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. 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.

Since the Lisbon Treaty has not yet been ratified by all member states, this year’s European elections are being organised on the basis of the Nice Treaty. Under Nice, the assembly will have 736 members from 2009, with a maximum of 99 members for Germany and five for Malta. Twenty-one countries will see their number of seats drop from present-day levels. This results from the fact that Parliament has 785 members at the moment, but this figure is temporary as a result of the addition of Romanian and Bulgarian MEPs shortly after these two countries joined the EU on 1 January 2007. Under Nice, lower figures are set to apply from June (see table).

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.

With the elections taking place on the basis of Nice, however, the distribution established by Lisbon should in principle not apply, except that in December 2008 the 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, the June elections will take place based on Nice, then if the Czechs and Irish ratify the treaty and it enters into force, the numbers established by Lisbon will apply.

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. In June, however, 99 German MEPs will be elected since the rules under Nice apply. “Once Lisbon comes into force, it will be hard to tell three of them to end their mandate and go back home.” Although this return of three seats is understandable, it nevertheless throws off balance the principle of degressive proportionality reached after hours of negotiation. Romanian Socialist Adrian Severin, rapporteur on the EP’s composition with French member Alain Lamassoure (EPP-ED), notes that “the principle of degressive proportionality is breached. Once Lisbon enters into force, we will have neither Nice nor Lisbon. I wonder what will happen to the rule of law.”

EIGHTEEN OBSERVERS

The other source of concern for MEPs is how to manage the transitional phases between two treaties and how to introduce the new composition into primary law. In December 2008, French head of state and then Council President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed to insert these changes into a protocol annexed to Croatia’s accession treaty towards 2010 or 2011. Not everyone is convinced by this solution, however.

Belgian MEP Jean-Luc Dehaene (EPP-ED), who drafted the report on the Union’s institutional balance, calls on the member states to adopt the legal provisions required to allow the ‘pre-election’, in June, of another 18 MEPs (the difference between 754 and 736). The latter would sit as observers (without the right to vote) from the date of entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. They would only be granted their full powers once the changes have been written into the new treaty and ratified by the 27 governments by means of a protocol or another instrument. MEPs concede that it will be hard to explain these modifications to voters. For Austrian Green Johannes Voggenhuber, “this could give good arguments to the Eurosceptics”.

At the end of 2008, the European Council decided that the EP’s composition would have to be changed during the legislative period.

“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.