Deputy demands fair deal for MEP quotas

The number of MEPs for each member state should not be linked to other institutional issues in negotiations on a new treaty but should be decided according to an objective formula, according to one of the MEPs drafting the Parliament’s opinion on allocating seats.

Romanian Socialist MEP Adrian Severin told European Voice: "A number of colleagues have expressed doubts about making a link to the voting system in the Council [of Ministers] and the distribution of seats."

He said that in the past the approach had involved "swaps and compensation for getting more power at another level". But this time the Parliament’s proposal should be based on "clear principles" of representation, objectivity and fairness, he said.

At the summit in June, EU leaders asked the Parliament to prepare a recommendation on how to share out the total number of seats when the new reform treaty comes into force, in theory in time for the 2009 elections. The number of MEPs will fall to 750 from 785 now and the maximum number of MEPs a country can have will be 96 and the minimum six while the seats should be shared out on the basis of "degressive proportionality".

Severin said that he favoured using the full number of MEPs available for distribution and not reserving a certain number for countries which might join in the next few years such as Croatia. "We have the possibility to use the method we have used in the past of adding seats [for new members] until the mandate is over," he said. That would make it easier to accept the new rules, Severin said. When Romania and Bulgaria joined in 2007 the number of MEPs rose to 785.

He also said that there was not widespread support for delaying a new allocation system until 2014 when other institutional changes such as shrinking the size of the European Commission and introducing double majority voting in the Council of Ministers come into effect.

Severin said that while the proposal from the Parliament should be "sensitive to political needs" it would have to be based on some kind of mathematical formula for the allocation to be representative. Asked whether he favoured the ‘parabola method’ proposed by Spanish academics which extrapolates the number of seats for each country based on the six-to-96 range, Severin said that the approach was "interesting" but there were others to be considered.

Spain’s EU Affairs Minister Alberto Navarro has been arguing for a system based on the parabola method which would increase the number of Spanish MEPs by three to 57 and Poland’s by one to 55. But it would mean some countries losing several MEPs.

Ireland’s EU Affairs Minister Dick Roche said this week that he would fight attempts to cut the country’s number of MEPs to 11. "I am going to make a case for us to retain our 13 seats and, at least in that way, we have a better chance of ending up with 12," he said. Severin, who is drafting the report jointly with French centre-right MEP Alain Lamassoure, said that the report, which is expected in October, should be included in the text of the new reform treaty to clarify which system applied for the 2009 elections.

The number of MEPs for each member state should not be linked to other institutional issues in negotiations on a new treaty but should be decided according to an objective formula, according to one of the MEPs drafting the Parliament’s opinion on allocating seats.