election-watch.eu

Brussels, 6 June 2025: The European Commission published its Report on the 2024 elections to the European Parliament here (COM(2025) 287 final), accompanied by a detailed Staff Working Document here (SWD(2025) 147 final). The documents provide a comprehensive overview of how the elections were conducted, the challenges encountered, and lessons for strengthening democratic resilience across the EU.

Importantly, the Commission’s report explicitly refers to Election-Watch.EU as a source, recognising it’s independent observation efforts and data collection during the 2024 elections. The EC’s reports key take aways are:

• Scale of the elections: Between 6–9 June 2024, more than 180 million citizens voted to elect 720 Members of the European Parliament from 18,400 candidates. Turnout reached 50.74%, broadly stable compared to 2019.

• Citizen concerns: Surveys show strong public concern about disinformation (78%), cyber-attacks (72%), and covert foreign interference (70%).

• Safeguarding integrity: The Commission highlights measures under the European Democracy Action Plan, the 2021 package on electoral integrity, and the 2023 Defence of Democracy package—including new rules on political advertising, the Digital Services Act, and the AI Act.

• Inclusive participation: Efforts were made to increase participation by young people, women, persons with disabilities, and mobile EU citizens. Nonetheless, youth participation remained stagnant compared to 2019.

• Resilient elections: EU and Member State authorities coordinated more closely than ever through the European Cooperation Network on Elections, crisis response structures, and collaboration with stakeholders, including civil society observers.

The Staff Working Document dedicates specific attention to the importance of election observation. It underlines that observation by independent organisations such as Election-Watch.EU provides a critical evidence base for assessing the conduct of elections, identifying risks, and making recommendations to improve future processes. The Commission also stresses that citizen election observation contributes to transparency, public trust, and the resilience of EU democracies. 

The Commission’s acknowledgment confirms the value of independent citizen observation as part of the EU’s democratic architecture. Election-Watch.EU will continue to advocate for the legal recognition of citizen observers in all Member States and to promote reforms that enhance electoral transparency and citizen participation across Europe.