Reform in European Union Elections

Have a little read: ... Reform in European Union Elections The first election to the European Parliament was in 1979 under a non-uniformed voting system. This was because at the point of the 1st election there was still no decision on the system that would be used by all countries, so it was decided as a temporary measure that all countries would just use decide on their own voting system to elect their representative. Since the 1st election there have been attempts to reform the system, there were proposals that were blocked in 1783, 98 and 1999. Because keeping in line with the Treaty of Rome a voting system would have to be decided by the council unanimously. The exact wording from the treaty is: "the Assembly shall draw up proposals for election by direct universal suffrage in accordance with a uniform procedure in member states. The council shall, acting unanimously, lay down the appropriate procedures which shall recommend to the member states for adoption in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements". But still you would imagine that by now after 22 years that there would have been a consensus, it doesn't seen that way and it doesn't look as though anything is likely to happen anytime in the very near future either. Well considering that it took 16 years to decide on what format the elections should take then you can hardly be surprised. The voting systems used by the countries in the European Union are not necessarily the same systems that they use for the elections to their own parliamentary elections. Take France, for the EP elections they have employed a form of PR that takes the country as 1 large constituency and the votes are allocated in accordance to the percentage that the party receives. The system applies a 5% threshold in order to suppress smaller extremist parties. In comparison for their parliamentary elections they have a more complex system where the country is divided in to single member constituencies and the voting is held in 2 rounds over 2 different days in order to eliminate candidates. In Germany they use a version of PR, the Additional Member System, which is fundamentally a combination of First Past the Post and the List System. Whereas in their European elections they use a similar system to France. Greece, Spain, Portugal, Luxemburg, Austria, Denmark, Finland and Sweden all use a form of the list system involving one large constituency for their European elections in comparison to using systems with smaller constituencies for their national elections. Britain has stark contrasts between the systems it uses, not only they are different systems but they are completely different principals. For the parliamentary elections (and every other election in Britain) the system of First Past the Post is used whereas the elections for the EP are under a system of PR, the List System. So what exactly do the systems entail, what are their advantages and disadvantages? And is there a system out there that could prove to be the ideal for the European Parliament elections? I intend to spend a bit of time examining the systems that are currently in use in the European Union, not just the ones that are used for the