Interview: ‘Free EU elections from national straitjackets’

It is high time European Parliament elections were “liberated from the straitjackets of domestic politics,” Professor Cees Van der Eijk of the University of Nottingham, an expert in European electoral research, told EURACTIV in an interview.

Responding in particular to MEP Andrew Duff’s radical proposal to overhaul the European electoral system (see EURACTIV 13/10/08), Van der Eijk expressed approval for the boldness of the idea, saying it could “bring a new and fresh dynamic to the elections”. 

However, he was less enthusiastic about Duff’s idea of making the elections more “candidate-based,” saying that such systems tended to become “beauty contests” where voters are less knowledgeable about relevant policy issues. 

Instead, he advocates a more classical party system: “In Europe, we mainly have systems which are oriented towards parties and therefore also much more towards policy, and I think it would be a shame if we turned out backs to that in European elections.” 

Van der Eijk was very enthusiastic about another aspect of the reform proposal: to fix the minimum voting age at 16 and candidate age at 18. “A lowered voting age of 16 has been demonstrated to be more effective than 18 in giving young people the opportunity to learn the habit of voting,” he said, concluding that this was a “very sensible idea that evidently picks up on research from the past decade”. 

He also approved of the report’s suggestion to give the Parliament increased power to control candidate eligibility (i.e. who should be allowed to run for European elections), saying this “would fit with the notion of the European Union as a political system in its own right, that sets its own terms of electoral competition”. 

Overall, he felt the proposal was heading in the right direction. A reformed system could “provide a stronger mandate to the Parliament in its relationship with the European Commission” and “would provide more of a learning process with direct media attention”. 

To read the interview in full, please click here.

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