Posted on 07 June 2019
On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the first direct elections to the European Parliament by universal suffrage in 1979 the Historical Archives of the European Union, in cooperation with the
European Parliamentary Research Service and the
European Parliament’s Former Members Association, presented key documents and election campaign materials from its archival holdings.
A selection from the Exhibition was presented at this year’s State of the Union International Conference in the presence of two Former Presidents of the European Parliament, Enrique Barón Crespo and Hans-Gert Pöttering, and the Board member of the EP Former Members’ Association, Ms Monica Baldi. The documents, posters and an original sculpture by Jean-Michel Folon, kindly lent for the occasion by Mr Barón Crespo, were displayed at the entrance of Palazzo Vecchio on May 3rd, where the participants to the State of the Union 2019 were welcomed. The Exhibition is now also displayed online, and can be discovered here.
«The documents were chosen above all for their ‘visual’ impact» says Agnès Brouet, one of our archivists that curated the exhibition. «We tried to choose a variety of materials to illustrate the different media available in our archives. There are photographs, letters, press clippings, posters, official documents, telegrams, and stickers, coming from both institutional and private fonds, such as those of some European personalities, movements and political groups».
Among the documents selected, it is possible to discover the Official Act deciding to hold the first election by universal suffrage, signed by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the nine EC Member Countries, and a selection of original posters used in different countries for the elections 1979 and aimed at convening citizens to the ballots.
The idea to organise this historic exhibition was broached in November 2018, during the “40 years of European Parliament direct election” international conference, held at the European University Institute and followed by a roundtable held in Bruxelles on April 3rd, 2019.