Negotiations between the main political groups on the draft 'Hübner/Silva Pereira' report on the composition of the European Parliament after the 2019 European elections have still not yet been concluded, despite the vote planned for Thursday 14 December at the constitutional affairs committee being postponed until January 2018 (see EUROPE 11882).
Unsurprisingly, the most controversial discussions involved the two following questions: creating pan-European transnational lists and the reallocation of 73 seats left vacant by British MEPs at the next legislature.
Some political groups are prepared to “offer" seats to certain countries if the MEPs from these countries agree to the idea of transnational lists, according to one source close to the dossier.
According to the to co-rapporteurs, the report on the composition of Parliament simply has to mention the willingness of the MEPs to create pan-European lists but also the practical modalities for these lists can only be decided with the modification of the EU electoral law.
In their draft report, Ms Hübner and Mr Silva Pereira suggest reducing the number of MEPs to 700 as from 2019. They are also proposing to reallocate 23 seats from the British contingent, in an effort to rectify the imbalances between the size of certain countries (e.g. France and Italy) and the number of MEPs to which they are currently entitled. They are opposed, however, to too large a reallocation of the seats that will soon be vacant, mainly for budgetary reasons.
A decision on the date of the vote is expected to be taken this week in Strasbourg. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)