Legal regulation of the universal European election process

Abstract

The study is devoted to the analysis of the main normative legal acts, regulating the holding of elections within the European Union, linked to the evolution of Ukrainian Constitutionalism and the integration of Ukrainian law into the European legal space. It has been proved, that the correct choice of an electoral system creates a suitable environment for the citizens to exercise one of the fundamental democratic rights, namely to elect their authorized representative who in their turn represent their interests. The article states that despite the growing role of the European Parliament, the election procedure has been only partially coordinated due to the lack of the universal election procedure for all EU members. At present some fundamental principles, regulating this procedure, are stipulated by the 1976 Election Law, however a lot of aspects are regulated by the national legal systems. The lack of universal election law for all EU members potentially deprives European elections of a real European dimension. The recent years have witnessed several attempts to reform the EU election system. However not all of them have led to the adoption of relative Directives. In particular, there are disputes regarding the transnational constituency. The supporters believe it to be the step in the right direction, while the opponents express fears that it will increase the distance between the public and its elected representatives. The author points out that the outcomes of the spring 2019 European Parliamentary elections have common features with the outcomes of Parliamentary and local elections in Ukraine. Problems, related to the European Parliament elections in 2019 and existing in Ukraine, have been identified, such as restrictions for the exercise of voting rights by persons with disabilities due to various reasons, the use of digital technologies and related cybersecurity issues in the election process, protection of personal data and so on