Europasoziologie

ALT Both freedom of movement and voting in European elections are funda-mental citizenship rights at the heart of European integration. Ideally, EU citizens should be able to exercise both rights simultaneously. Yet, in practice, there is a tension between the two: Despite their strong emotional attachment to the European Union, EU citizens residing outside their country of citizenship have a reduced like-lihood to vote in European elections. This article demonstrates this pattern empiri-cally for German emigrants in the 2019 European Parliament election, based on data from the German Emigration and Remigration Panel Study (GERPS). This survey is unique because it covers both mobile German citizens who currently live abroad and those who have lived abroad but have recently returned to Germany. Self-reported turnout was significantly reduced among those currently living abroad. Bureaucratic hurdles (including early opt-in registration deadlines and com-plex, non-standardized registration pr

ALT Graph showing registration deadlines for the 2024 European election for mobile Europeans living in other EU member states. There are almost as many different deadlines as there are countries. Registration deadlines are very early, often more than one month before the election. The most extreme case is registration in Spain, which was due more than four months before the election.

ALT Graph showing the descriptive differences between four groups in terms of their self-reported turnout at the 2019 European election. Migrants currently living abroad had a reduced likelihood to vote compared to migrants who have returned to their country of citizenship, Germany. Current global migrants have by far the lowest likelihood to have voted.

ALT A graph showing results from regression models that reveal a similar pattern as the descriptive findings.

ALT A picture of the skyline of Flensburg showing the sea and buildings between green trees.