Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-06-11-Speech-2-139"
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"en.20020611.8.2-139"2
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"Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in my group there are different views about how the system for elections to the European Parliament should be developed, and so the group's members will certainly cast their votes in different ways on the report. My personal view is that the compromise achieved in Council is, as a whole, acceptable, representing as it does a move towards a more homogeneous European electoral system.
The ruling on the incompatibility of membership of the European Parliament and of a national parliament simultaneously was long overdue. What is particularly heartening is that Gibraltarian citizens can at last take part in European elections. I very much hope that the citizens of the candidate countries will be able to vote in the 2004 elections and that the accession negotiations will not be delayed. I am concerned, though, about my government's present activities and I call upon it not to jeopardise the timetable for enlargement.
I wish to address four issues on which my group takes the view that there is an urgent need to change electoral law. Firstly, we reject minimum thresholds as being undemocratic, putting smaller parties at a disadvantage and hampering political pluralism.
Secondly, it is high time that the right to vote in European elections at last ceased to be restricted to EU citizens. It is incomprehensible that people from third countries who have been living and working in our Member States for many years, are still denied the right to vote and stand for election. Why do we not, at last, make an advance towards integration here, especially in view of the menacing increase in hostility towards foreigners in our Member States?
Thirdly, the voting age needs to be reduced. At the end of April, the Council of the European Youth Forum addressed itself to the Convention, calling for the age for voting and standing for office to be reduced to 16. I support this demand by young people and hope that the Youth Convention in July will also put all its weight behind it.
Fourthly, the recitals refer to the equality of men and women as being a problem, and rightly so. I believe it is not acceptable that women make up only some 30% of the Members of this House. It is for the political parties to put men and women on an equal footing by revising their own rules for drawing up the list of candidates."@en1
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