The European Parliament's (EP) Constitutional Committee on Tuesday adopted a proposal according to which 12 member countries, including Croatia, would lose one MEP in the following 2014-2019 parliamentary term.
After debating the proposal in its second reading, the Committee adopted it and now it is to be voted on at a plenary session of the EP in March. This is the first time the EP is faced with the role of putting forward a proposal facilitated by the Lisbon Treaty. After the EP formulates the proposal, it is sent to EU heads of state and government in the European Council. The European Council must then decide by a unanimous vote. This decision can take effect only with the EP's consent.
The proposal was approved with 21 Constitutional Committee votes in favour and one abstention.
Compared to an earlier version proposed by parliamentary rapporteurs Roberto Gualtieri of Italy and Rafal Trzaskowski of Poland, the Committee recommended that Austria, rather than Sweden, should be among the 12 member states to lose one seat each, with a close vote of 10 in favour and 9 against.
With Croatia's accession to the European Union, the EP will have to adjust its composition which cannot have more than 751 delegates, as set out in the Lisbon Treaty. The current composition was elected in the spring of 2009 according to the Nice Treaty, which foresaw 736 MEPs. However, when the Lisbon Treaty came into force on 1 December 2009, some countries were to obtain more delegates (Spain 4, France, Britain, Sweden and Austria 2 each, Italy, Poland, Netherlands, Bulgaria, Latvia and Slovenia 1 each) requested that these numbers be increased in the current composition and not to wait for the next European elections scheduled for spring 2014. This led to the introduction of 18 new seats which temporarily increased the number of MEPs in the current composition to 754.
Croatia is to hold elections for MEPs this spring prior to EU accession scheduled for on 1 July this year, who will then sit in the EP until the spring of 2014.
That would bring the number of MEPs to 766. After the 2014 elections, the EP must have 751 members, i.e. 15 fewer seats, so as to comply with the Lisbon Treaty, in that the minimum number of delegates for any country is 6 and the maximum 96 or 750 MEPs in all, plus the EP president.
In addition, the Lisbon Treaty introduced the principle of "degressive proportionality" under which the greater the population of a country, each of its delegate represents a larger number of citizens. With that formula, one Croatian delegate would hence represent 399,832 citizens.
Several countries will have the number of delegates reduced but the Treaty stipulates that they cannot lose more than 1 per country.
Twelve member states are to lose one seat each - Croatia, Rumania, Greece, Belgium, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria, Bulgaria, Ireland, Lithuania and Latvia.
Croatia is to have 11 delegates in the EP.
