70 Á. Rodríguez transforming this into a European fundamental right for EU residents would not have to fill a complete vacuum. After all, EU citizens can already vote in elections for regional assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. In addition, this right would probably not conflict with domestic constitutional law as much as the participation in general elections would, since general elections, either legislative or presidential, are intimately linked with the core idea of ‘national sovereignty’ (or whatever is left of it). Both political and legal arguments would therefore suggest putting regional elections as the next goal for European citizenship all over the Union. However, even before embarking on any extension of voting rights for EU citizens, much could be done in order to ensure that existing rights, that is, participation in local and EP elections, can be fully exercised without practical obstacles. The low percentage of second nationals EU citizens who vote in those elections in the state where they reside may have different reasons, but surely the lack of accurate information and, in some cases, the intricacies of the procedure play an important role. Take, for instance, the case of Spain: EU residents must enrol in the electoral census in order to vote, inscription in the municipal registry being insufficient. This is not only is a crucial difference with national voters (who are automatically included in the electoral census once they are registered in a municipality) but implies a number of practical problems, from linguistic ones to the incorrect, but common, belief that an EU citizen can only vote in local elections in Spain after a declaration that he or she will not to do so in a municipality of his country of origin. That declaration is neither an exigency of Directive 94/80/ EC nor of Spanish law, but it exists nevertheless in the form that EU citizens have to fill in to be included in the Spanish electoral census. The reason is that, according to Directive 93/109/EC, a declaration by a second country national that he or she will refrain from voting in the state of origin is a requirement for voting in EP elections in the state of residence. Since in Spain the procedure for EU citizens to vote is the same for EP and local elections, potential EU voters – and, what is worse, the Spanish electoral board as well – think that the declaration to refrain from double voting applies to both. There is a significant number of EU ‘gerontoinmigrants’ who reside in Spain on a permanent basis but generally spend the summer months in their countries of origin and may be legitimately interested in voting both in host and origin countries’ local elections). As the last Report from the Commission on the application of the Directive 94/80/EC1 shows, practical problems like this one may be found 1 European Commission (2012), Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the application of Directive 94/80/EC on the