2009 European Parliament election in Italy

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72 seats to the European Parliament
First party Second party Third party   Leader Silvio Berlusconi Dario Franceschini Umberto Bossi Party People of Freedom Democratic Party Northern League Alliance EPP S&D EFD Leader since 18 January 1994 16 February 2009 4 December 1989 Last election 32.4%, 25 seats 31.1%, 24 seats 5.0%, 4 seats Seats won 29 21 9 Seat change 4 3 5 Popular vote 10,797,296 7,999,476 3,126,915 Percentage 35.3% 26.1% 10.2% Swing 2.9% 5.0% 5.2%   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Antonio Di Pietro Pier Ferdinando Casini Richard Theiner Party IdV UDC SVP Alliance ALDE EPP EPP Leader since 4 December 1989 18 January 1994 (as CCD) 18 April 2009 Last election 2.1%, 2 seats 5.9%, 5 seats 0.5%, 1 seat Seats won 5 5 1 Seat change 5 0 0 Popular vote 2,450,643 1,995,021 143,509 Percentage 8.0% 6.5% 0.5% Swing 5.8% 0.6% 0
Major parties in each Province

The 2009 European Parliament election in Italy was held on Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 June 2009, as decided by the Italian government on 18 December 2008.^[1] Italy elected 72 members of the European Parliament (MEPs).

Electoral system

The party-list proportional representation was the traditional electoral system of the Italian Republic from its establishment in 1946 to 1994, therefore it was also adopted to elect the Italian members of the European Parliament (MEPs) since 1979.

Two levels were introduced: a national level to divide the seats among parties and a constituency level to distribute them among candidates in open lists. Five constituencies were established, each including 2–5 regions and each electing a fixed number of MEPs. At national level, seats are divided between party lists using the largest remainder method with Hare quota. Seats are allocated to parties and then to their most voted candidates.

In the run-up of the election, the Italian Parliament has introduced a national threshold of 4% in the electoral law for the European Parliament. An exception was granted for parties representing some linguistic minorities as such lists can be connected with one of the major parties, combining their votes, provided that those parties reach the 4% threshold and that candidates from minority parties obtain a sufficient number of votes, no less than 50,000 for the main candidate.

Main parties and leaders

Outgoing MEPs

This is a list of Italian delegations sitting at the European Parliament before 6 June 2009.

Summary of parties

In the following table the main parties/lists participating in the election are listed.

Results

The parties that passed the national electoral threshold at 4% were The People of Freedom (PdL), Democratic Party (PD), Northern League (LN), Italy of Values (IdV) and Union of the Centre (UdC). This election was a victory for the Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi: the parties supporting his government (The People of Freedom and Northern League) won 38 seats, while the opposition (Democratic Party, Italy of Values and Union of the Centre) obtained 34 seats.

On 1 December 2009, after the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, the Italian seats in the European Parliament increased from 72 to 73. The additional seat was assigned to the Union of the Centre (that went from 5 to 6 seats).

← Summary of the 6 and 7 June 2009 European Parliament election results in Italy →

Party		EP group	Main candidate	Votes	%	+/–	Seats	+/–
	The People of Freedom (PdL)	EPP	Silvio Berlusconi	10,797,296	35.26	1.35	29 / 72	4
	Democratic Party (PD)	S&D	David Sassoli	7,999,476	26.12	4.96	21 / 72	3
	Northern League (LN)	EFD	Umberto Bossi	3,126,181	10.21	5.25	9 / 72	5
	Italy of Values (IdV)	ALDE	Luigi de Magistris	2,450,643	8.00	5.86	7 / 72	5
	Union of the Centre (UdC)	EPP	Ciriaco De Mita	1,995,021	6.51	0.62	5 / 72	0
	Communist Refoundation – Italian Communists (PRC–PdCI)	–		1,037,862	3.39	5.09	0 / 72	7
	Left and Freedom (SeL)	–		957,822	3.13	–	0 / 72	2 [2]
	Bonino-Pannella List (LBP)	–		743,284	2.43	0.18	0 / 72	2
	The Autonomy	–		681,290	2.22	–	0 / 72	1 [3]
	Tricolour Flame (FT)	–		246,403	0.80	0.07	0 / 72	1
	Workers' Communist Party (PCL)	–		166,531	0.54	New	0 / 72	New
	New Force (FN)	–		147,343	0.48	–	0 / 72	0
	South Tyrolean People's Party (SVP)[4]	EPP	Herbert Dorfmann	143,509	0.47	0.02	1 / 72	0
	Liberal Democrats – MAIE (LD–MAIE)	–		71,067	0.23	New	0 / 72	New
	Aosta Valley (VdA)[5]	–		32,913	0.11	–	0 / 72	0
	Autonomy Liberty Democracy (ALD)[6]	–		27,199	0.09	New	0 / 72	New
Valid votes				30,623,840	92.79
Blank and Invalid votes				2,125,164	7.21
Totals				32,749,004	100.00	—	0 / 72	6
Electorate and voter turnout				50,342,153	65.05
Source: Ministry of the Interior