Should EU citizens living in other member states vote there in national elections?
- Should EU citizens living in other member states vote there in national elections?
- Rainer Bauböck: EU citizens should have voting rights in national elections, but in which country?
- Alain Brun: A European or a national solution to the democratic deficit?
- Andrew Duff: EU accession to the ECHR requires ensuring the franchise for EU citizens in national elections
- David Owen: How to enfranchise second country nationals? Test the options for best fit, easiest adoption and lowest costs
- Dimitry Kochenov: What’s in a People? Social Facts, Individual Choice, and the European Union
- Jo Shaw: Testing the bonds of solidarity in Europe’s common citizenship area
- Richard Bellamy: 'An ever closer union among the peoples of Europe': Union citizenship, democracy, rights and the enfranchisement of Second Country Nationals
- Kees Groenendijk: Five pragmatic reasons for a dialogue with and between member states on free movement and voting rights
- Hannes Swoboda: Don’t start with Europeans first. An initiative for extending voting rights should also promote access to citizenship for third country nationals
- Martin Wilhelm: Voting rights and beyond...
- Dora Kostakopoulou: One cannot promote free movement of EU citizens and restrict their political participation
- Ángel Rodríguez: Second country EU citizens voting in national elections is an important step, but other steps should be taken first
- Sue Collard: A more comprehensive reform is needed to ensure that mobile citizens can vote
- Tony Venables: Incremental changes are not enough - voting rights are a matter of democratic principle
- Roxana Barbulescu: Mobile Union citizens should have portable voting rights within the EU
- Concluding remarks by Philippe Cayla and Catriona Seth: Righting democratic wrongs
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Kick-off contribution by Philippe Cayla and Catriona Seth
Imagine being a law-abiding EU citizen, living in the EU, and having no right to vote for the government whose decisions will impact on your daily life. Does this sound like an Orwellian nightmare? Think again. It is the fate of large numbers of your neighbours or friends. Let us take the case of Alex, a British journalist living in France. He can vote for the local mayor in Paris and for members of the European parliament. He cannot, however, elect the president of France whose policies could influence his tax situation or decide whether a high-speed train station is located in his town. In the same way, Kirsten, who is a Danish teacher residing in Spain has no say in the election of a government whose decisions will impact on her retirement pension and on the educational system in which she works. Surely this is regrettable, to say the least. Should being European in Europe not entitle you to have a say in the way the part of Europe in which you live, work and pay taxes is governed? EU nationals have the right to vote in European and local elections, wherever they live within the EU. Should they not also be entitled to vote in national elections even if they reside in an EU nation other than their home country? Should their lack of a possibility to use the democratic process in order to influence policies by which they will be directly affected not be construed as a potential obstruction to mobility? Who wants to go and live in a country without being able to exercise full democratic rights? Surely it is time for the EU to extend EU citizens’ voting rights to national elections: this form of residential right would help integration, encourage mobility and enhance the value of EU citizenship. We feel a European Citizens’ Initiative might be a way to achieve this.
Go to the Letmevote website and to the official description of the "Let me vote!" ECI on the European Commission website.
Read the article by Philippe Cayla in Libération 8 December 2011 and his article written with Catherine Colonna in Le Monde 3 April 2012 (translated in English here).
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