The European Parliament’s Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO) approved, on Monday evening 12 June, (15 votes in favour, 8 against, 5 abstentions) the proposal by co-rapporteurs Sandro Gozi (Renew Europe, Italian) and Loránt Vincze (EPP, Romanian) to increase the number of seats in the Chamber from 705 to 716 for the 2024-29 legislature (see EUROPE 13198/18).
This proposal, which will be put to the plenary vote on Thursday, allocates additional seats to Member States that are under-represented (i.e. their population to number of MEPs ratio is higher than that of countries of equivalent size). Spain and the Netherlands would get two extra seats and Denmark, Ireland, Latvia, Austria, Slovenia, Slovakia and Finland would get one extra seat.
“We have proposed a distribution that would have the highest possibility to meet the unanimous approval of member states in the Council, one that does not take away seats from any country, but which adds the minimum number of seats possible, drawing from the non-allocated seats available today”, said Mr Vincze in a statement.
The proposal presented seems to be the one most likely to be approved in plenary, even if several groups, such as the Greens/EFA, wish to re-table amendments in favour of reducing the number of MEPs.
On this issue, national positions take precedence over those of the political groups. The position of the Germans will come under particular scrutiny on Thursday, as their country would lose relatively little influence with the granting of additional seats to other Member States, even though Germany has reached the maximum threshold of seats (96).
The Left group wants to see a plenary debate before the vote.
Mr Gozi stressed the importance of making parallel progress in the EU Council on the creation of a European electoral constituency allowing for the election of 28 MEPs registered on transnational lists (see EUROPE 12944/1). This issue was debated at the plenary session on Tuesday.
In addition to the numerical composition of the European Parliament for the 2024-2029 legislature, MEPs will recommend initiating work on finding a permanent solution, based on a mathematical formula to give concrete form to the principle of degressive proportionality in the distribution of seats within the hemicycle. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)