Consequently, all member states have direct elections, nominally democratic states that are considered to be "free" or "partly free" according to the criteria of Freedom House. As of 2020, there is no expert consensus on how to classify Hungary's regime type; Freedom House considers it a hybrid regime.[5][6][7] As of 2015, all European Union member states are representative democracies; however, they do not all have the same political system, with most of the differences arising from different historical backgrounds.
Many of the states in the neighbourhood of the European Union are not considered to be "free" by the same criteria.[1] Most European states neighbouring the European Union are considered to be "free" or "partly free" by Freedom House, with the exceptions of Azerbaijan, Belarus and Russia. On the other hand, almost all of the states in North Africa and Southwest Asia that neighbour the European Union are not considered to be "free", with the exceptions of Israel and Tunisia.[1]
At present, there are twelve monarchies in Europe, of which six are members of the European Union: Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden, and six are not: Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Norway, the United Kingdom and the Vatican City. All six monarchies in the European Union are constitutional monarchies. In all six monarchies that are in the EU, the monarch is legally not vested with political power, or the monarch does not utilise the political powers vested in the office by convention. At the dawn of the 20th century, France was the only republic among the future members states of the European Union; the ascent of republicanism to the political mainstream only started at the beginning of the 20th century. In Belgium, the monarchy enjoys a lower degree of support than in other European monarchies, and is often questioned.[8] Popular support for the monarchy has historically been higher in Flanders and lower in Wallonia; however, in recent decades these roles have reversed.[9]
There are three types of government systems in European politics: in a presidential system, the president is the head of state and the head of government; in a semi-presidential system, the president and the prime minister share a number of competences; finally, in a parliamentary republic, the president is a ceremonial figurehead who has few political competences. As with the definition of constitutional monarchies, sometimes the president does have non-ceremonial competences, but does not use them by constitutional convention; this is the case in Austria, for instance.
A further distinction is the number of chambers in the national legislature; unicameral systems with one chamber or bicameral ones with a lower house and an upper house. Federations and countries with strong regional differences or regional identities are normally bicameral, to reflect the regions' interests in national bills. The states with the larger populations, from the Netherlands upwards, all have a bicameral system. Although there is a greater mix among the smaller states (some influenced by their federalist structure), the smallest states are on the whole unicameral.
While there had been legislatures with more than two chambers (tricameral and tetracameral ones), nowadays there are only unicameral and bicameral ones. Additionally, there are also differences in the degree of bicameralism. Whereas Italy is considered as having "perfect bicameralism", with both chambers being equal, most other bicameral systems restrict the upper house's powers to a certain extent. There is a slight trend towards unicameralism; some upper houses have seen their powers reduced or proposals to that end. Belgium's system has been reduced from a perfectly bicameral one to a nowadays de facto unicameral system. In 2009, Romania voted in favour of unicameralism, on a plebiscite, however the country still has a bicameral system, as of 2024. On the other hand, Ireland narrowly voted against abolishing their upper house in 2013, and Italy voted not to reduce its Senate's powers in 2016.
VII^ : In addition to the 315 elected members, there are currently five senators for life (senatore a vita); these include former Italian President, who is ex officio senator for life, as well as senators appointed by the President "for outstanding patriotic merits in the social, scientific, artistic or literary field". There can only be five appointed senators in addition to the ex officio ones at any one time.
VIII^ : Technically, the House of Representatives only has 65 members; the additional two seats are overhang seats to ensure a majority of MPs for the party which gained the most votes in the 2017 election.
IX^ : The name Zgromadzenie Narodowe is only used on the rare occasions when both houses sit together.
^Körösényi, András; Illés, Gábor; Gyulai, Attila (15 April 2020). The Orbán Regime: Plebiscitary Leader Democracy in the Making. Routledge. p. 16. ISBN978-0-429-62441-4. This colourful and wide picture of labelling shows not only the inventive imagination of scholars, but also the lack of scholarly consensus on how to characterise the contemporary regime that has emerged in Hungary
^Drinóczi, Tímea; Bień-Kacała, Agnieszka (2021). Illiberal Constitutionalism in Poland and Hungary: The Deterioration of Democracy, Misuse of Human Rights and Abuse of the Rule of Law. Routledge. pp. 18, 21. ISBN978-1-032-00730-4. Political scientists call the Hungarian political system a hybrid regime, standing between democracy and authoritarianism, a diffusely defective democracy, and a plebiscitary leader democracy. Lately, Freedom House has labelled Hungary as a transitional or hybrid regime (based on its democracy score).
^Boda, Zsolt; Szúcs, Zoltán Gábor (2021). "When Illiberalism Meets Neoliberalism: State and the Social Sciences in Present Hungary". Political Science in the Shadow of the State: Research, Relevance, Deference. Springer International Publishing. pp. 203–230 [208]. ISBN978-3-030-75918-6. By now there is widespread agreement on the fact that Hungary is not a democracy anymore (as reflected in the conclusions of V-Dem, Freedom House and a range of global democracy barometers).
