Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic on Tuesday called the election of 12 Croatian representatives to the European Parliament for May 26.
Elections for the European Parliament will be held in all member states of the European Union between May 23 and May 26, as decided by the Council of the European Union.
Every five years EU citizens choose who represents them in the European Parliament.
Croatia held its first EP elections on April 13 and 14, 2013, just before it entered the Union on July 1 that year.
Elections must be based on proportional representation and use either the list system or the single transferable vote system. In some countries, including Croatia, the order on the list may be changed using the transferable (preferential) vote system.
Slates may be submitted by all political parties registered in Croatia, which can run in the election with their own slates or in coalitions. To participate in the election, independent candidates must collect at least 5,000 signatures of voters, and submit them to the State Election Commission within 14 days after the president calls the elections.
Jean-Claude Juncker is the current president of the European Commission, but a group of hopefuls are jostling to succeed him after the May poll, and political groups in the European Parliament have named their spitzenkandidaten.
Voters across the European Union will go the polls to select the MEPs to serve in the European Parliament for the next five years. Due to Brexit, the number of MEPs for the next five-year period was reduced from 751 to 705.
Out of the 73 seats held by the UK, 27 were shared out among EU countries which were under-represented in the EP, while 46 will remain empty, leaving room for possible EU enlargement in the future.
The biggest beneficiaries of the decision have been France and Spain, who will both have five extra members in the chamber, while Croatia’s number of seats went up from 11 to 12.
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