Rather than 750+1, the numbers could well be 736, then 754. The composition of the new European Parliament promises to be complicated and is likely to change during the legislative period depending on whether the Lisbon Treaty enters into force. A legal solution will have to be found for this technical and institutional funny business that will also have to be explained to the public.

Having failed to ratify the Lisbon Treaty beforehand, the European elections were organised under the Nice Treaty, according to which the assembly will be made up of 736 members with a maximum of 99 from Germany and five from Malta. As a result, twenty-one countries have fewer seats than previously because the 785 parliamentary seats before was a temporary number following the addition of Romanian and Bulgarian MEPs after their countries’ accession to the EU, on 1 January 2007. The new assembly will revert to the lower number of seats.

LISBON FAIRER THAN NICE

With the demographic changes that have occurred since 2000, the distribution of seats resulting from the Nice Treaty no longer seems fair. The most striking example is the case of Spain, which has the same number of members as Poland (54 and 50 from June) although it has five million more inhabitants. The Lisbon Treaty allows for correction of these anomalies and proposes to grant additional seats to the disadvantaged countries. Spain would thus have 54 members and Poland 51. More generally, Lisbon establishes an assembly of 750+1 members, with a maximum of 96 seats for Germany and a minimum of six for Malta. Seats would be distributed on the principle of ‘degressive proportionality’, ie the bigger a country’s population, the higher its number of seats. The higher a state’s population, moreover, the higher the number of inhabitants represented per member.

But given that the elections from 4-7 June were based on the Nice Treaty, the distribution provided for in the Lisbon Treaty will in principle not apply during the current term. Except that the December 2008 European Council adopted a fairly unusual declaration. It provides for the adoption of an act that will change Parliament’s composition in the course of the legislative period so as to apply the distribution set by Lisbon. The text states that after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, “transitional measures will be adopted as soon as possible, in accordance with the necessary legal procedures” to increase the number of MEPs until the end of the 2009-2014 legislative period. The objective is “that this modification should enter into force, if possible, during the year 2010”. In short, if the Lisbon Treaty comes into force at the end of 2009 or the beginning of 2010, the numbers established by Lisbon will apply immediately and not wait until 2014.

However – and this is where it becomes complicated – the European Council refers to 754 members rather than 751. This change was not commented upon and appears discretely in the summit conclusions. A highly placed source in the Parliament explains that “this three-seat difference comes from the fact that between what Nice establishes from June and what Lisbon establishes, Germany is the only country to lose three seats,” dropping from 99 to 96. And yet, 99 German MEPs were elected in June since the Nice rules were applied. “Once Lisbon comes into force, it will be hard to tell three of them to end their mandate and go back home.”

TWO OUTSTANDING QUESTIONS

In addition to this last minute change, which has upset the balance of the principle of ‘degressive proportionality’, there are two other questions to be answered. Firstly, how can the new composition of 754 members be legally incorporated into the primary right (treaty)? In December 2008, the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, the president in office of the Council, suggested that they be added in a protocol annexed to the accession treaty for Croatia in 2010-2011. But not everybody is persuaded that this is the best solution. It could also be an independent protocol.

The other question concerns the election of 18 ‘ghost’ MEPs (the difference between 754 and 736). Jean-Luc Dehaene (EPP-ED, Belgium), author of the report on the future institutional balance within the EU, has made a few proposals in this respect, notably the possibility of giving them a temporary ‘observer’ status. The question is far from being resolved and will be very difficult to explain to the voters (see separate article).

Rather than 750+1, the numbers could well be 736, then 754. The composition of the future European Parliament promises to be complicated and is likely to change during the legislative period depending on whether the Lisbon Treaty enters into force.

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“Once Lisbon comes into force, it will be hard to tell three MEPs to end their mandate and go back home” 

Who is the ‘+1’?

The famous ‘+1’ of the 750+1 members was added at the October 2007 European Council, during which Italy, led by Romano Prodi, fought hard to obtain an additional seat. Indeed, Italy could not tolerate the loss of its long-standing parity with France and the United Kingdom, as proposed by the Lisbon Treaty. As a result, the European leaders decided to grant Italy an additional seat and not to count the EP president in the overall number of members since the president generally does not vote.