Evropské volby v proměnách času : politika volebních reforem EU

The present publication will focus on two main objectives, namely the historical background and the political context of the politics of electoral reform within the EU, and the (political) analysis of current rules settings for the election of MEPs. Election rules are viewed as a dependent variable, because they're often the subject of political decisions made by selfish political actors who tend to make decisions in their own interest. Thus, attention was paid to exploring the three crucial aspects of this issue. Firstly, the development of historical debates dealing with ways in which the European Parliament was established, from the 1950s to the present, were summarised. This is followed by a comprehensive analysis of the current set of rules for the European Parliament elections across each of the European Union Member States to examine how unanimous the rules for the election of MEPs are following the 2002 Council Decision establishing common principles for European elections. Secondly, the European Parliament's composition in terms of territorial representation, and therefore, in terms of the size of the representation (number of MEPs) of each EU Member State in the European Parliament, was analysed. Finally, it sums up the current debate taking place in the context of the EU politics of electoral reform, whereby the essence is a proposal to introduce transnational lists within a pan-European constituency for the election of part of MEPs.