2004 European Parliament election in Italy

The 2004 European Parliament election in Italy was held on 12 and 13 June 2004. Italy's highly fragmented party system made it hard to identify an overall trend, but the results were generally seen as a defeat for Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and a victory for the centre-left coalition identified with Romano Prodi, who was President of the European Commission until 2004, and was widely expected to re-enter Italian politics at the 2006 Italian general election.

The common list of The Olive Tree (Ulivo), comprising mainly of the Democrats of the Left (DS) and Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy (DL), became the largest list, with an important psychological effect; however, expectations for this list were originally somewhat larger, and Massimo D'Alema had made a proclaim about the fall of the second Berlusconi government ("If the unity list reaches 33%, the government has to go").

While the Olive Tree's performance was not as phenomenal as it had hoped, the test indicated a somewhat reduced support for the centre-right coalition. In European elections, Italians tend to vote in a more candidate-oriented way, giving their vote more easily to a candidate outside their usual party; this generally reduces the significance of these elections.

Electoral system

The pure party-list proportional representation was the traditional electoral system of the Italian Republic since its foundation in 1946, so it had been adopted to elect the Italian representatives to the European Parliament too. Two levels were used: a national level to divide seats between parties, and a constituency level to distribute them between candidates. Italian regions were united in 5 constituencies, each electing a group of deputies. At national level, seats were divided between party lists using the largest remainder method with Hare quota. All seats gained by each party were automatically distributed to their local open lists and their most voted candidates.

Constituencies

Seats are allocated to party lists on a national basis using an electoral quota, with the residue given to the lists with the largest excess over whole quotas. An electoral quota is then calculated for each list and used to allocate seats to each list in each of the five electoral regions.

Electoral Region	Administrative Regions	Seats
North-West	Aosta Valley, Liguria, Lombardy, Piedmont	23
North-East	Emilia-Romagna, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Veneto	15
Central	Latium, Marche, Tuscany, Umbria	16
Southern	Abruzzo, Apulia, Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Molise	17
Islands	Sardinia, Sicily	7

Main parties and leaders

Party	Main ideology	Leader	European
party	Outgoing MEPs
The Olive Tree (Italy)}}"		The Olive Tree
Several	Romano Prodi	Several
Forza Italia}}"		Forza Italia (FI)	Liberal conservatism	Silvio Berlusconi	EPP
National Alliance (Italy)}}"		National Alliance (AN)	National conservatism	Gianfranco Fini	AEN
Bonino List}}"		Bonino List	Libertarianism	Emma Bonino	None
Union of the Centre (2002)}}"		Union of Christian and Centre Democrats (UDC)	Christian democracy	Pier Ferdinando Casini	EPP
Communist Refoundation Party}}"		Communist Refoundation Party (PRC)	Communism	Fausto Bertinotti	PEL
Lega Nord}}"		Northern League (LN)	Regionalism	Umberto Bossi	None
Communist Refoundation Party}}"		Party of Italian Communists (PdCI)	Communism	Oliviero Diliberto	PEL
Federation of the Greens}}"		Federation of the Greens (FdV)	Green politics	Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio	EGP
Italy of Values}}"		Di Pietro–Occhetto List	Populism	Antonio Di Pietro
Achille Occhetto	None
Union of Democrats for Europe}}"		Union of Democrats for Europe (UDEUR)	Christian democracy	Clemente Mastella	EPP
New Italian Socialist Party}}"		United Socialists for Europe	Social democracy	Gianni De Michelis
Claudio Signorile	None
Pensioners' Party (Italy)}}"		Pensioners' Party (PP)	Pensioners' interests	Carlo Fatuzzo	ED
Tricolour Flame}}"		Tricolour Flame (FT)	Neo-fascism	Luca Romagnoli	None
Social Alternative}}"		Social Alternative (AS)	Neo-fascism	Alessandra Mussolini	None