Croatia's State Election Commission (DIP) on Wednesday reported that all 28 lists submitted for Croatia's first election of its members of the European Parliament were valid.
A total of 27 party lists plus one list of a group of citizens were submitted to DIP for the election of Croatian MEPs, set for 14 April, by midnight on Monday, when the deadline for the delivery of slates for that poll expired.
The election campaign starts today and will last until 13 April when the ban on electioneering before the election day begins.
Of those 27 party lists, 19 slates consist of candidates of a political party, the remaining eight are lists of coalitions, DIP chairman Branko Hrvatin told a news conference in Zagreb today.
A total of 40 political parties with 336 candidates -- 207 men and 129 women -- will run in the poll.
Each of the 28 slates contains 12 names.
By signing the Treaty of Accession to the EU, Croatia undertook to elect its first deputies to the EP in the event that the country joins the Union more than six months before the next regular election for MEPs. Croatia is expected to join the EU on 1 July, 2013.
The election for the incumbent EP was held on 7 June 2009 and its term expires in June 2014. The term of Croatian MEPs begins on the day of Croatia's EU accession.
During the first Croatian election for the European Parliament, Croatian voters will be entitled to a preference vote for the first time. This means that apart from voting for the party of their choice, eligible Croatian voters will have the right also to circle one candidate from the list they prefer.
All lists are available at http://www.izbori.hr.
Currently the EP has 754 seats but as of 1 July, 12 seats for Croatia's new MEPs will bring the number to a total to 766. In order to reduce that number to the limit of 751, it is necessary to reduce the number of seats by 15.
Therefore, the European Parliament recently voted on a proposal on the distribution of seats between Member States for the 2014-2019 parliamentary term in line with the Lisbon Treaty, under which the number of seats is limited to 751, according to a resolution which was adopted with 536 votes for, 111 votes against and with 44 abstentions.
Under the adopted resolution, the proposed solution means that 12 member states - Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal and Romania - would each lose one seat in the next European elections. The reduction of three more seats refers to Germany, whose share must go down from 99 seats to 96, the maximum allowed by the Lisbon Treaty.
This proposal now goes to the heads of state and government in the European Council, who must decide by a unanimous vote.
"The allocation of seats for the 2014-2019 parliamentary term should not be arbitrary but should instead be based on objective criteria to be applied in a pragmatic manner", says the resolution.
