Europe’s Most Boring Parliament Gets Ready for a Continentwide Vote

For all its claims that Europe is at the vanguard of democracy and human rights worldwide, the EU’s institutions themselves are remarkably opaque and bureaucratic. And only one offers EU citizens a direct say over the bloc’s decision-making: the European Parliament, based in Strasbourg, France.

Elections to Watch in 2024: This story is part of a package on 15 key elections this year (besides the United States). Read the full analysis here. 

That parliament will hold elections between June 6 and 9, when EU voters elect 720 representatives to five-year terms. The number of seats fluctuates between elections but cannot total more than 750, plus the president; in 2019, voters chose 705 members to the body. Seats are apportioned to member states proportionately based on their populations. Germany, the continent’s biggest country, claims 96; midsize Portugal gets 21; and tiny Cyprus has just six.

While Europeans vote according to national guidelines and parties, their domestic parties are members of broader pan-national coalitions. The most prominent—in order of seats held—are the center-right European People’s Party (EPP), the center-left Progressive Alliance of Socialists & Democrats (S&D), the pro-business Renew Europe camp, the Greens, and—however ironic it may seem in an EU body—newer Euroskeptic groups such as European Conservatives and Reformists as well as Identity and Democracy. The Left also counts a few dozen members. The Parliament is headed by President Roberta Metsola, a member of the EPP from Malta.

Despite its size, the European Parliament has little authority compared with national-level legislatures. Lawmakers generally do not suggest EU laws; they consider budgets and legal proposals made by the European Commission in Brussels. The Parliament also cannot unilaterally pass legislation—and must instead agree to pass measures with the Council of the EU. Arguably, the most important responsibility of the European Parliament is approving the European Council’s choice for president of the European Commission, the EU’s chief executive. The current commission president is Ursula von der Leyen, a German EPP member.

Europeans tend to be more apathetic about EU votes than those in their own country. For most of the 2000s, turnout hovered in the 40 percent range, though it surpassed 50 percent in 2019. That was in part because of the rise of the far right; particularly in the post-Brexit era, many Euroskeptics saw elections to the European Parliament as a way to undermine the EU from within. The EPP and S&D lost their majority in the body thanks to the rise of smaller groups.

This year’s contest will be the first EU-wide vote since the United Kingdom formally left the bloc—and Ukraine began membership talks with Brussels. Turnout is once again expected to be higher than usual. Fears about the far right have only increased; they are one reason French President Emmanuel Macron reportedly withdrew his support for a free trade deal between the EU and the South American customs union Mercosur. Members of France’s powerful agricultural lobby were opposed to the tentative agreement, and Macron’s chief opponent, the far-right Marine Le Pen, sought to capitalize on the issue.

Many Europeans are also antsy about the EU’s expenditures on projects such as the green transition as well as conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine. Though the Parliament cannot do much, it can obstruct many of Brussels’s usual priorities—and typically expansive budget.

Von der Leyen is also reportedly seeking another term in office and will need the Parliament’s support to get there. She may need to convince the EU’s only democratic body that she is herself a democrat. In October 2023, Politico quoted an anonymous EU diplomat who said von der Leyen had “increasingly been behaving like a queen.”