Italian Islands (European Parliament constituency)

In European elections, Italian Islands is a constituency of the European Parliament. It consists of the regions of Sardinia and Sicily.

Italian Islands
European Parliament constituency
Map of the European Parliament constituencies with Italian Islands highlighted in red
Location among the current constituencies
Shown in Italy in red
Member stateItaly
Created1979
MEPs8-6 (2009),
7 (2004),
10 (1999),
10 (1994)
Sources

As in the other Italian constituencies, it has only a procedural goal to choose the elected MEPs inside party lists, the distribution of seats between different parties being calculated at national level (called Collegio Unico Nazionale, National Single Constituency).

Criticism

Due to the significant population difference between the islands, the Constituency does not secure the same amount of representation for the two islands: the elected MEPs usually come only from Sicily and leave out Sardinia. The latter does not usually have its own representatives,[1] unless they get enough votes in Sicily too (like in 2014) or some Sicilian MEPs resign, leaving space for the Sardinian candidates. Critics of the Italian law defining the constituency boundaries have compared this electoral imbalance with Malta, an island country with less than ten percent of the population of this constituency that has an equal number of MEPs. Being the Sardinians a recognized minority language group (unlike Sicily), the Association for the Protection of the Rights of the Sardinians appealed to the courts, so as to see their right to be granted a fixed number of MEPs,[2][3][4] but such demands have been rejected by the Italian Constitutional Court. Likewise, the proposal to split the constituency[2] has been blocked by the Italian Parliament.[5]

References
  1. Europee, in Sardegna campagna “Eu non voto”. C’è anche Zappadu, Il Fatto Quotidiano
  2. Parties, associations ask for direct representation of Sardinia in European Parliament, Nationalia
  3. Europee, ricorso contro il collegio negato ai sardi, Sardiniapost.it
  4. Il giudice: «I sardi sono discriminati», La Nuova Sardegna
  5. Il Senato affonda il collegio Sardegna, per l’Isola nessun europarlamentare, Sardiniapost.it


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