2004 European Parliament election in Italy

Elections to the European Parliament were held in Italy on 12 and 13 June 2004.

2004 European Parliament election in Italy

13 June 2004

78 seats to the European Parliament
  First party Second party Third party
 
Leader Romano Prodi Silvio Berlusconi Gianfranco Fini
Party The Olive Tree Forza Italia National Alliance
Alliance PES / ALDE EPP UEN
Leader since 14 February 2004 18 January 1994 6 July 1991
Last election 32.6% 25.2%
Seats before 28 22 8
Seats won 24 16 9
Seat change 4 6 1
Popular vote 10,105,836 6,806,245 3,736,606
Percentage 31.1% 20.9% 11.5%
Swing 1.5% 4.3%

Major parties in each Province

Italy's highly fragmented party system made it hard to identify an overall trend, but the results were generally seen as a defeat for Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and a victory for the centre-left opposition coalition identified with Romano Prodi, who was President of the European Commission until 2004, and was widely expected to re-enter Italian politics at the next election.

The common list of The Olive Tree, comprising mainly the Democrats of the Left and The Daisy became the largest list, with an important psychological effect. However, expectations for this list were originally somewhat larger, and Massimo D'Alema had proclaimed that "If the unity list reaches 33%, the government has to go".

While the Olive Tree's performance was not as phenomenal as it had hoped, the test indicated a somewhat reduced support for the centre-right coalition. However, in European elections, Italians tend to vote in a more candidate-oriented way, giving their vote more easily to a candidate outside their usual party; this generally reduces the significance of these elections.

Electoral system

The pure party-list proportional representation was the traditional electoral system of the Italian Republic since its foundation in 1946, so it had been adopted to elect the Italian representatives to the European Parliament too. Two levels were used: a national level to divide seats between parties, and a constituency level to distribute them between candidates. Italian regions were united in 5 constituencies, each electing a group of deputies. At national level, seats were divided between party lists using the largest remainder method with Hare quota. All seats gained by each party were automatically distributed to their local open lists and their most voted candidates.

Results

Summary of the 13 June 2004 European Parliament election results in Italy
Party EP group Main candidate Votes % +/– Seats +/–
The Olive Tree
PES
ALDE
PES
PES
ALDE
Lilli Gruber 10,105,836 31.08 1.53 24
12
7
2
2
1

3
4
0
2
New
Forza Italia (FI) EPP-ED Silvio Berlusconi 6,806,245 20.93 4.23 16 6
National Alliance (AN) UEN Gianfranco Fini 3,736,606 11.49 1.19 9 1
Communist Refoundation Party (PRC) GUE/NGL Fausto Bertinotti 1,969,776 6.06 1.79 5 1
Union of Christian and Centre Democrats (UDC) EPP-ED Salvatore Cuffaro 1,914,726 5.89 1.14 5 1
Northern League (LN) IND/DEM Umberto Bossi 1,613,506 4.96 0.48 4 0
Federation of the Greens (FdV) Greens/EFA Sepp Kusstatscher 803,356 2.47 0.71 2 0
Party of Italian Communists (PdCI) GUE/NGL Oliviero Diliberto 787,613 2.42 0.42 2 0
Bonino List (LB) ALDE Emma Bonino 731,536 2.25 6.20 2 5
Italy of Values (IdV) ALDE Antonio Di Pietro 695,179 2.14 New 2 New
United Socialists for Europe (SUE) NI Gianni De Michelis 664,463 2.04 New 2 New
Popular Alliance – UDEUR (AP–UDEUR) EPP-ED Clemente Mastella 419,173 1.29 0.32 1 0
Social Alternative (LdAFN – FSN) NI Alessandra Mussolini 400,626 1.23 New 1 New
Pensioners' Party (PP) EPP-ED Carlo Fatuzzo 374,343 1.15 0.40 1 0
Tricolour Flame (FT) NI Luca Romagnoli 237,058 0.73 0.87 1 0
Italian Republican PartyThe Liberals-Sgarbi (PRI–LS) ALDE 233,144 0.72 0.18 0 1
Segni-Scognamiglio Pact (PSS) None 172,556 0.53 0 1
LALLFVPSd'AzUfS None 160,101 0.49 0 0
Consumers' List (LC) None 160,066 0.49 New 0 New
Abolizione Scorporo (Greens GreensFederalist Greens) None 158,988 0.49 New 0 New
South Tyrolean People's Party (SVP)[1] EPP-ED Michl Ebner 146,357 0.45 0.05 1 0
New Country (PN) None 78,003 0.24 New 0 New
No Euro (NE) None 70,220 0.22 New 0 New
Social Idea Movement (MIS) None 47,171 0.15 New 0 New
Federalism (Valdostan Union – others)[2] None 29,598 0.09 0.04 0 0
Valid votes 32,516,246 91.04
Blank and Invalid votes 3,201,256 8.96
Totals 35,717,655 100.00 78
Electorate and voter turnout 49,804,087 71.72
Source: Ministry of the Interior
Popular vote
Ulivo
31.1%
FI
20.9%
AN
11.5%
PRC
6.1%
UDC
5.9%
LN
5.0%
FdV
2.5%
PdCI
2.4%
Bonino
2.2%
IdV
2.1%
SUE
2.0%
UDEUR
1.3%
AS
1.2%
PP
1.1%
Others
4.7%

Seats

The five constituencies for European elections

Seats are allocated to party lists on a national basis using an electoral quota, with the residue given to the lists with the largest excess over whole quotas. An electoral quota is then calculated for each list and used to allocate seats to each list in each of the five electoral regions.

Electoral RegionAdministrative RegionsSeats
North-WestAosta Valley, Liguria, Lombardy, Piedmont23
North-EastEmilia-Romagna, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Veneto15
CentralLatium, Marche, Tuscany, Umbria16
SouthernAbruzzo, Apulia, Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Molise17
IslandsSardinia, Sicily7

References

  1. List connected with The Olive Tree
  2. List connected with The Olive Tree

See also

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