Parliament finalises carve-up of seats

The European Parliament’s constitutional affairs committee will finalise a report next week (10-11 September) on how many MEPs each member state should have.

The report will be debated and voted on by the Parliament’s plenary session on 10-11 October, just days before EU leaders meet to sign off a new EU treaty on 18 October.

An initial draft of the report by French centre-right MEP Alain Lamassoure and Romanian Socialist MEP Adrian Severin states that the maximum number of MEPs an individual member state can have should fall from 99 to 96 - a move that would see Germany lose three MEPs.

The minimum number of MEPs should be raised from five to six - which would see Malta gain one MEP.

The report recommends that seats in the Parliament should be allocated according to the concept of "degressive proportio-nality" under which the bigger the population of a member state, the higher must be the number of citizens each MEP represents" and vice versa. The report recommends not including Croatia in the allocation of seats, which the report says should be set at 750 (currently there are 785 MEPs).

The European Parliament’s constitutional affairs committee will finalise a report next week (10-11 September) on how many MEPs each member state should have.