2004 European Parliament election in the Netherlands

An election of Members of the European Parliament representing Netherlands constituency for the 2004–2009 term of the European Parliament was held on 10 June 2004. It was part of the wider 2004 European election. Fifteen parties competed in a D'Hondt type election for 27 seats (down from 31).

Background

Combined lists

Several parties combined in one list to take part in this European Election and increase their chance on a seat in the European Parliament. These combined lists are:

1. Christian Union and SGP

Electoral alliances

Several parties formed an electoral alliance:<ref name="Kiesraad">Minutes Dutch EP election 2004 in .pfd and Dutch</ref>

1. PvdA/European Social-Democrats and GreenLeft
2. CDA/European People's Party and Christian Union-SGP
3. VVD/European Liberal-Democrats and Democrats 66

The alliance between Christian Democratic Appeal and Christian Union-SGP cost the Christian Democratic Appeal a seat, which goes to Christian Union-SGP. Other alliances had no effect on the result.

Treaty of Nice

Template:Further The exact number of seats allocated to each country is determined by the treaties, currently the Treaty of Nice, and is adjusted by the accession treaty of each new member. Hence no change to the seats occurs without ratification by all states. According to the treaties, the maximum number of members in the Parliament is 732. This why the seats for the Netherlands was reduced from 31 to 27

Numbering of the candidates list

Template:Further {{#section-h:Party lists in the 2004 European Parliament election in the Netherlands|Numbering of the candidates list}}

Results

Template:Further According to the European Commission, the publication of national results prior to Sunday evening is considered illegal. However, all the municipalities in the Netherlands published the results on Thursday, giving the media the opportunity to give an almost complete national result, only missing votes cast abroad. The complete and official result were publicised according to the rules.<ref>Electoral council is allowed to renounce results Article Volkskrant</ref>

The ruling centre-right parties, the Christian Democratic Appeal and the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy polled poorly, while the opposition Labour Party and Socialist Party gained ground. The anti-fraud party Europe Transparent of whistleblower Paul van Buitenen unexpectedly won two seats. Voter turnout was 39.26%, a lot higher than the turnout in 1999 30.02%.

European groups

The EPP-ED group lost 2 seats, making it just as big as the PES group. The ELDR becomes 3rd group after PES. After the elections ELDR and European Democratic Party (EDP) formed a new European Group named ALDE in the European parliament. The EDP did not have member party's in the Netherlands. Also the Europe of Democracies and Diversities (EDD) group reforms itself with party's from Eastern-Europe. They rename their group to Independence/Democracy (ID). The Christian Union – Reformed Political Party is part of this new group. Template:Election table | style="text-align:center;" colspan="11" | Template:Succession links |- |style="background-color:#E9E9E9;text-align:center;vertical-align:top;" colspan="3"|European group !style="background-color:#E9E9E9" |Seats 1999 !style="background-color:#E9E9E9" |Seats 2004 !style="background-color:#E9E9E9" |Change |-

| Template:Party color cell | style="text-align:left;" | European People's Party–European Democrats | style="text-align:left;" | EPP-ED | style="text-align:right;" | 9 | style="text-align:right;" | 7 | style="text-align:right;" | 2 Template:Decrease |- | Template:Party color cell | style="text-align:left;" | Party of European Socialists | style="text-align:left;" | PES | style="text-align:right;" | 6 | style="text-align:right;" | 7 | style="text-align:right;" | 1 Template:Increase |- | style="background-color:gold;" width=0.3em| | style="text-align:left;" | Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe | style="text-align:left;" | ALDE | style="text-align:right;" | 8 | style="text-align:right;" | 5 | style="text-align:right;" | 3 Template:Decrease |- | Template:Party color cell | style="text-align:left;" | The Greens–European Free Alliance | style="text-align:left;" | Greens-EFA | style="text-align:right;" | 4 | style="text-align:right;" | 4 | style="text-align:right;" | 0 Template:Steady |- | Template:Party color cell | style="text-align:left;" | European United Left–Nordic Green Left | style="text-align:left;" | EUL-NGL | style="text-align:right;" | 1 | style="text-align:right;" | 2 | style="text-align:right;" | 1 Template:Increase |- | Template:Party color cell | style="text-align:left;" | Independence/Democracy | style="text-align:left;" | IND&DEM | style="text-align:right;" | 3 | style="text-align:right;" | 2 | style="text-align:right;" | 1 Template:Decrease |- | Template:Party color cell | style="text-align:left;" | Non-Inscrits | style="text-align:left;" | NI | style="text-align:right;" | 0 | style="text-align:right;" | 0 | style="text-align:right;" | 0 Template:Steady |- |width="350" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9" colspan="3"| |width="30" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9"|31 |width="30" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9"|27 |width="30" style="text-align:right;background-color:#E9E9E9"| 4 Template:Decrease |}

5 largest municipalities

Results in the five largest municipalities<ref name="results">Template:Cite web</ref>

Municipality	CDA	PvdA	VVD	GL	ET	SP	D66	CU–SGP	Others
	style="background:Template:Party color;"|	style="background:Template:Party color;"|	style="background:Template:Party color;"|	style="background:Template:Party color;"|	style="background:Template:Party color;"|	style="background:Template:Party color;"|	style="background:Template:Party color;"|	style="background:Template:Party color;"|
Template:Flag	7.7 (14 665)	style="background:Template:Party color;color:#FFFFFF"|28.3 (53 743)	11.2 (21 347)	17.8 (33 876)	7.3 (13 768)	10.1 (19 241)	6.9 (13 030)	0.9 (1 782)	9.8 (18 560)
Template:Flag	13.7 (18 788)	style="background:Template:Party color;color:#FFFFFF"|31.0 (42 543)	11.5 (15 764)	8.2 (11 216)	7.3 (9 981)	8.5 (11 705)	4.6 (6 371)	3.5 (4 762)	11.7 (16 084)
Template:Flag	16.0 (18 021)	style="background:Template:Party color;color:#FFFFFF"|24.9 (28 154)	17.1 (19 284)	9.1 (10 254)	7.4 (8 357)	6.5 (7 306)	6.5 (7 334)	2.3 (2 562)	10.4 (11 698)
Template:Flagicon Utrecht	12.9 (11 285)	style="background:Template:Party color;color:#FFFFFF"|23.9 (20 900)	12.1 (10 523)	18.7 (16 287)	6.2 (5 384)	9.7 (8 423)	8.3 (7 272)	2.2 (1 946)	6.0 (5 281)
Template:Flag	20.5 (11 420)	style="background:Template:Party color;color:#FFFFFF"|24.7 (13 738)	13.1 (7 303)	9.0 (4 994)	8.3 (4 634)	10.9 (6 091)	5.8 (3 229)	1.4 (770)	6.2 (3 475)