The requirements for the voting right
Do you meet all the requirements to vote?
Do you meet all the requirements to vote?
The European Parliament is the only elected European institution and represents more than 500 million citizens from 27 Member States. 720 deputies are elected to the European Parliament, including 6 representatives from Luxembourg.
The seat of the European Parliament is in Strasbourg, France, where the plenary sessions are held. The meetings of the Commissions and some additional plenary sessions are held in Brussels in Belgium. The General Secretariat is located in Luxembourg.
The European Parliament (EP), together with the Council of the European Union, shares the legislative power of the Union in almost all areas with the introduction of regulations and directives. With the Council, it adopts and amends proposals of the European Commission.
The European Parliament also has a power of control over the European Commission, as well as the power to determine the European monetary budget. Thus, the Parliament has the final say on the budget of the European Union.
The EU only has those competences which are enshrined in its treaties. Moreover, these competences, as defined in the agreements, differ from one area to another. In several areas, only the EU can take binding decisions: these are the exclusive competences. In these cases, member states can only act together at the European level (usually through the Council of the European Union). Examples of these powers are listed below
In 13 areas, competences are shared between the EU and the member states. To be sure which of the two is decisive, the applied principle is as follows: the EU only has priority if its actions are considered more effective than those of the member states. However, this is not always evident, and the European Court of Justice often has to clarify the situation. The respective 13 competences are also listed below.
The third important type of competences of the European Parliament is the supporting competence. This concerns areas where the EU can only intervene to support the actions of member states without influencing their laws and regulations. This is the case, for example, in the areas of culture, health and education.
Finally, the European Union has specific competences in the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP): each state retains its own sovereignty in this area, but the EU has a framework to better coordinate the actions of the member states.
Insert a cross (+ or x) in the circle placed at the top of a list. In this case the voter automatically gives a vote to each candidate of this list.
or
Allocate one or two votes to the candidates of his choice, by placing one or two crosses (+ or x) in the boxes placed behind the name of these candidates and up to the total amount of votes he has (6). The crosses can be registered on one or more lists. This is called in Luxembourg the panachage.
List suffrage
In this example, you have assigned 1 vote to each candidate on this list. No additional suffrages are possible.
Nominally
In this example, you have assigned 1 or 2 suffrages to the candidates of your choice (panachage). You have a maximum of 6 suffrages available.
Are you ready for the European elections?
Test your knowledge about the European elections with this multiple choice quiz (several answers possible)
Do you know the difference between the exclusive competences of the European Parliament and the competences shared with the national states?
Divide the competences in the urn of the right instance:
Do you know how to vote in the European elections?
Check your knowledge!
You can:
OU
6 European deputies to elect = you have 6 votes to distribute”.