Few EU expats to vote locally in June elections
Since the introduction of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, EU citizens residing in other member states have been entitled to vote in elections to the European Parliament. But in 20 of the 27 countries, only a few of them have registered to do so, EurActiv has learned.In Poland, only 313 foreigners have registered to vote in the EU elections in June, Polish national radio reported: a mere 3% of the 10,000 EU citizens who have taken up permanent residency in the country. In Greece, the situation is slightly more positive. 6,505 citizens have registered, out of 140,000 identified in the last census in 2001, according to Interior Ministry figures. Belgium, home to the European institutions, does not fare much better, as just 11.18% of EU citizens living there have registered to vote (66,203 out of 592,390), according to the country's electoral office. The situation is similar in Sweden, whose electoral authority, Valmyndigheten, noted two weeks before the list's closing date that 219,000 foreign EU citizens of voting age reside in the country. But of these, only 37,000 had taken up their right to vote there.
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