Malta remains one of just three EU countries that bars its citizens from voting for Maltese MEP candidates while abroad and there are no plans to change the situation.
Electoral Commissioner Joseph Church said there were no plans, so far, to amend the system to allow Maltese people living in other EU countries to cast their vote in their country of residence.
All EU countries – except for Malta, Ireland and Slovakia – have some form of system that allows citizens living overseas to vote from abroad.
Bulgaria and Italy, for example, allow voting in embassies while Germany allows voting by post. France, the Netherlands and the UK also allow voting by proxy while Estonia is the only country that allows e-voting.
However, people from Malta, Ireland and Slovakia have to travel to their country if they want to vote for MEPs of the same nationality.
All EU citizens have the right to vote during the MEP elections and can choose whether to vote in their country of origin or country of residence, explained the head of the European Parliament Office in Malta Peter Agius.
He was speaking during a press conference aimed at spreading awareness about this voting option ahead of the May 24 MEP elections.
Dr Agius explained that 12,215 EU expats were officially registered as residing in Malta, with the largest communities coming from the UK (6,652 people), Italy (947) and Bulgaria (850).
The numbers might be larger in reality as there was no official tracking system, he said. The number of Europeans who opted to vote for Maltese MEP candidates to date amounted to about 7,400. However, this number could still change.
Expats who wanted to vote in Malta must register by March 31 and online registration form could be downloaded from http:/bit.ly/1f5KIze.
This was necessary so that the Electoral Commission could notify their country of origin to strike them off the voting list to ensure they did not vote twice.
Europeans voting in Malta who wanted to familiarise themselves with Maltese candidates could follow the campaign on the Facebook page of the European Parliament Office.