| Popis: |
Article 22 TFEU governs voting rights procedures for EU citizens in municipal and EP elections (attributed to Article 20.2 (b) TFEU). This law’s principal aim is to facilitate integration in the host country of those who take advantage of free movement, allowing them to participate in the political process at the local level and to take part in the selection of members of Parliament: the core principle is in fact the State’s obligation to extend to nationals of other MS residing therein the same voting access conditions their own citizens enjoy—not to influence the national electoral process to increase the rate of democracy. It is a right which can therefore be considered to be aimed to promote the right set out in Article 21 TFEU, and which constitutes the fulfillment of a process that began many years before the establishment of European citizenship, in the context of free movement and establishment. Nevertheless, the provision of voting rights to EU citizens has major political and sociological implications because it has affected the State’s hitherto exclusive competence in determining their own electorate and it has laid the groundwork for the direct political relationship between the citizen and the EU, leading to a “tendency toward denationalization of the political representation in the European Parliament.” |
