Who should care about EU migrants’ voting in the European Parliament?
With less than 12 months till the next European Parliament elections, EU migrants are still an untapped voting bloc. Who can help change it? Migrant rights organisations. Oh, and funders too.
Let’s start with numbers for numbers are the core of the story that begins with EU freedom of movement and ends with a deficit of democracy. In Luxemburg, around 1 in 2 voting-age residents is an EU migrant (EU citizen that migrated to another EU country). In Malta 1 in 7, and in Ireland, Austria, and Belgium 1 in 14. At the same time, voter registration rates within this cohort do not exceed 1 in 10, except for Ireland where that number goes up to 24%. Still, 3 in 4 EU migrants residing in Ireland are not registered as voters. The numbers get even more eyebrow-raising when we look at recently EU-accessed countries. In Croatia only 8(!) EU migrants are registered as voters. In Slovakia 33 and Bulgaria 55. Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, and Czechia each account for only a couple of hundred registered EU migrant voters. However, these seven countries combined host around 300,000 EU migrants of voting age.
In theory, the EU freedom of movement guarantees some voting right beyond borders. In practice crossing national borders leads to barriers to democratic participation.
EU citizens of voting age who migrate within the European Union can transfer their voting right for the European Parliament (EP) to their new country of residence. According to the 2020 statistics, the number of EU migrants of voting age is 14.3m million. Even when we account for the post-Brexit reduction in this number, EU migrants account for a significant voting block that is currently disengaged from electoral participation.
Even though the EP elections have the lowest participation rate amongst all other types of elections, in the context of EU migration, it provides an important avenue to influence high-level politics beyond national elections. It is also an important alternative for those migrants who cannot participate in their country of origin's national elections due to limitations on voting for non-residing citizens.
Without the electoral participation of EU migrants, our democracy is weakened as low voter turnout results in the election of an unrepresentative government with decreased legitimacy. The disenfranchisement of EU migrants from electoral participation also means that their interests are not represented. What may be some of those interests? For a start improvement of their democratic rights and access to voting. Another important topic is the inclusion of EU migrants and especially those from Easter and Central Europe in the EU integration framework and associated funding. According to the EU policy framework, EU migrants are excluded from accessing funding to support integration processes even though they present integration needs. During my work at the Immigrant Council of Ireland, I routinely had to turn down applications for our leadership and political programs from EU migrants. The projects’ funding restrictions did not allow the organisation to include those communities in the project delivery. Yet, 1 in 3 of the Irish migrant populations are migrants from Eastern and Central Europe in addition to EU migrants from other parts of the European Union region.
As EU migrants are not recognised as an important voting block due to low voter registration rates issues concerning EU migrants are not visible on a political agenda.
The solutions to this issue were presented by various research findings and campaigns like ‘Voters Without Borders’. Most focus is on addressing policy barriers and practical impediments to electoral participation. One important issue is often insufficiently addressed in the list of recommendations. Outreach through migrant rights organisations, especially those who are migrant-led and work on a grassroots level.
An important factor in deciding on developing political participation is socialisation of individuals into politically aware actors. In the context of migration political participation depends on re-socialisation of migrants as political agents. Migrant rights organistions are key here.
Migrant rights organisations can and should become political houses where migrants can find information, role models, and motivation. From my experience working in the space of electoral mobilisation of migrants and refugees having access to such political houses is an essential factor. This is also part of my personal journey as a migrant. When I migrated from Poland to Ireland, I lacked the confidence to occupy democratic spaces. My mum taught me the importance of voting in Poland as a citizen. There was no one who would teach me the importance of voting in Ireland as a migrant. It wasn’t until I meet a group of other migrant and refugee leaders who created a space for me to re-engage with politics as an active agent.
To become political houses migrant rights organisations need resources, skills building, and access to peer support networks to effectively deliver such work.
There is a lack of EU research but judging from my experience working at the international level we can assume the situation in Europe is similar to the situation in the US. Only 8% of migrant rights organisations engage in the political mobilisation of their communities. Overall lack of resources to provide essential services to migrants provides for a situation where choices must be made. Political engagement of migrants is seen as a luxury and not a basic need. However, building an electoral migrant block can in the long term create better migration and integration framework thus removing demand for some of the current essential services. If you are a migrant rights organisation you should care about voting right for and the electoral participation of migrants. If you are a funder you should care about supporting work securing and promoting voting rights for migrants.
There are excellent examples where investment in organisational capacity can lead to an increase in voter registration. I may be biased as for 5 years I led the migrant political engagement work of the Immigrant Council of Ireland, but it is a great example of how an organisation can become a resource to migrant communities wishing to engage in electoral politics. There are other examples too. The Polish migrant organisation in Ireland Forum Polonia ran a very successful ‘You are at home. Vote’ campaign in 2013-2014, which contributed to the 24% EU migrants' voter registration rate in Ireland. Sadly, due to lack of funding the reach of the campaign was limited. In the US the National Partnership of New Americans launched the ‘New Americans Voters 2020’ campaign that contributed to the largest BIPOC voter turnout in US history.
Participation in the last EP elections in 2019 went over 50% for the very first time since 1999. That number could increase again if more effort was put to mobilise some of the millions of EU migrants. Especially that according to the 2018 Kantar Public Eurobarometer, 56% of EU migrants would prefer to vote in the European Parliament elections in their host country. Supporting migrant rights organisation with resources and capacity building is an important factor in supporting re-socializing EU migrants as voters.
We have less than 12 months to reach around 10 million people to change the end of the story about the freedom of movement and democracy deficit.
