Only six EU member states including Malta have rules that disenfranchise voters who live abroad, but from a European Commission breakdown of the state of affairs across the bloc Malta appears to have the most draconian rules on the thorny issue.

Maltese citizens are disenfranchised unless they have resided in the country for at least six months within the last 18 preceding their registration to vote. Close behind is Cyprus, whose rules disenfranchise voters if they have not resided in the country during the six months preceding the election, but those temporarily residing abroad as students, workers or permanently residing abroad for health reasons are exempt.

The information was made available following a parliamentary question raised by Irish MEP Jim Higgins, who asked the European Commission for its view on the fact that many of its own civil servants who are responsible for proposing European legislation have no vote at all in any national election because of the above voting restrictions.

Commissioner Vivian Reding, in reply, said the Commission had announced, in its 2010 EU Citizenship report, that it would launch a discussion to identify options so as to prevent that nationals of certain EU member states lose the right to take part in national elections as a consequence of exercising their right to free movement.

In June 2011, the Commission wrote to the member states concerned indicating that disenfranchisement may constitute an obstacle to the effective exercise of this fundamental EU right, and invited the member states “to share their ideas on how to find a reasonable solution to this issue”.

“Moreover,” she explained, “the Commission recently launched a wide reaching public consultation on EU citizenship, ‘Your Rights, Your Future’, in which it also asked the opinion of respondents on disenfranchisement.

“Taking into account the results of this public consultation and the outcome of the dialogue with member states, the Commission will decide on further steps to be taken in this matter.”

Rules, she said, vary with regard to the arrangements in national legislations under which the nationals of the individual member states are disenfranchised.

She added that the Commission does not dispose of data on the number of people employed by the EU institutions who may have been deprived of the right to vote in the national elections of their member state of origin as such information concerns the individual situation of staff members.

 

Malta

Maltese nationals are disenfranchised unless they have resided there for at least six months, within the 18 months period preceding their registration to vote

 

Denmark

Danes residing abroad are disenfranchised unless they express their wish to return in the country within two years

 

Ireland

Rules are similar in Ireland to those in Denmark, except that a time limit is fixed at 18 months

 

UK

UK nationals are disenfranchised if they have not been registered as residents in the country for the past 15 years

 

Cyprus

Cypriot nationals are disenfranchised if they have not resided in the country during the six months preceding the elections (unless they are temporarily residing abroad as students, workers or permanently residing abroad for health reasons.)

 

Austria

Austrian nationals residing abroad are disenfranchised unless they lodge an application to maintain their voting rights and re-apply every 10 years; due to recent legislative changes

 

Hungary

Hungarian nationals residing abroad were once but are no longer disenfranchised