Brussels, 24/06/2010 (Agence Europe) - Almost passing under the radar, a short inter-governmental conference (IGC), at the level of member states' permanent representatives to the EU (COREPER II), was held on Wednesday 23 June, with two items on the agenda:
- Amendment of Protocol N°36 of the Lisbon Treaty temporarily increasing the total number of MEPs to 754 until the end of this Parliament in 2014. This amendment to the Treaty, which still has to be ratified by national parliaments, will bring in 18 additional MEPs (four Spanish, two French, two Austrians, two Swedes and one each from Bulgaria, Italy, Latvia, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia and the United Kingdom). The increase, agreed on in December 2008, became necessary following the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty after the European elections of June 2009 were held under the rules set by the Nice Treaty which set a cap of 736 on the number of MEPs. In May, the European Parliament (EP) gave its assent to holding an IGC without a prior Convention, as the new treaty demands. The 18 additional MEPs will only be able to take up their posts as fully-fledged Member Parliamentarians once the ratification procedure has been finalised (they may sit as observers in the meantime);
- The appointment of 10 judges to the General Court of the EU. Terms of office, due to end in August, have been extended to the end of August 2016 for: Josef Azizi (Austria), Franklin Dehousse (Belgium), Sten Frimodt Nielsen (Denmark), Marc Jaeger (Luxembourg), Küllike Jürimäe (Estonia), Heikki Kanninen (Finland), Eugénia Martins de Nazaré Ribeiro (Portugal), Savvas S. Papasavvas (Cyprus), Juraj Schwarcz (Slovakia) and Irena Wiszniewska-Bialecka (Poland). (H.B./transl.rt)