitutional requirements (as mandated by Article 223 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union).

In May 2022, the European Parliament proposed a new, more far-reaching reform designed to further Europeanise the European elections by repealing the 1976 Act and replacing it with a Council regulation. This reform is based on two pillars: (i) progressive harmonisation of Member States' electoral rules concerning the 'national constituencies', and (ii) creation of a Union-wide constituency including the territory of all 27 Member States and a common electoral procedure for the election of 28 Members of the European Parliament through transnational electoral lists. On the harmonisation of the rules in national constituencies, Parliament proposed, for instance to: harmonise the minimum age to vote (with some exceptions) and to stand as a candidate; introduce an obligation for Member States to provide for postal voting; impose an obligation on all political parties to ensure a gender balance among their candidates (zip or quota system); introduce a more detailed electoral calendar, including fixing a common day for voting across the whole EU on 9 May; impose an electoral threshold; and create an European electoral authority. In order to raise the profile of the European political parties, the proposal for a regulation introduced two different provisions applicable to the Union-wide constituency and to national constituencies. For the former, article 15(5) establishes that 'the ballots comprising the Union-wide lists shall bear the name and logo of the respective European electoral entity'. For the latter, article 17(4) introduces uniform ballot papers giving equal visibility to the name and logo of national and European political entities (emphasis added by the authors).

In addition to its legislative initiatives to reform the 1976 Electoral Act, Parliament has adopted a number of resolutions underlining the role of the European political parties, with specific reference to the electoral ballot paper.

Parliament's November 2020 resolution taking stock of the 2019 European elections stressed that the European political parties are at the centre of the European elections and deserve more visibility. While the differing electoral procedures for the European elections 'remain a significant obstacle to political innovation and to creating true pan-European political debate', Parliament recognised that the European political parties could be a powerful instrument to 'facilitate a truly European political debate', during and beyond the European elections. Parliament proposed that European political parties should have their names and logos on the ballot papers and on European election campaign material. More recently, in December 2023, Parliament adopted a resolution on the 2024 European elections in which it stressed, once again 'the important role of European political parties and all relevant societal stakeholders in contributing to the debate on European public policy issues and in forming European political awareness; regrets, however, that restrictions under the current EU and national regulatory frameworks prevent European political parties from fully participating in European election campaigns'. Parliament also stressed the importance of enhancing 'the visibility of the European political parties in public debates and media campaigns, including their names and/or logos' and its support for 'the names and/or the logos of the European political parties being made visible on ballots and campaign materials'. Parliament also asked national parties to identify their EU counterparts in their communication activities.

The European Commission, meanwhile, in its Recommendation 2013/142/EU acknowledged that some national parties had already adopted the practice of indicating their affiliation to a European political party on the ballot papers. It stressed however that continuous efforts should be made to ensure more visibility to these parties during the entire European electoral process. Ahead of the 2019 elections, in Recommendation 2018/234/EU , the Commission once again stressed the importance of informing the voters about the affiliation between national parties and European political parties, and which lead candidate they support. The recommendation also stated that: 'To the extent possible, national political parties should prominently display this information, including, where appropriate, the logo of the European political party, in all campaign materials, communications and political broadcasts'. More recently, in December 2023 the Commission presented a defence of democracy package, including Recommendation (EU) 2023/2829 on inclusive and resilient electoral processes in the Union and on enhancing the European nature and efficient conduct of the elections to the European Parliament. The recommendation invites the Member States to provide the voters with information on the affiliation between national political parties and European political parties before and during the elections, including on the electoral ballot papers (paragraphs 36 and 37).

Assessment of the 2014 and 2019 European elections

In its reports on the European Parliament elections of 2014 and 2019, the Commission presented survey results from Member State authorities regarding the legality of displaying European party names and logos on the ballot papers. According to the report on the 2014 election, nine Member States allowed national parties to indicate their affiliation to European parties on the ballot paper by displaying the European party's name or logo.³ According to the 2019 election report, 10 Member States permitted this and 17 did not.

A 2021 Parliament study found that in both the 2014 and 2019 Parliament elections the degree of Europeanisation of electoral ballots was 'remarkably low'. Only about 4 % of the political parties (4.74 % in 2014 and 4.17 % in 2019) made textual or visual references to European political parties⁴ on the electoral ballot. Surveying both European political parties and other displays of EU affiliation, such as to political groups in the European Parliament, Spitzenkandidaten and other transnational associations, this number increases to about 7 or 8 %.⁵ In Ireland and Italy only, about half of the parties include references to European affiliations in 2019. This is attributed to their traditionally highly informative ballot design.

Domestic rules in the 27 EU Member States

EPRS conducted comparative research⁶ to find out the extent to which Member States allow national parties to display their affiliation to European political parties on the ballot paper, or forbid them from doing so, i.e. whether the name and/or logo of a European political party may be shown on the ballot paper together with that of the national party to which the candidate in the European elections belongs. The researchers asked how this prohibition was formulated in national legislation: explicitly or implicitly. They also asked whether there was implicit or explicit permission in Member States to associate the name and/or logos of European political parties with those of national parties.

As the table in the annex below shows, very few Member States explicitly forbid such a mention on the ballot paper and in all cases where national law does do so this explicit prohibition concerns the mention of the logo of European political parties on the ballot. This is the case in Belgium and Luxembourg. In both these Member States, while the logo cannot be shown the law allows the name of the European political party to appear on the ballot paper either explicitly – in the case of Belgium – or implicitly – in the case of Luxembourg where the law is silent on this possibility, implying that in principle the name of a European political party could be displayed.

However, in the majority of Member States, the law is silent on whether or not the name and/or logo of a European political party may be shown on the electoral ballot paper for the European elections.

From this silence, in some cases, an implicit prohibition on showing the name and/or logo of a European political party on the ballot can be derived, either from the wording of national provisions or from the interpretation given to those national rules by national authorities. This is the case for the vast majority of Member States where this implicit prohibition applies either to both the logo and the name or only to the logo of a European political party.

The countries where an implicit prohibition is found are the following: Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Estonia, Croatia, Cyprus, Latvia, Hungary, Malta, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Finland and Sweden. A closer look reveals that these implicit prohibitions are based on different grounds. For example, in Latvia, Poland, Slovakia and Finland, the list of requirements regarding the electoral ballot paper seem to constitute an exhaustive list, implying a prohibition to include any other element on the ballot paper, including the name and/or logo of a European political party. Moreover, in Poland the law explicitly provides that European political parties do not participate in European elections held in Poland, and therefore it is considered that their logos or names may not be used by Polish political parties participating in those elections.

In some other cases, for example in Czechia, Spain, Hungary and Malta, reference in the law to political parties is intended to concern national political parties, thereby excluding European political parties. In other instances, there is a structural element in the design of the electoral ballot paper, with the result that European political party logos cannot be shown as a matter of general rule. This is the case in Denmark, Germany and Croatia, and also in countries where express legal provisions prevent logos of political parties from appearing on ballot papers and where political parties are identified only by their names or assigned numbers.

In limited cases, however, the law explicitly allows to mention on the ballot paper of the European political party with which a national party is associated. This is the case of Greece, Lithuania and Slovenia, where the law gives the possibility to show the names and logos of European political parties together with names and logos of national parties. In Belgium, Germany, Ireland and Romania explicit provisions allow the possibility to display the name of the European political party on the ballot paper, but not the logo. In Romania, the applicable law explicitly allows mention of the symbol only, a possibility that has not however been used so far.

In a handful of Member States, the silence of the law on this matter or the broader wording of the applicable legal provisions leads on the contrary to the conclusion that displaying the name and/or the logo of European political parties on the ballot is implicitly allowed. This is the case for France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. In these cases while the broad wording plays a significant role, the interpretation of national authorities is also relevant. In Italy, this conclusion is confirmed by the guidelines issued by the Italian Interior Ministry in March 2024 (p. 37), which state that political parties or political groups may include symbols and/or names of European political parties on the ballot paper, providing they also submit documentation demonstrating the relevant affiliation. In Italy, for the 2024 European elections, of the 42 political party symbols submitted, five include either the name or symbol of the respective European political party of affiliation.⁷

In Luxembourg and the Netherlands, interpretation of the national provision suggests that it is, in principle, permitted to link only the name of a European political party to a national party. In the Netherlands, however, the issue of associating the symbol or logo of a European party with that of a national party, next to the list of candidates, has not yet arisen. There remains a degree of legal uncertainty, the resolution of which is likely to depend on whether such a combination is sufficiently distinctive for the voter. This assessment will require an ad hoc evaluation by the Dutch electoral authorities.

When it comes to associating a national party with the name of a European party, in the Netherlands all parties registered only their national logos, whereas just one party (Christian Democratic Appeal) is registered using a double name that includes the EU affiliation to the EPP (referred to by its Dutch name – Europese Volkspartij). In Luxembourg, the fact that it is explicitly forbidden to display European political party logos implicitly points to the possibility to display the name of a European political party in connection with a national party on the ballot. Finally, under French law the names and symbols of political parties must be given without specifying whether they are European or national, pointing to an implicit possibility to make such a connection on the ballot paper.

The above analysis shows that the national legislation of fewer than half of the EU Member States (11) allows the name and/or logo of a European political party to be mentioned on the ballot paper for the European elections, either explicitly or implicitly. Of these 11 Member States, in only 5 can both the name and logo appear (Greece, France, Italy, Lithuania and Slovenia), while in the remaining countries only the name can be shown (Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) or only the logo (Romania). For all the other Member States – the vast majority – there is either an explicit or an implicit prohibition (e.g. an exhaustive list of requirements) that prevents either the name, logo or both from being displayed on the ballot paper.