Greece

Greece is a European Parliament constituency for elections in the European Union covering the member state of Greece. It is currently represented by twenty-one Members of the European Parliament. Representation of Greece in the European Parliament Greece has had a delegation of Members of the European Parliament in the European Parliament since Greek accession to the EU in 1981. Originally, the Greek delegation numbered 25, but after 2004 that was reduced to 24 (due to the increase of the EU member countries). In 2009, it was further reduced to 22, and in 2014 to 21 MEPs. Electoral system In the European elections, the whole country forms a single constituency and an electoral threshold is set at 3% of the vote. Until 2014, the MEPs were elected every five years on the basis of a party-list proportional representation system. Just a few weeks ahead of the 2014 European Parliament election, the Greek parliament changed the regulations for European Parliament elections (Law 4255/2014). Doing away with closed lists, candidates are now elected on the basis of individual preference votes with a maximum of four preferences per voter. The number of candidates per electoral list was doubled from 21 to 42 and the maximum campaign expenses per candidate were raised to 135,000 Euro.