Italy’s Central Directorate for Electoral Services takes a small step towards political parties’ legal status at a European level contributing to the debate on the nature of the European Parliament

This paper comments on the Ufficio Elettorale Nazionale della Corte di Cassazione (Italian Court of Cassation’s Central Directorate for Electoral Services) decision to allow participation in the European elections, without collecting signatures for a list minus European Members of Parliament elected in Italy, when a party is affiliated to a European political party represented in parliament. The Central Directorate for Electoral Services justified its decision on the basis of Italian constitutional law and European law, in particular concluding that every citizen “is therefore part of one single European electoral body.” This paper comments on this decision with reference to the well-known German Federal Constitutional Court ruling dated June 30th, 2009 on the Lisbon Treaty and the recent decisions challenging the legality of the minimum threshold for participation in the allocation of seats.