Dr. Gianni Buquicchio:

The most important thing about this coronavirus crisis is that we are learning a lot of good lessons for the next crisis. This will not be the last one. Unfortunately I fear that we will have more pandemics like this one, if not even more serious. Therefore, voting and electoral rights are very important. We studied this issue in our June report on human rights and democracy during the pandemic crisis. There were different situations at play. There were cases in Europe where elections were planned and were held. In Holland for instance, they were postponed for a little but in the end, they were held. The situation in France is one which deserves more in-depth study. There the lockdown intervened after the first round of local elections and the second round was postponed for about two months. This postponement was agreed between the political stakeholders and the Parliament did intervene. However, if the postponement had been for longer than two months, that would have required a law of the Parliament or the holding of the two rounds again.