1979 European Parliament election in Italy

The 1979 European Parliament election in Italy was held on 10 June 1979. As the 1979 Italian general election was held on 3 June, just a week before, 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.

Seats are allocated to party lists on a national basis using an electoral quota, with the residue given to the lists with the largest excess over whole quotas. An electoral quota is then calculated for each list and used to allocate seats to each list in each of the five electoral regions.

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

• Italian Minister of Interior