ZAGREB, March 26, 2019 – Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović on Tuesday called the election of 12 Croatian deputies to the European Parliament for 26 May.
The decision on calling the election will go into effect after it is published in the National Gazette.
Elections for the European Parliament will be held in all member states of the European Union between 23 and 26 May 2019, as decided by the Council of the European Union. Every five years EU citizens choose who represents them in the European Parliament.
The EP is elected by direct universal suffrage and 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 that 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.
Political groupings in the European Parliament have named their spitzenkandidat, which is German for the lead candidate of a party.
Voters across the European Union will go the polls to select the 705 MEPs to serve in the European Parliament for the next five years.
The number of MEPs for the next five-year is reduced to 705, down from 751 during the 2014-2019 period.
The biggest beneficiaries have been France and Spain, who will both have five extra members in the chamber.
Croatia’s number of seats went up from 11 to 12.
Croatia held its first EP elections on 13 and 14 April 2013, just before it entered the Union on 1 July that year.
More news on the elections in Croatia can be found in the Politics section.
