Jo Leinen, Rapporteur. – Madam President, after almost 40 years of direct elections to the European Parliament, today this is the first chance for this House to improve the conditions for participating in these elections. We are improving the conditions for millions of people by introducing a postal vote and by introducing the right to vote in a third country on election day. I might remind you that in Switzerland alone there are 1.4 million EU citizens who probably don’t go home to vote on election day. And there are many more provisions for more transparency and more democracy.

This proposal requires a special legislative procedure: we needed unanimity in the Council – and you know how difficult it is to get unanimity in the Council – and today we need an absolute majority in this House. With my co-rapporteur, Danuta Hübner, after three years of hard work and negotiations, we got 28 Member States to reach consensus on this reform package. I would ask you not to miss the opportunity. We will have to wait a very long time to go back to this proposal again.

Please use this opportunity to have a more open, more inclusive and fairer system for European elections.

(Applause)