European Parliament election, 1979 (Italy)

European Parliament election in Italy, 1979

10 June 1979 1984 →
All 81 Italian seats in the European Parliament
Majority party Minority party Third party   Leader Benigno Zaccagnini Enrico Berlinguer Bettino Craxi Party Christian Democracy Communist Party Socialist Party Alliance EPP COM SOC Leader's seat Northeast Italy Central Italy Northwest Italy Seats won 29 24 9 Popular vote 12,774,320 10,361,344 3,866,946 Percentage 36.5% 29.6% 11.0%

The first elections for the European Parliament in Italy were held on 10 June 1979.

A week before Italy had voted for its general election: the lack of matching between the two elections caused much controversy for wasting public money.

The pure party-list proportional representation was the traditional electoral system of the Italian Republic since its foundation in 1946, so it was naturally adopted to elect the Italian representatives to the European Parliament. 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.

This election taking place just a week after the general election, it obviously gave a similar result. However, the minor importance of the European ballot caused a lower turnout, which particularly punished the two major parties, the Christian Democracy and the Italian Communist Party. The small Italian Liberal Party had a breath of fresh air from this vote, doubling its percentage compared to seven days before.

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