page_title: Elections to the European Parliament
section_title: Eligibility
hierarchical_section_title: Elections to the European Parliament / Eligibility
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Logo der Europawahl 2014 English: Logo of the European Parliament election, 2014|European Elections 2014
context_page_description: Elections to the European Parliament take place every five years by universal adult suffrage, and with more than 400 million people eligible to vote, it is considered the second largest democratic elections in the world.
  Until 2019, 751 MEPs were elected to the European Parliament, which has been directly elected since 1979. Since the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU in 2020, the number of MEPs, including the president, has been 705. No other EU institution is directly elected, with the Council of the European Union and the European Council being only indirectly legitimated through national elections. While European political parties have the right to campaign EU-wide for the European elections, campaigns still take place through national election campaigns, advertising national delegates from national parties.
context_section_description: Each Member State has different rules determining who can vote for and run as the European Parliamentary candidates. In Spain v United Kingdom, the European Court of Justice held that member states are permitted to extend the franchise to non-EU citizens.
  Every EU citizen residing in an EU country of which he/she is not a national has the right to vote and to stand as a candidate in European Parliamentary elections in his/her country of residence, under the same conditions as nationals of that country - this right is enshrined in Article 39 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. In addition, the right to vote is included in Articles 20(1) and 22(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. To this extent all EU countries keep electoral registers containing the names of all eligible voters in the specific region, to which eligible newcomers to the area can apply at any time to have their names added. EU citizens are then eligible to vote for the duration of their stay in that country.
  It is therefore possible for a person to have the choice of voting in more than one EU member state. For example, a Portuguese citizen who studies at university in France and lives at home outside term-time in the family home in the Netherlands has the option of voting in the European Parliamentary election in France, Portugal or the Netherlands. In this scenario, although the Portuguese citizen qualifies to vote in three EU member states, he/she is only permitted to cast one vote in one of the member states.
caption: Logo and slogan of the European Parliament election 2014: Act. React. Impact.
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