What is the method of election in Germany for the European Parliament?
It is basically the same as in our national elections. Each party nominates a list of candidates for the election and the citizens can put their cross next to one of the party. Germany has 99 seats in the EU parliament. These seats are divided proportionally among all parties with more than 5% of the total votes. 5% would be roughly how many votes? There are about 60 million voters, but Germans are not really interested in EU elections so only about 50% of them are going to vote. So that might be round about 1.5 million votes to break the 5%-line. 50% is rather low compared to national or local elections, but the turnout is falling. People here get kind of annoyed with politics. The 60 million figure is about 10 years old, but there is a small difference to the national elections because citizens of other EU countries can register for voting in the EU elections in Germany too. It is a fair number to base things on though. Some say you have little chance of making that 5% barrier, so wh
