2004 European Parliament election in Italy

Italian election of European Parliament, 2004

13 June 2004
78 seats to the European Parliament
First party Second party Third party   Leader Romano Prodi Silvio Berlusconi Gianfranco Fini Party The Olive Tree Forza Italia National Alliance Leader since 14 February 2004 26 January 1994 6 July 1991 Last election 32.6% 25.2% – Seats before 28 22 8 Seats won 24 16 9 Seat change 4 6 1 Popular vote 10,105,836 6,806,245 3,736,606 Percentage 31.1% 20.9% 11.5% Swing 1.5% 4.3% –
Major parties in each Province

Elections to the European Parliament were held in Italy on 12 and 13 June 2004.

Italy's highly fragmented party system made it hard to identify an overall trend, but the results were generally seen as a defeat for Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and a victory for the centre-left opposition coalition identified with Romano Prodi, who was President of the European Commission until 2004, and was widely expected to re-enter Italian politics at the next election.

The common list of The Olive Tree, comprising mainly the Democrats of the Left and Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy became the largest list, with an important psychological effect. However, expectations for this list were originally somewhat larger, and Massimo D'Alema had proclaimed that "If the unity list reaches 33%, the government has to go".

While the Olive Tree's performance was not as phenomenal as it had hoped, the test indicated a somewhat reduced support for the centre-right coalition. However, in European elections, Italians tend to vote in a more candidate-oriented way, giving their vote more easily to a candidate outside their usual party; this generally reduces the significance of these elections.

Electoral system

The pure 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. All seats gained by each party were automatically distributed to their local open lists and their most voted candidates.

Results

Party		European group	Main candidate	Votes	%	+/–	Seats	+/–
	The Olive Tree Democrats of the Left Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy Independent candidates Italian Democratic Socialists European Republicans Movement	PES ALDE PES PES ALDE	Lilli Gruber	10,105,836	31.08	1.53	24
	Forza Italia	EPP-ED	Silvio Berlusconi	6,806,245	20.93	4.23	16	6
	National Alliance	UEN	Gianfranco Fini	3,736,606	11.49	–	9	1
	Communist Refoundation Party	GUE/NGL	Fausto Bertinotti	1,969,776	6.06	1.79	5	1
	Union of Christian and Centre Democrats	EPP-ED	Salvatore Cuffaro	1,914,726	5.89	1.14	5	1
	Lega Nord	IND/DEM	Umberto Bossi	1,613,506	4.96	0.48	4	0
	Federation of the Greens	Greens/EFA	Sepp Kusstatscher	803,356	2.47	0.71	2	0
	Party of Italian Communists	GUE/NGL	Oliviero Diliberto	787,613	2.42	0.42	2	0
	Bonino List	ALDE	Emma Bonino	731,536	2.25	6.20	2	5
	Italy of Values	ALDE	Antonio Di Pietro	695,179	2.14	New	2	New
	United Socialists for Europe	NI	Gianni De Michelis	664,463	2.04	New	2	New
	Popular Alliance – UDEUR	EPP-ED	Clemente Mastella	419,173	1.29	0.32	1	0
	Social Alternative Freedom of Action New Force National Social Front	NI	Alessandra Mussolini	400,626	1.23	New – –	1	New
	Pensioners' Party	EPP-ED	Carlo Fatuzzo	374,343	1.15	0.40	1	0
	Tricolour Flame	NI	Luca Romagnoli	237,058	0.73	0.87	1	0
	Italian Republican Party – The Liberals-Sgarbi Italian Republican Party The Liberals-Sgarbi	ALDE None		233,144	0.72	—	0	1
	Segni-Scognamiglio Pact	None		172,556	0.53	—	0	1
	Lombard Autonomy League – Veneto Front League – Sardinian Action Party – Union for South Tyrol	None		160,101	0.49	—	0	0
	Consumers' List	None		160,066	0.49	New	0	New
	Abolizione Scorporo (Greens Greens – Federalist Greens)	None		158,988	0.49	New	0	New
	South Tyrolean People's Party	EPP-ED	Michl Ebner	146,357	0.45	0.05	1	0
	New Country	None		78,003	0.24	New	0	New
	No Euro	None		70,220	0.22	New	0	New
	Social Idea Movement	None		47,171	0.15	New	0	New
	Federalism (Valdostan Union – others)	None		29,598	0.09	0.04	0	0
Valid votes				32.516.246	91.04
Blank and Invalid votes				3,201,256	8.96
Totals				35,717,655	100.00	—	78	—
Electorate and voter turnout				49,804,087	71.72
Source: Ministry of the Interior

Popular vote
Ulivo			31.08%
FI			20.93%
AN			11.49%
PRC			6.06%
UDC			5.89%
LN			4.96%
FdV			2.47%
PdCI			2.42%
Bonino			2.25%
IdV			2.14%
SUE			2.04%
Others			8.27%

Seats

The five constituencies for European elections

Seats are allocated to party lists on a national basis using an electoral quota, with the residue given to the lists with the largest excess over whole quotas. An electoral quota is then calculated for each list and used to allocate seats to each list in each of the five electoral regions.

Electoral Region	Administrative Regions	Seats
North-West	Aosta Valley, Liguria, Lombardy, Piedmont	23
North-East	Emilia-Romagna, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Veneto	15
Central	Latium, Marche, Tuscany, Umbria	16
Southern	Abruzzo, Apulia, Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Molise	17
Islands	Sardinia, Sicily	7

External links

• European Election News by European Election Law Association (Eurela)

See also

• European Parliament election, 2009 (Italy)