"To put it bluntly, the people most likely to turn out to vote in European Parliament elections are older people drawn from an educational elite; the people least likely to do so are manual workers, the less well-educated and the young."
This is the general conclusion of a report compiled by University College Dublin for the European Parliament Task Force on Voter Participation in the European Parliament election of 2004.
The next European Parliament elections will be held between June 10-13. As a result of the enlargement of the European Union to 25 countries, 732 members of the European Parliament will have to be chosen. The main challenge for these elections will be voter turnout.
Since direct elections for the European Parliament started in 1979, the overall voter turnout has fallen steadily.
Voting in the 10 new member states is expected to be higher than in the old member states and will put up the turn out average percentage. Millions of citizens in the EU countries remain to be convinced about going out to vote in the June elections. They see the European Parliament as remote and as disconnected from their everyday life. In many countries the Members of the European Parliament have no direct and immediate relations with their voters. In fact the University College Dublin report on voter turnout points to "the crucial importance of contact between the members of the European parliament and the citizens if the related problems of the communications deficit and abstention in European parliament elections are to be addressed."
Our Parliament too
Maltese citizens will be voting for the first time on June 12 for their Members of the European Parliament. Various surveys carried out by different organisations show that so far around 80 per cent of our voters have expressed their willingness to take part in the June 12 election for the European Parliament. There are indications that this percentage will go up once more people understand that voting for the European Parliament has a direct bearing on their lives.
Even politicians like Jens-Peter Bonde, MEP, and chairman of the Euro-critic Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities (EDD) are encouraging people in all EU countries to go out to vote in these elections. Mr Bonde is a tireless crusader for more democracy, transparency and accountability of all European institutions. He has been a Member of the European Parliament for the last 25 years - since the first direct elections in 1979. Although very critical towards EU institutions he has decided to work from inside these institutions, to reform them from within rather than condemning himself to political irrelevance and sterility by staying on the margins and criticizing from outside.
In an interesting interview with MaltaMedia.com in the beginning of April Mr Bonde says that he believes Malta's biggest challenge, as a EU member is to retain its parliamentary democracy and safeguard its constitution. He says: "The EU is not an economic club but a political union that is building itself into a single European State. The biggest challenge for Malta is to retain parliamentary democracy as you know it and safeguard your Constitution. Malta's legislators are no longer your own elected parliamentarians. They are now civil servants in the Commission and it will be very difficult to reach them democratically. You cannot elect a different EU government as you do in national politics. Some might find this better or worse, but it is always good to know what is really going on."
Mr Bonde then went on to praise the Labour Party's position after the last general election. He said the party had a political decision to make and he believes it acted with democratic spirit. "Once the issue was decided by a referendum, which was again confirmed by an election, the Labour Party decided to accept the people's decision. This of course does not prevent them from being critical over certain issues, such as the centralisation of EU power - this is clearly disadvantageous for Malta as an island state and I'm sure that Labour will seek to address certain issues from within the Party of European Socialists."
In his interview Mr Bonde also addressed those Maltese people who still oppose joining the EU. He has no doubt what these people should do on June 12: they must understand that the European Parliament has become their parliament too. "Malta has renounced its sovereign status in order to integrate with the Union. These voters have a right to be represented in the European Parliament and my advice is not to lose such an opportunity."
He says: "You cannot change an EU government, but you can influence the political debates in the European Parliament by voting for those who represent your views on the EU issue. There is no other institution in the EU that is directly elected by the peoples of Europe."