The European Council on Friday decided to bring forward the period of the next European Parliament's
elections from June 5-8 to May 22-25, 2014.
This follows the positive opinion of the European Parliament given on May 21. The main objective of advancing the electoral period is to ensure optimal conditions for the elections and to strengthen the European Parliament's legitimacy, the European Council said in a press release.
It also responds to a request by the European Parliament, which asked to bring forward the date of the election to May so that it can better organize itself to expedite the election of the new Commission President and avoid the beginning of the summer vacation in several member states.
The originally set election period coincides with the week-end of Pentecost, a period which in many member states is part of school holidays. The Electoral Act enables the Council, after consulting the European Parliament, to unanimously determine another electoral period if it proves impossible to hold the European Parliament elections during the "default" period. However, the new electoral period may not be more than two months before or one month after the period foreseen by the Electoral Act.
In the past, the Council decided on two occasions to change the electoral period of the European Parliament (for the 1984 and 1989 elections).
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