Like so much else in the European Union, going to the polls to choose an EU Parliament is a complicated compromise. Actually, EU law says that voting procedures for the European Parliament must be the same in all member countries. But that is still not the case, 30 years after the first directly elected parliament.

Each EU country continues to exercise its own voting procedures and has its own nominating process for choosing candidates. The only common aspect they share is proportional representation, which is mandatory in all member states.