The foundation of democracy is citizens’ participation in elections.
Turnout at EP elections has been slowly decreasing since 1979. The previous EP elections, in 2014, had record low turnout: with only 42.6% of the electorate from the 28 Member States. This weakens our democracy because parliamentarians have fewer citizens backing them with their direct vote.
Over the last decade, citizens feel increasingly far away from the politicians that should represent them and often the media and public opinion at the national level refer to the EU institutions in Brussels as disconnected from people’s interests.
1979
was the year when the first EP direct elections were held
42.6%
was the vote turnout in 2014, a record low
705
MEPs will be elected for the period 2019-2014
In fact, the European Parliament (EP) is the only body of elected politicians at the EU level and its budgetary and law-making powers have grown over the last 30 years to be a real power side by side to the European Commission (the body of officers and specialists) and the European Council (the body representing Member States)
Additionally, legislation passed in the EP is increasingly more often being adopted at the national level by Member States. This shows a clear connection between the work done at the EU and national levels.
The following EP facts provide examples of the significance of the work of the current parliamentarians:

Thanks to the initiative “Equal pay for equal work at the same place”, EU mobile workers are being paid fairly.
The EU’s “Fund for European Aid to the most Deprived” supports the poorest and most vulnerable people with 3.8 billion euro invested in the period 2014 to 2020.


Thanks to Erasmus+, employees from several European Caritas organisations have benefitted from exchanges on improved training schemes.
Thanks to the EU, you can transfer social benefits, such as your pension, to another EU country.


A big part of the EU budget flows back into the Member States, among others, to support social projects run by organisations, like Caritas.
Even after public attention is gone, the EU keeps providing humanitarian aid to “forgotten crises”, such as the conflict in Ukraine and the food crisis in the Sahel.
