The 14th legislature of Spanish democracy concluded on May 30 with the call for early elections and an important European decision in the pipeline: the legal changes to apply the Council's decision in 2018 to reform the Electoral Act, which since 1976 has established how elects the deputies of the European Parliament.
Among the changes it introduces is the obligation to set a minimum electoral threshold of between 2% and 5% of the votes for all constituencies that, as is the case in Spain, distribute more than 35 seats. This change will have direct effects on the eligibility of some political parties, especially those regionalist or nationalist parties that do not run throughout Spanish territory. And, as La Vanguardia has learned, the PNV is already negotiating in Madrid on this issue.
Time is of the essence on a national, but also European, scale. Spain is, today, the only country of the Twenty-Seven that has not done its homework, and the reform, which was expected to be applied in the European elections in June next year, will not come into force until all member states adopt it. . This summer, three countries remained to make changes to their respective electoral laws to apply the European reform: Germany, which concluded the procedure in July; Cyprus, whose Parliament votes on the new law on Thursday, and, finally, Spain, where the political situation makes it impossible to know when the tab will be moved and the organic law of the General Electoral Regime will be reformed.
Article 3 of the text approved in 2018 effectively establishes minimum thresholds for the allocation of seats, but also a relatively wide range (between 2% and 5%) on which each State must decide. Whether the lower or upper part of this range is finally chosen will determine the European future of some formations.
The issue is already among the negotiating priorities of the PNV, a group that claims its pro-European character and gives absolute importance to maintaining its representation in the European Parliament. In the 2019 European elections, the Coalition for a Europe of Solidarity (CEUS), in which it participated alongside groups such as the Canarian Coalition or Geroa Bai, obtained 2.85% of the votes, so that, with the new regulations, only would have achieved representation if it had been decided to bring the minimum threshold to the lower part of that range of 2% to 5%. Now, the political moment, with the negotiation for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez wide open, offers him a particularly favorable opportunity to seek a legal reform favorable to his interests.
The Jeltzales, obviously, are not the only ones interested in opting for a minimum threshold away from 5%. Junts, Esquerra, EH Bildu and the BNG opted in 2019 for formulas that gave them significant percentages of the vote: Lliures per Europa (list led by Carles Puigdemont) obtained 4.59%, and the Ahora Repúblicas coalition (ERC, Bildu and BNG) achieved 5.64%. However, it is not in their best interest to risk representation thresholds close to 5%.
These formations could also negotiate that the thresholds that are introduced in the Spanish regulations are not executed until the European elections of 2029, taking advantage of the wording of the text itself (it indicates that “at the latest” they would be executed in the second elections after their approval) and adding a transitional provision in this regard. In any case, whatever solution they choose, it is evident that these groups will have a lot to say about a reform that Europe is eagerly awaiting to clarify on what legal basis the 2024 European elections will be held.
Meanwhile, it so happens that in the period of time that has passed since the approval of the 2018 reform, another proposal to reform the European Act has been promoted. This new modification, for which MEP Domènec Ruiz Devesa (PSOE) is the rapporteur, also includes minimum thresholds – a demand that was of particular interest to Germany – although it presents them in other terms.
The text establishes that in states that elect more than 60 MEPs – this is the case of Spain, which in the next legislature will go from 59 to 61 – an eligibility threshold of between 3.5% and 5% will be applied. But it also includes a caveat: "The aforementioned thresholds (...) will be understood without prejudice to the exemptions provided for in national law for political parties or groups of voters that represent recognized national or linguistic minorities."
In any case, the prospects of this new proposal being approved and coming into force before the next European elections, scheduled for June 9, are zero, according to different sources consulted. The European Parliament has given the green light to the initiative, but the ball is now in the court of the Council, where it has had a frosty reception. Ruiz Devesa's proposal is much more ambitious than that of 2018 and aims, for example, to create trans-European lists and institutionalize the spitzenkandidaten system so that the political groups of the European Parliament are the ones that determine who can be the president of the European Commission. , a prerogative that is currently in the hands of governments, which strongly resist giving it up.
The most realistic perspective, European sources point out, is that the 2018 reform comes into force at some point and those rules govern the conditions for holding the European elections for a time.
The European Parliament would have wanted the reform to be used already in the 2019 elections, but the member states have been very slow. Eight months before the European elections, however, only one country would prevent it from being applied. If Spain does not reform its organic law of the General Electoral Regime in time, in the absence of the Cypriot vote this week, the next European elections will be held, at European level, on the basis of current legislation, without the improvements brought by the reform.
