The 2014 European Parliament election in Italy took place on 25 May 2014. Italy elected 73
MEPs
A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament.
When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, it ...
out of 751
European Parliament seats.
The governing
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to:
*Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to:
Active parties Africa
*Botswana Democratic Party
*Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea
*Gabonese Democratic Party
*Demo ...
(PD) won the election with 40.8% of the vote and 31 seats, followed by the
Five Star Movement
The Five Star Movement ( it, Movimento 5 Stelle , M5S) is a political party in Italy. Its leader and president is Giuseppe Conte, Prime Minister of Italy from 2018 until 2021. The M5S was founded on 4 October 2009 by Beppe Grillo, a comedian an ...
(21.2% and 17 seats) and
Forza Italia
Forza ItaliaThe name is not usually translated into English: ''forza'' is the second-person singular imperative of ''forzare'', in this case translating to "to compel" or "to press", and so means something like "Forward, Italy", "Come on, Ital ...
(16.8% and 13 seats). As a result, the PD was the second largest national party in the European Parliament by number of seats after the German
CDU/CSU and the largest among the
Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats
The Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) is the political group in the European Parliament of the Party of European Socialists (PES). The Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats was officially founded as a Socialist ...
. The PD's score was also the best result for an Italian party in a nationwide election since the
1958 general election, when the
Christian Democracy
Christian democracy (sometimes named Centrist democracy) is a political ideology that emerged in 19th-century Europe under the influence of Catholic social teaching and neo-Calvinism.
It was conceived as a combination of modern democratic ...
won 42.4% of the vote.
The other parties that have passed the national electoral threshold at 4% are
Northern League Northern League may refer to:
Sport
Baseball
* Northern League (baseball, 1902–71), a name used by several minor leagues that operated in the upper midwestern U.S. and Manitoba from 1902 to 1971
* Northern League (baseball, 1993–2010), an indep ...
(6.2% and 5 seats),
New Centre-Right – Union of the Centre (4.4% and 3 seats) and
The Other Europe (4.0% and 3 seats). The parties that haven't passed the electoral threshold and that haven't gained any seat are
Brothers of Italy (3.7%),
European Greens – Green Italia
European Greens – Green Italy ( it, Verdi Europei – Green Italia) has been a political alliance in Italy between the Federation of the Greens and Green Italia, constituted for the 2014 European election
The 2014 European Parliament e ...
(0.9%),
European Choice (0.7%),
Italy of Values (0.7%) and
I Change –
Associative Movement Italians Abroad (0.2%).
The 4% threshold can be bypassed by parties representing linguistic minorities, provided they get more than 50,000 votes, in connection with a party gaining more than 4% of the vote. The
South Tyrolean People's Party, representing the
German-speaking minority of
South Tyrol, won a seat thanks to its connection with the PD.
Electoral system
The
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
The Hare quota (also known as the simple quota) is a formula used under some forms of proportional representation. In these voting systems the quota is the number of votes that guarantees a candidate, or a party in some cases, captures a seat. Th ...
. All seats gained by each party were automatically distributed to their local
open lists and their most voted candidates.
In the run-up to the 2009 election, the
Italian Parliament introduced a national
threshold
Threshold may refer to:
Architecture
* Threshold (door), the sill of a door
Media
* ''Threshold'' (1981 film)
* ''Threshold'' (TV series), an American science fiction drama series produced during 2005-2006
* "Threshold" (''Stargate SG-1''), ...
of 4% in the electoral law for the
European Parliament. However, the electoral law guarantees representation for linguistic minorities. The parties which represent minorities can be connected with the major parties for the purpose of elections, combining their votes. If the party of the linguistic minority gets more than 50,000 votes, it wins a seat.
Main parties and leaders
Outgoing MEPs
This is a list of Italian delegations sitting at the European Parliament before 25 May 2014.
Summary of parties
In the following table the twelve parties/lists participating in the election are listed.
Top candidates
In the following table the top candidates of each party/list in the five constituencies are listed. In the case in which the party leader stands in all five of them as top candidate, also the second in the list is shown. The
Five Star Movement
The Five Star Movement ( it, Movimento 5 Stelle , M5S) is a political party in Italy. Its leader and president is Giuseppe Conte, Prime Minister of Italy from 2018 until 2021. The M5S was founded on 4 October 2009 by Beppe Grillo, a comedian an ...
's slates were compiled following the alphabetical order.
Opinion polling
Poll results are listed according to the date of publication of the survey. Detailed data are usually published in the official website of the Italian government. The publication of opinion polls during the last 15 days of the electoral campaign is forbidden by Italian law.
Results
References
{{Italian elections
Italy
European Parliament elections in Italy
2014 elections in Italy