Electoral thresholds will damage the diversity of our parliament

• 2018-07-04
• Democratie & mensenrechten Europa in de wereld

The European Parliament has today given consent to the reforms to the electoral law of the European Union. The reforms introduce an obligatory threshold of 2 to 5 % for constituencies with more than 35 seats (impacting only Spain and Germany).

Greens/EFA shadow rapporteur Josep-Maria Terricabras comments:

"This unnecessary action will do real damage to European democracy. Every vote in the elections should count but now many voters will have their choice invalidated by an arbitrary threshold.

"Just as diversity is good for our societies, so it is good for our democracy. Shutting smaller parties out will deprive the parliament of the variety that has helped improve legislation and made sure it does not ignore the needs of minorities.”

Greens/EFA transparency and democracy spokesperson Sven Giegold adds:

"For the voters, more has been lost than won. The European Parliament has shown that it is fully functional with small parties so there is no need to curtail the right of voters by putting in place a percentage hurdle.

"The German government is letting Europe do its dirty work on electoral reform. The Federal Constitutional Court has already rejected the threshold, so now the government is enforcing its will at European level."