2009 European Parliament election

2009 European Parliament election

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All 736 seats to the European Parliament and 18 observers 369 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	43.24% 2.4 pp
First party Second party Third party   Leader Joseph Daul Martin Schulz Graham Watson Party EPP PES ELDR Alliance EPP S&D ALDE Leader's seat East France Germany South West England Last election 277 seats, 36.4% 218 seats, 27.2% 106 seats, 12.0% Seats before 288 217 104 Seats won 265 8 observers 183 5 observers 84 Seat change 23* 34* 20* Percentage 36% 25% 11.4% Swing 0.7% 2.8% 1.8%   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   ECR Leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit None Francis Wurtz Party European Greens MER European Left Alliance Greens/EFA ECR GUE/NGL Leader's seat Germany N/A Île-de-France Last election 42 seats, 5.7% New group 41 seats, 5.6% Seats before 42 N/A 35 Seats won 55 2 observers 54 1 observer 35 Seat change 13* N/A 6* Percentage 7.5% 7.3% 4.8% Swing 2.1% N/A 0.5%   Seventh party   Leader Nigel Farage (de facto) Party UKIP Alliance EFD Leader's seat South East England Last election New group Seats before N/A Seats won 32 Seat change N/A Percentage 4.3% Swing N/A
Post-election composition of each member state's delegation * The number of seats was decreased from 785 to 736 – so this is a nominal figure
President of the European Parliament before election Hans-Gert Pöttering EPP–ED President of the European Parliament after election Jerzy Buzek EPP

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The 2009 European Parliament election was held in the 27 member states of the European Union (EU) between 4 and 7 June 2009.^[1] A total of 736 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) were elected to represent some 500 million^[2] Europeans, making these the biggest trans-national elections in history. An additional 18 observers ("virtual MEPs") were (supposed to be) pre-elected.

The majority of MEPs were elected on Sunday 7 June, but because of traditional polling days varying from country to country according to local custom, some countries held their elections in the three preceding days:

• Thursday 4 June: United Kingdom (including Gibraltar), Netherlands (including Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles)^[3]
• Friday 5 June: Ireland, Czech Republic (day 1)
• Saturday 6 June: Cyprus, France (for part of Outre-mer),^[4] Italy (day 1), Latvia, Malta, Slovakia, Czech Republic (day 2)
• Sunday 7 June: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy (day 2), Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden

In seven EU member states, other votes occurred alongside the elections to the European Parliament: a general election in Luxembourg; local government elections in Latvia,^[5] part of the United Kingdom,^[6] parts of Germany, Italy, Malta, and Ireland^[7] (as well as two by-elections in Ireland, in Dublin Central and Dublin South); regional elections in Belgium; and a referendum on reforming the monarchical rules of succession in Denmark that would give women the same rights through equal primogeniture.

This was the first European Parliament election in which Bulgaria and Romania participated at the same time as the other member states. When those countries joined the EU in 2007, they held elections for MEPs outside the normal electoral calendar.