The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union, it adopts European legislation, following a proposal by the European Commission. The Parliament is composed of 720 members (MEPs), after the June 2024 European elections, from a previous 705 MEPs. It represents the second-largest democratic electorate in the world, with an electorate of around 375 million eligible voters in 2024.
The Left in the European Parliament – GUE/NGL is a left-wing political group of the European Parliament established in 1995. Before January 2021, it was named the European United Left/Nordic Green Left.
Euroscepticism, also spelled as Euroskepticism or EU-scepticism, is a political position involving criticism of the European Union (EU) and European integration. It ranges from those who oppose some EU institutions and policies and seek reform, to those who oppose EU membership and see the EU as unreformable. The opposite of Euroscepticism is known as pro-Europeanism.
Greece is a parliamentary representative democratic republic, where the President of Greece is the head of state and the Prime Minister of Greece is the head of government within a multi-party system. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the Hellenic Parliament. Between the restoration of democracy in 1974 and the Greek government-debt crisis, the party system was dominated by the liberal-conservative New Democracy and the social-democratic PASOK. Since 2012, the anti-austerity, democratic socialist party Syriza has taken the place of PASOK as the largest left wing party, with their first election victory in January 2015.
Politics in North Macedonia occur within the framework of a parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the Prime Minister is the head of government, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and parliament. The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. The Economist Intelligence Unit rated North Macedonia a "flawed democracy" in 2022.
The Coalition of the Left, of Movements and Ecology, commonly known as Synaspismos and abbreviated to SYN (ΣΥΝ), was a Greek political party of the radical New Left. It was founded in 1991 and was known as the Coalition of the Left and Progress until 2003. In 2004 SYN was a founding member of the Party of the European Left.
The EDEK Socialist Party is a Greek Cypriot nationalist, social-democratic political party in Cyprus.
The Ecologist Greens are a Greek green political party. They are a member of the European Green Party.
Claude Ajit Moraes is a British Labour Party politician and campaigner, who was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for London between 1999 and the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the EU on 31 January 2020. He was chair of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee, deputy leader of the European Parliamentary Labour Party and vice-president of the Socialists and Democrats Group in the European Parliament.
David Martin is a Scottish politician who has served as co-convener of the Citizens' Assembly of Scotland since 2019. A member of the Scottish Labour Party, he was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 1984 to 2019, having first represented the Lothians constituency until 1999 and then for the Scotland constituency. He was the United Kingdom's longest serving MEP and the second longest serving MEP in the whole European Parliament.
A European political party, known formally as a political party at European level and informally as a Europarty, is a type of political party organisation operating transnationally in Europe and within the institutions of the European Union (EU). They are regulated and funded by EU Regulation 1141/2014 on the statute and funding of European political parties and European political foundations, and their operations are supervised by the Authority for European Political Parties and European Political Foundations (APPF).
The Movement for Rights and Freedoms is a centrist political party in Bulgaria with a support base among ethnic minority communities. It was a member of the Liberal International and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE). While representing the interests of Muslims, especially Turks and to a lesser extent Pomaks, the party also receives the largest share of Romani votes.
Elections to the European Parliament take place every five years by universal adult suffrage; with more than 400 million people eligible to vote, they are the second largest democratic elections in the world after India's.
At a national level, Greece holds elections for its legislature, the Hellenic Parliament.
The political structure of the European Union (EU) is similar to a confederation, where many policy areas are federalised into common institutions capable of making law; the competences to control foreign policy, defence policy, or the majority of direct taxation policies are mostly reserved for the twenty-seven state governments. These areas are primarily under the control of the EU's member states although a certain amount of structured co-operation and coordination takes place in these areas. For the EU to take substantial actions in these areas, all Member States must give their consent. Union laws that override State laws are more numerous than in historical confederations; however, the EU is legally restricted from making law outside its remit or where it is no more appropriate to do so at a state or local level (subsidiarity) when acting outside its exclusive competences. The principle of subsidiarity does not apply to areas of exclusive competence.
At the national level, the Republic of Cyprus holds elections for its head of state, the President of Cyprus, and for its legislature, the House of Representatives.
Elections in Lithuania are held to select members of the parliament, the president, members of the municipal councils and mayors, as well as delegates to the European Parliament. Lithuanian citizens can also vote in mandatory or consultative referendums.
Early parliamentary elections were held in Greece on 4 October 2009. Elections were not required until September 2011, but on 2 September 2009 Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis of New Democracy announced that he would request President Karolos Papoulias dissolve Parliament and call elections. Parliament was dissolved on 9 September.
European Parliament elections were held in Greece on 25 May 2014 to elect the 21 Greek members of the European Parliament. The number of seats allocated to Greece declined from 22 to 21, as a result of the 2013 reapportionment of seats in the European Parliament.
An election of the Members of the European Parliament from the Netherlands was held on 22 May 2014. This is the 8th time the elections have been held for the European elections in the Netherlands.
