European Parliament's seats after 2014: we need as fair and equitable redistribution method as possible

The Constitutional Affairs Committee today adopted a Report proposing a new redistribution of seats in the European Parliament after the 2014 elections. It proposes to introduce necessary adaptations to the provisions of the Lisbon Treaty and Croatia's accession to the EU. As proposed in the solution voted by the majority of MEPs, no Member State will gain seats and 12 will lose one, while Germany will lose three.

"First of all, the Lisbon Treaty provides that the Parliament should be composed of 751 MEPs contrary to the current 754 (or 766 when counting the Croatian Members). The loss of seats for some of the Member States is therefore inevitable and what we propose is a method of a new redistribution of seats which is as fair and equitable as currently possible. One should not forget that the proposal must be supported by all EU Member States and has to be in place well before the European elections in 2014, when the ongoing transitional period for the higher number of MEPs expires", explained Rafał Trzaskowski MEP, EPP Group Coordinator in the Constitutional Affairs Committee of the European Parliament.

The proposed solution is based on the principle that no Member State gains seats and no-one loses more than one, apart from Germany which is a special case. It also closely follows the principle of so-called degressive proportionality as enshrined in the Treaty. It means in short that countries with a large population have an adequately large quota of Members. However, individually, they represent more inhabitants than the Members of medium and small-sized Member States.

"In the current distribution of seats, this rule is not ideally applied and still won't be after the adoption of this Report. This is why we foresee at the same time that a new, fully transparent and durable method of the distribution of seats in the European Parliament is adopted before the 2019 elections. However, such a new method should always be considered in conjunction with a reform of the voting system in the Council so as to balance the redistribution of power in the two Institutions", said Rafał Trzaskowski.

"I believe that it is a balanced and reasonable solution for all Member States particularly because it establishes that a future reform of the distribution of seats in the Parliament will always be dependent on a new allocation of votes in the Council and other EU Institutions", commented Paulo Rangel MEP, Vice-Chairman of the EPP Group in the European Parliament.

The European Parliament will vote on the proposal at the plenary session in March.

According to the method adopted by the Constitutional Affairs Committee, the reallocation should be viewed in two steps: first is the redistribution of seats in line with the principle of degressive proportionality and taking advantage of the lower (6 MEPs/Member State) and upper (96 MEPs/Members State) limits set by the Lisbon Treaty; second step is a political compensation between the gains and losses according to the principle that no-one gains and no-one loses more than one. Therefore the Member States that will lose seats are: Germany, Romania, Greece, Belgium, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Sweden, Bulgaria, Ireland, Croatia, Lithuania and Latvia.