Second Country EU Citizens Voting in National Elections Is an Important… 71 in a number of member states, revealing that much can still be done in order to increase the percentage of second country nationals who actually exercise their right to participate in local elections. A similar conclusion may be drawn from the Commission Report on the application of the Directive 93/109/EC regulating EP elections, the modification of which is currently under discussion although unfortunately the debate in the EU institutions has not yet reached the consensus necessary to make it possible. The question of what to do with third country nationals, as posed by Rainer Bauböck’s and Hannes Swoboda’s contributions, also deserves much attention. Non-EU citizens who are permanent residents in a member state should be entitled by EU law to the right to vote in local elections before granting EU citizens additional rights to participate in national or even regional ones. The fact that this right is a part of EU soft law (as an ingredient of the idea of a civic citizenship) and that it is, subject to conditions, actually recognised by domestic law in a majority of member states would surely facilitate the introduction of EU legislation regulating it in the near future. Last, but not least, there is of course the problem of the lack of legal competence of the Union to establish the right of second country nationals to vote in national election in the state of residence. Given the practical impossibility that that right could be ‘discovered’ by judicial action – even once the EU has acceded to the European Convention on Human Rights, the European Court of Human Rights would hardly rule that such a right derives from the Convention – a modification of the Treaties and of the Charter of Fundamental Rights would be necessary. The political (and economic) state of the today’s EU does not give rise to much hope that this idea could have any chance of finding its way into European politics, even applying the method of a cooperation among member states, as Kees Groenendijk’s contribution suggests, instead of trying to produce legislation at the European level. Of course, the expectation that the ‘Let me vote’ ECI promoted by Philippe Cayla and Catriona Seth is unlikely to be successful, or that practical or legal problems might arise if it were, are not strong enough arguments to justify refusing to support it, once you agree with the idea that European citizenship should in the medium term include the right to vote and stand in right to vote and to stand as a candidate in municipal elections by citizens of the Union residing in a Member State of which they are not nationals, COM(2012) 99 final, available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/ LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2012:0099:FIN:EN:PDF.