Elections In The European Union
Elections to the Parliament of the European Union take place every five years by universal adult suffrage. 736 MEPs are elected to the European Parliament which has been directly elected since 1979. No other body is directly elected although the Council of the European Union and European Council is largely composed of nationally elected officials. Europarties have the exclusive right to campaign EU-wide for the European elections.
Read more about Elections In The European Union: Voting System, Europarties, Voter Behaviour, Results, Proposed Reforms, Commission President
Famous quotes containing the words elections, european and/or union:
“Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)
“It has become necessary to call the attention of European governments to a fact which is apparently so insignificant that the governments seem not to notice it. The fact is this: an entire people is being annihilated. Where? In Europe. Are there witnesses? One witness, the entire world. Do the governments see it? No.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“Some are petitioning the State to dissolve the Union, to disregard the requisitions of the President. Why do they not dissolve it themselves,—the union between themselves and the State,—and refuse to pay their quota into its treasury? Do not they stand in the same relation to the State that the State does to the Union? And have not the same reasons prevented the State from resisting the Union which have prevented them from resisting the State?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)