REPORT on the proposal for a Council directive laying down detailed arrangements for the exercise of the right to vote and stand as a candidate in elections to the European Parliament for Union citizens residing in a Member State of which they are not nationals (recast) – A10-0090/2025

EXPLANATORY STATEMENT

Pursuant to Article 20(2)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), Article 22(2) TFEU and Article 39 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (CFREU), EU citizens residing in an EU Member State other than their own are entitled to vote and stand as candidates in European and municipal elections, under the same conditions as nationals.

 

Nearly 13.7 million EU citizens – of whom about 11million are of voting age – reside in a Member State other than that of their nationality. Detailed provisions on the political rights granted under EU citizenship are set out in Council Directive 93/109/EC regarding the participation of non-national Union citizens in European Parliament elections in their country of residence.

 

Despite the arrangements under Directive 93/109/EC, non-national Union citizens still face certain obstacles in exercising their electoral rights in elections to the European Parliament. These concern the accessibility of information, the registration processes, the effects of deregistration in the Member State of origin and the exchange of information between Member States with the aim of preventing multiple voting.

 

Your rapporteur thus welcomes the proposed revision of Directive 93/109/EC as provided in the Council draft of 16 September 2024. In his viewpoint, the amended proposal by the Council strikes the right balance between on the one hand mobile voters’ and candidates’ needs for timely information, equal treatment with nationals of Member States – including regarding possibilities of advance voting, postal voting, and electronic and internet voting available in a Member State – and the administrative burden on Member States’ national authorities on the other hand.

 

He is also of the opinion that the Council draft improves at the same time the exchange of necessary information between Members States in order to avoid multiple voting or instances where the same person would stand as a candidate more than once at the same elections, and introduces concrete reporting and data collecting and sharing obligations regarding the application of this Directive in the territory of the Member States thus permitting for the identification of measures necessary to ensure the effective exercise of Union citizens’ electoral rights.

 

Your rapporteur would therefore propose that the Council draft be approved with no amendments.

 

 

ANNEX: ENTITIES OR PERSONS FROM WHOM THE RAPPORTEUR HAS RECEIVED INPUT

The rapporteur declares under his exclusive responsibility that he did not receive input from any entity or person to be mentioned in this Annex pursuant to Article 8 of Annex I to the Rules of Procedure.

 

 

 

ANNEX: LETTER FROM THE COMMITTEE ON LEGAL AFFAIRS

8.11.2022

 

Mr Salvatore De Meo

Chair

Committee on Constitutional Affairs

BRUSSELS

Subject: Opinion on Proposal for a directive of the Council laying down detailed arrangements for the exercise of the right to vote and stand as a candidate in elections to the European Parliament for Union citizens residing in a Member State of which they are not nationals (recast) (COM2021(0372) – C9‑0021/2022 – 2021/0372(CNS))

Dear Mr Chair,The Committee on Legal Affairs has examined the proposal referred to above pursuant to Rule 110 on Recasting of Parliament’s Rules of Procedure.

Paragraph 3 of that Rule reads as follows:

 

“If the committee responsible for legal affairs considers that the proposal does not entail any substantive changes other than those identified as such in the proposal, it shall inform the committee responsible for the subject matter thereof.

 

In such a case, over and above the conditions laid down in Rules 180 and 181, amendments shall be admissible within the committee responsible for the subject-matter only if they concern those parts of the proposal which contain changes.

 

However, amendments to parts of the proposal which remain unchanged may, by way of exception and on a case-by-case basis, be accepted by the Chair of the committee responsible for the subject matter if he or she considers that this is necessary for pressing reasons relating to the internal logic of the text or because the amendments are inextricably linked to other admissible amendments. Such reasons must be stated in a written justification to the amendments.”

 

Following the here attached opinion of the Consultative Working Party of the Legal Services of the Parliament, the Council and the Commission, which has examined the recast proposal, and in keeping with the recommendations of the Rapporteur, the Committee on Legal Affairs considers that the proposal in question does not include any substantive changes other than those identified as such and that, as regards the codification of the unchanged provisions of the earlier act with those substantive amendments, the proposal contains a straightforward codification of the existing text, without any change in its substance.

In conclusion, at its meeting of 27 October 2022, the Committee on Legal Affairs, with 21 votes in favour, no votes against and two abstentions[2] decided to recommend that the Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO), as the committee responsible, proceed to examine the above proposal in accordance with Rule 110.

 

Yours sincerely,

Adrián Vázquez Lázara

ANNEX: OPINION OF THE CONSULTATIVE WORKING PARTY OF THE LEGAL SERVICES OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL AND THE COMMISSION

Brussels, 7 July 2022

OPINION

 FOR THE ATTENTION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

  THE COUNCIL

  THE COMMISSION

Proposal for a Council directive laying down detailed arrangements for the exercise of the right to vote and stand as a candidate in elections to the European Parliament for Union citizens residing in a Member State of which they are not nationals (recast)

COM(2021)0732 of 25 November 2022 – 2021/0372(CNS)

Having regard to the Inter-institutional Agreement of 28 November 2001 on a more structured use of the recasting technique for legal acts, and in particular to point 9 thereof, the Consultative Working Party consisting of the respective legal services of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission met on 1 February 2022 for the purpose of examining, among others, the aforementioned proposal submitted by the Commission.

 

At that meeting[3], an examination of the proposal for a Council Directive recasting Council Directive 93/109/EC of 6 December 1993 laying down detailed arrangements for the exercise of the right to vote and stand as a candidate in elections to the European Parliament for citizens of the Union residing in a Member State of which they are not nationals resulted in the Consultative Working Party’s establishing, by common accord, as follows.

1. The following should have been marked with the grey-shaded type generally used for identifying substantive amendments:

– in recital 5, the adding of the words ‘in accordance with principles common to all Member States’;

– in Article 3, introductory wording, the deletion of the words ‘Any person who’ and the adding of the words ‘The following persons’;

– in Article 3, point (a), the adding of the words ‘the person who’;

– in Article 3, point (b), the adding of the words ‘the person who’.

2. In recital 5, the words ‘Article 20(2) TFEU’ should be replaced by ‘Article 22(2) TFEU’.

 

In consequence, examination of the proposal has enabled the Consultative Working Party to conclude, without dissent, that the proposal does not comprise any substantive amendments other than those identified as such. The Working Party also concluded, as regards the codification of the unchanged provisions of the earlier act with those substantive amendments, that the proposal contains a straightforward codification of the existing legal text, without any change in its substance.

 

 

 

 

 

F. DREXLER  T. BLANCHET  D. CALLEJA CRESPO

Jurisconsult  Jurisconsult  Director-General

 

LETTER OF THE COMMITTEE ON CIVIL LIBERTIES, JUSTICE AND HOME AFFAIRS (20.3.2025)

Mr Sven Simon

Chair

Committee on Constitutional Affairs

BRUSSELS

Subject: Opinion on the Proposal for a Council Directive laying down detailed arrangements for the exercise of the right to vote and to stand as a candidate in elections to the European Parliament for Union citizens residing in a Member State of which they are not nationals (recast) (2021/0372 (CNS) – COM(2021)0732 – C10‑0001/2024 – LIBE/10/00399)

Dear Mr Simon,

Under the procedure referred to above, the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE Committee) has been asked to submit an opinion to your committee. At their meeting of 6 March 2025, the LIBE Committee coordinators decided to send the opinion in the form of a letter pursuant to Rule 57(1) of the Rules of Procedure. The LIBE Committee discussed the matter at its meeting[4] of 19 March and adopted the opinion at that meeting.

The Parliament adopted its position in the above consultation procedure on 14 February 2023 by a large majority of the votes cast. The LIBE Committee, as opinion giving committee, issued its opinion to the report of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO Committee), as committee responsible, on 26 October 2022, also by a large majority of its members. On 16 May 2024, the Council decided to re-consult the Parliament on the text agreed by the Council. The LIBE Committee decided to support the recommendation from the rapporteur for opinion that the LIBE Committee sends its views in the form of a letter from the Chair informing the AFCO Committee that it wishes to keep the LIBE Opinion of 26 October 2022 (2021/0372(CNS)), adopted in the consultation procedure of last term. Nevertheless, it takes note of the text agreed by the Council, acknowledging some positive steps taken towards the LIBE opinion.

 

The LIBE Committee, therefore, calls on the AFCO Committee, as committee responsible, to take into account its views.

 

Yours sincerely,

Javier Zarzalejos

ANNEX: ENTITIES OR PERSONS
FROM WHOM THE RAPPORTEUR HAS RECEIVED INPUT

The rapporteur for the opinion declares under her exclusive responsibility that she did not receive input from any entity or person to be mentioned in this Annex pursuant to Article 8 of Annex I to the Rules of Procedure.

 

 

PROCEDURE – COMMITTEE RESPONSIBLE

 

FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL BY THE COMMITTEE RESPONSIBLE

 

 

 

Key to symbols:

+ : in favour

– : against

0 : abstention