The lists of candidates for the European elections to be held in Croatia on Sunday 9 June can be submitted from Wednesday. Voters will elect 12 MEPs for the new, 10th European Parliament, which will comprise a total of 720 MEPs for a five-year term.

Proposals for the lists of candidates must be submitted to the State Electoral Commission (DIP) within the next 14 days, by midnight on 23 April.

Political parties that were registered in Croatia on the day the President’s decision to call the elections was published in the National Gazette (15 March) can propose lists of candidates, as can voters, who must collect at least 5,000 signatures for the lists to be valid.

These signatures will be collected on a form prescribed by the DIP for these elections, which will be available on its website from Wednesday.

Coalitions of parties can also propose lists of candidates.

The SDP coalition has already announced who will be on its list

Although the candidacies are just beginning, the SDP coalition has already announced the names that will be on its list, including Biljana Borzan, Tonino Picula, Romana Jerkovic and Predrag Fred-Matic, former members of the European Parliament, as well as MPs Bojan Glavasevic and Dalija Oreskovic, Marko Vesligaj, the mayor of Pregrada, etc.

As the parliamentary election in Croatia will take place on 17 April, it is expected that most of the election proposals will be submitted to the DIP after this date.

In addition to Croatia, 12 Croatian representatives for Brussels will also be elected worldwide, with a total of 46 countries up for election in the 2019 elections. The elections abroad will take place on just one day, not two, as is the case for members of the Croatian parliament.

The Croatian representatives in the European Parliament will be elected according to a proportional representation system with the option of preferential voting. This means that, in addition to a specific list, voters can also vote for a candidate they prefer from this list.

European elections from 6 June to 9 June

The European elections take place over four days, from 6 June to 9 June, as some countries do not traditionally vote on a Sunday, as is the case in most countries. In the Netherlands, for example, voting takes place on Thursdays, in Malta and Slovakia on Saturdays and in the Czech Republic on two days, Friday and Saturday.

The European Union prescribes elections according to the proportional representation system, but the member countries determine the model themselves. There are three types of elections. One of them is preferential voting, which is practised in 19 member countries, including Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, Croatia and the Nordic countries. Depending on the country, a voter can change the order of candidates on the list they vote for, delete candidates or combine several lists.

In this year’s elections, 720 MEPs will be elected, while the outgoing European Parliament has 705 seats. The distribution of seats is laid down in the EU treaties. Countries with larger populations have more seats than countries with smaller populations, but the latter have more seats than they would be entitled to according to strict proportionality. The smallest members each have 6 MEPs, while Germany has the most with 96.

This is the fourth time that Croatia is voting in the European elections. The first time was on 14 April 2013, before it officially joined the EU on 1 July of the same year. At that time, 12 Members of the European Parliament were elected, whose mandate lasted only one year, as regular European elections were held the following year, 2014. The last European elections were held in May 2019.

The European Parliament is the only EU institution that is elected in direct elections. The Parliament passes laws together with the other co-legislator, the Council of the European Union, which is made up of the ministers of the Member countries.