France has given its support to the creation of a European constituency from which around 50 MEPs will be elected from transnational lists in the European elections in spring 2019.
France revealed its backing for the idea, that has been pushed by the European Parliament itself and also Italy (see EUROPE 11777), in a memo dated 30 August submitted to the Parliament’s constitutional affairs (AFCO) committee.
Like Italy, France believes that Brexit in March 2019 will offer “a unique opportunity” to reform European electoral law in re-allocating the 73 seats left vacant by the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU without affecting the cap of 750 seats plus the president of the Parliament contained in the treaties.
A reform of this sort would make possible “the election, in addition to members of the European Parliament elected from national lists, of the first group of members from transnational lists in a single European constituency”, the document obtained by EUROPE states. It goes on: “In the vote, every citizen would cast two votes: one to elect national MEPs and one to elect MEPs from the European constituency”.
There is a difference in scale between this and the Italian proposal: the single constituency would comprise some 50 MEPs. The French authorities want, at the same time, to adjust the allocation of seats among the member states, sharing some 20 seats that will have previously been held by UK MEPs among the 27 member states.
“Examination of the ratio of MEPs to population for each member state as results from the current composition of the European Parliament, reveals that the degressive proportionality principle is not working as it should”, the French authorities state, arguing that this “has become worse since the 2014 election”.
“A French MEP represents more people than a German MEP”, said a diplomat on Wednesday 6 September. Currently Germany has 96 seats, France 74 and Italy 73.
Joint Parliamentary rapporteur on the reform of electoral law (see EUROPE 11429) Jo Leinen (S&D, Germany) said that “with the support of Mr Macron, the idea of transnational lists has been given a fresh boost”. In his view, the creation of such lists would increase the visibility of European parties and encourage a pan-European electoral campaign in an election that is too often considered of lesser importance than national elections.
In Germany, the Social Democratic SPD has long supported transnational lists in European elections. The Christian Democrat party of Chancellor Angela Merkel is, however, more reticent. At the 2014 European elections, Merkel ultimately accepted that the political families should, ahead of the vote, choose their candidate for the post of President of the European Commission in the event of victory. Hence the appointment of former Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, the EPP candidate.
Treaty change? France says that creating a European constituency “should not” require any revision of the treaties. “Article 14 of the treaty does not exclude that, alongside national constituencies, there should exist another form of representation of citizens, namely the European constituency. However, the electoral act concerning the election of members of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage will need to be amended”, argue the French authorities.
Some figures do not share the same opinion. When questioned on this issue on Wednesday, European Parliament President Antonio Tajani expressed the view that creating transnational lists needed institutional reform. “That will not be easy. Treaty change will be required”, he suggested at a conference organised by the think tank European Policy Centre. “It’s a very good idea in principle but I don’t see how it can be done within the 18 months”, opined former European Council President Hermann Van Rompuy, when asked by EUROPE.
The AFCO committee will discuss the composition of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Monday 11 September. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)