The common list of the Olive Tree , comprising mainly the Left-Wing Democrats and Daisy-Democracy Is Freedom became the largest list, with an important psychological effect. However, expectations for this list were originally somewhat larger, and Massimo D'Alema had proclaimed that "''If the unity list reaches 33%, the government has to go''".
While the ''Unity list'' did not live up to its expectations, the test indicated a somewhat reduced support for the right-wing coalition. However, it must be kept in mind that, in European elections, Italians tend to vote in a more "light-hearted" way, giving their vote more easily to a candidate outside their usual party; this generally reduces the significance of these elections.
Among the notable results, Lilli Gruber for the Olive-Tree ''Unity List'' obtained more votes than Silvio Berlusconi himself, a fact that was perceived as very important, as Berlusconi, whose personality is pivotal to his coalition, used to top such personalised elections by a large margin.
RESULTS
¹ United in the Olive Tree included Michl Ebner of the SVP in their list of elected candidates under a pre-electoral arrangement.
SEATS
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.
