CYIL vol. 11 (2020)

CYIL 11 (2020) HAVE EU CITIZENS A RIGHT TO BECOME MEMBERS OF NATIONAL POLITICAL PARTIES? part in neither the designation of delegates who can vote in a parliamentary assembly nor the election of the members of that assembly.” 19 To sum up, Directive 94/80/EC on municipal elections respects the fact that municipal elections are a national matter (unlike elections to the European Parliament) and it extends in no way political rights of Union citizens. When it comes to the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), it is only of limited applicability for the issue in question. There is no case law concerning the right of Union citizens to vote and to stand as a candidate in municipal elections. It is, presumably, because Member States consider municipal elections to be associated with their national identity and the interpretation of electoral rules to be a matter of national courts rather than the CJEU. It was apparently also the case of the Czech Supreme Administrative Court judgment (see infra ). As to the CJEU case law on the elections to the European Parliament, some judgments have been given. In C-145/04 Spain v UK 20 , the Court of Justice ‘Grand Chamber’ interpreted the right to vote to the European Parliament extensively when holding that the United Kingdom might confer the right not only on citizens of the United Kingdom but also on “Commonwealth citizens” who were not Union citizens but had a close link with the United Kingdom. However, this conclusion may be deemed outdated because Article 190(1) TEC which was in force at that time laid down that “[t]he representatives in the European Parliament of the peoples of the States brought together in the Community shall be elected by direct universal suffrage.” (bolded by the author). On the contrary, the current wording of the Treaty on European Union stipulates clearly in Article 14(2) that the European Parliament shall be “composed of representatives of the Union’s citizens .” (bolded by the author). In C-300/04 Eman  21 , delivered on the same day as the Spain v UK judgment, the Court of Justice ‘Grand Chamber’ underlined the importance of the principle of equal treatment. Two Netherlands nationals, both residents in Aruba (an overseas territory of the Netherlands), appealed against the rejection of their application for registration for the elections to the European Parliament. The Court of Justice ruled that the Community law did not define expressly and precisely who were entitled to the right to vote and to stand as candidates for the EP. As a result, “the definition of the persons entitled to vote and to stand for election falls within the competence of each Member State in compliance with Community law.” 22 But, under the Netherlands Electoral Law, the Netherlands nationals resident in a non- member country had a right to vote and to stand as a candidate in the EP elections, whereas Dutch nationals resident in the Netherlands Antilles or Aruba had not. The Court of Justice concluded that “the principle of equal treatment prevents, however, the criteria chosen from resulting in different treatment of nationals who are in comparable situations, unless that difference in treatment is objectively justified.” 23

19 Article 5(4). 20 C-145/04 Kingdom of Spain v United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, ECLI:EU:C:2006:543. The case is a follow-up of another case decided by the European Court of Human Rights Matthews v United Kingdom , application No 24833/94, judgment of 18 February 1999. 21 C-300/04 M.G.EmanandO.B.SevingervCollegevanburgemeesterenwethoudersvanDenHaag ,ECLI:EU:C:2006:545.

22 Para 45 of Eman judgment. 23 Para 61 of Eman judgment.

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