Taxpayers in Malta have to incur the cost of government-sponsored flights for voters living abroad at every election.

But this could change if proposals by MEPs to harmonise voting rules for European Parliament elections sees the light of day.

The expense borne last year for the European Parliament election was in excess of €500,000 as government subsidised the flights of more than 2,000 overseas voters.

MEPs are now proposing a uniform system by encouraging the use of electronic and internet voting for overseas voters in European Parliament elections.

The proposal is one of several aimed at “strengthening the European dimension” of the elections. The European Parliament is the only EU body elected directly by popular vote. A report containing the proposals was approved by the Constitutional Affairs Committee on Monday and will be debated by the European Parliament in plenary session at the end of October. It will need the unanimous approval of member states in the European Council.

The report proposes having European party affiliations listed next to national parties on the ballot sheet.

European parties would also be able to automatically nominate their top candidate for the post of European Commission president.

Another proposal spoke of the introduction of an electoral threshold for European Parliament elections in all member states. This proposal was later changed to exclude small states like Malta, which only elects six MEPs.

The report proposed countries would be required to set a threshold of between three and five per cent. Parties exceeding the threshold would be guaranteed representation in the European Parliament.

This would have boosted the chances of smaller parties in Malta, that are hampered by the lack of a national threshold – the single transferable vote system creates a factual threshold of around 14 per cent but parties are not guaranteed seats if they surpass this.

But MEPs decided that the threshold would apply to states having a minimum of 26 seats in the European Parliament.

Electoral expert Hermann Schiavone agrees with the change since the threshold proposal would have been “impossible” to apply to Malta, since it only had six seats.

“It [the threshold] makes sense in a country like Germany, which has 96 seats, but I cannot see how it could work in Malta without increasing the number of seats,” he said.