Submitted by Political Commission 1: Institutional Affairs and Governance.
Adopted by the Federal Committee in Zürich on 25 October 2015.
Amended and re-adopted by the online Federal Committee (FC Home) on 25 October 2020.
Amended and re-adopted by the Federal Committee in Malta on 19 March 2023.
Amended and re-adopted by the European Congress in Strasbourg on 16 November 2025.

JEF Europe,

• Applauding European Parliament resolution on the Election of the Members of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage of 3rd May 2022 P9_TA(2022)0129;
• Emphasising the universal right to vote for all European citizens, no matter their place of residence;
• Convinced that the elections of the European Parliament present a key factor of the democratic life of the European Union;
• Strongly believing that the nation state is an obsolete institutional entity, whose sovereignty is not suited anymore to deal with global and supranational issues like the ones we are currently facing;
• Reaffirming the importance of a strong, federal and democratic European Parliament as it directly and democratically represents the will of European citizens;
• Regretting that electoral campaigns and public debates preceding European elections often relate to domestic issues instead of genuine European topics;
• Welcoming the changes made to Council Decision (EU, Euratom) 2018/994, whereby Member States may allow for the display, on ballot papers, of the name or logo of the European political party to which the national political party or individual candidate is affiliated;
• Regretting that the above choice remains optional and emphasizing the importance of presenting the vote as a vote for EU-wide issues and party groups;
• Concerned about the constantly low turnout of the European elections, revealing public indifference regarding EU politics and EU institutional issues;
• Welcoming that political parties nominate Spitzenkandidaten for the presidency of the European Commission as a way to increase public awareness and to illustrate the transnational dimension of the European elections;
• Considering that the European elections are governed to a great extent by national rules that are insufficiently harmonised by EU legislation;
• Considering that some of the proposals currently debated regarding the reform of the electoral law might require modifying the Treaties;
• Considering that this can only be seen as a first step, as provisions for electoral equality are missing;
• Concerned about the unwillingness of many national governments to reform the European Electoral Act shown in the survey of the Swedish presidency, especially in regards to the introduction of transnational lists;
• Affirming that European elections can only be truly federal if based upon three pillars, namely: truly European parties, a renewed European Electoral Act (EEA), and a democratically composed federal European Parliament.

JEF Europe, with regard to a truly European Political Party System,

1. Calls for European party families to structure themselves federally and become cohesive European Political Parties rather than coalitions of national parties;
2. Calls upon European parties to draft genuine European political programmes on transnational issues, on the basis of which they would run for elections;
3. Demands European Political Parties to organise party primaries in which they elect their respective Spitzenkandidat in advance of the elections to the European Parliament;
4. Further calls for changes to Regulation 1141/2014, to enable European Parties to choose transnational candidates and finance transnational electoral campaigns.

JEF Europe, with regard to a renewed European Electoral Act,

Recommends it be structured around (a) general provisions, (b) provisions concerning the respective national or regional candidate lists for the European Elections, as well as (c) provisions outlining transnational lists.

• As to the general provision of a renewed European Electoral Act, JEF Europe

1. Believes that elections to the European Parliament shall be by direct universal suffrage and shall be free, fair and secret;
2. Calls for a common and uniform voting age of 16 or lower across the whole Union;
3. Calls for common requirements to stand for election as a candidate across the whole Union;
4. Calls for an increased information campaign advertising the European Election Days, as well as for facilitating voters’ access to the polling stations and ability to take part in voting procedures, including through regulatory measures; special attention should be paid to facilitating the participation of EU citizens resident in Member States other than their own;
5. Demands that all European citizens eligible to vote in the European elections have their right to vote granted equally in all Member States and in all possible vote modalities, it being by post or digitally, as long as the necessary security measures are ensured;
6. Demands that a single, EU-wide transnational constituency be established, in addition to existing national or regional ones, for the election of the European Parliament;
7. Demands, accordingly, that European citizens be given the right to two votes, one for their respective national or regional list, a second one for a common EU transnational list;
8. Encourages European and national legislators to consider the establishment of cross-border constituencies for the European elections;
9. Demands that constituencies be no smaller than 6 MEPs elected per constituency, or larger, in order to safeguard the principles of proportional democracy;
10. Demands that Member States reform their electoral rules so that the name and logo of the national parties’ respective European political parties would, at a minimum, be displayed on the European election ballot papers;
11. Asks to set a common deadline for the submission of candidacies at eight weeks before election days to ensure that a European campaign can effectively take place;
12. Calls on the relevant national and European legislators and authorities to take all necessary measures to ensure that every European citizen can vote in European elections when living in another EU country or a third country;
13. Keeping in mind that a common Election Day (or days) would strengthen the transnational dimension of the elections to the European Parliament.

In relation to the national candidate lists, JEF Europe,

1. Requests Member States to further harmonise their national electoral laws by ensuring a common minimum age of 18 for candidates to stand in election;
2. Requests national political parties to further make use of existing provisions, which allow for non-nationals to stand in European elections in national lists of their country of residence.

With respect to common transnational lists, JEF Europe,

1. Demands transnational lists be introduced in time for the coming European Elections and that each European party family establish their own transnational list for that time;
2. Suggests, as a minimum, that 75 seats of the European Parliament should be reserved for transnational MEPs;
3. Urges European political parties to ensure that their respective transnational lists reflect the diversity of the Union, by drawing candidates from at least one half of the 27 Member States;
4. Further urges European political parties to limit the percentage of candidates from a single Member State with respect to the total candidates on each respective transnational list, in order to dispel fears of too much influence by the bigger and more populous Member States;
5. Considers that each transnational list should be headed by a candidate for the European Commission Presidency, the so‑called Spitzenkandidat, which would strengthen the Spitzenkandidaten system as a whole and give citizens a “European face” in the electoral campaign with whom they could identify.

If the unanimity requirement for common transnational lists is not found, JEF Europe proposes this alternative, which can be enacted more easily,

1. Demands that each vote should count the same, therefore the distribution of seats among the European parties should be directly derived from the European result;
2. Calls for one vote for each citizen which counts primarily for European party and secondarily for the national list;
3. Calls for a secondary step in the seat distribution from the European parties to their respective national lists, ensuring the correct number of MEPs for each European party, but also the predefined number of MEPs for each member state (biproportional apportionment);
4. Encourages making it possible for multiple European parties to run together, or for non-affiliated national parties to register a transnational list coalition;
5. Calls for the restriction of forming a group in the European Parliament to parties which have run together in the election;
6. Recommends opt-outs for unwilling governments in the secondary step, i.e. letting their states distribute their seats with the current national provisions while the opt-in states ensure that each European party receives the correct number of seats, and asks the legislators to remove these opt-outs over time;
7. Keeps in mind the possibility to achieve this seat distribution mechanism if necessary without unanimity through an additional treaty between the reform-minded member states.

Finally, JEF Europe,

1. Supports all federalist-minded Members of the European Parliament in their work towards a renewed European electoral reform;
2. Calls on European and national legislators, alongside other relevant political stakeholders, to initiate the process to achieve the aforementioned reforms;
3. Invites other transnational organisations to join the campaign for a renewed way of electing the European Parliament and European democracy.