MEPs to debate transnational lists for some of 73 seats left behind after Brexit, with hopes of a pan-EU list for 2019 election

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

MEPs will debate creating a pan-EU list of candidates for the first European parliament election after Britain leaves, in an attempt to bolster pro-European forces.

Members of the parliament’s constitutional affairs committee will discuss trans-European candidates on Monday night, as they assess what to do with the 73 seats that will be vacated by British MEPs after March 2019.



Transnational lists have been debated for at least 20 years, but gained a new lease of life when the French president, Emmanuel Macron, swung behind the idea to “send a message of confidence and unity in the European project”. France wants about 50 seats to be available on a pan-European list, meaning electors could vote twice, for a national MEP and a pan-European MEP.



The Italian government also backs transnational lists, which has long been supported by some European federalists.



Britain’s impending EU exit, a few months before the parliament election in mid 2019, has raised hopes of seeing the first transnational MEPs. The departure of Britain removes a staunch opponent and frees up 73 seats, meaning no other member state has to lose MEPs through the experiment.

A report co-authored by the president of the constitutional affairs committee that will be debated on Monday night in Strasbourg calls for redistributing 22 of the British seats among remaining EU countries, to help iron out statistical anomalies. The remaining 51 could be available for a pan-European list, known as a joint constituency, and to accommodate future EU enlargements.

The European parliament is capped at 751 seats and EU enlargement is expected to be limited in the coming years, so Brexit presents an opportunity for proponents of a pan-European list.

Supporters argue that such lists could “electrify” European votes by giving more visibility to EU issues. Opponents say they would create another layer of bureaucracy, with a new class of MEPs who are disconnected from voters.

The issue of representation has long troubled the EU. After a painful row about allocating seats when Croatia joined in 2013, EU leaders called on MEPs to devise a new formula.

The current system, based on a mathematical formula fudged by political calculations, means large countries are poorly represented. A British MEP has an average constituency of 895,085 people, while a Maltese deputy represents 72,401. Hungary has one more MEP than Sweden, despite having the same population share. A French MEP represents 900,833 people, the largest ratio in the EU, while a deputy from neighbouring Luxembourg has a constituency of 96,042.

The result is a “highly unequal parliament”, according to the Bruegel thinktank, which concluded in a report earlier this year that equality of representation in the Brussels-Strasbourg institution was worse than in the US House of Representatives, the German Bundestag and the House of Commons.



Despite French and Italian support, there are no guarantees that pan-European lists will arrive.



Socialist and Liberal MEPs largely back the plans, although MEPs from some small and medium-sized countries are unenthusiastic, fearing that they would be dominated by France and Germany.

The parliament’s largest group, the centre-right European People’s party, is expected to oppose the idea. A source said: “We think it will not contribute to bringing Europe closer to its citizens.”

The EPP, which includes the parties of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, is not seeking to redistribute the British seats.

The final decision on transnational lists would require unanimous support from EU leaders.

Richard Corbett, a British Labour MEP and EU constitutional expert, predicted that transnational lists would not win unanimous backing from EU leaders, even if the UK abstained from the vote.

“On the one hand, it could add to the European dimension of a European election ... On the other hand, it creates two categories of MEPs, those with constituencies to go back to and those who don’t, and [the latter] could be seen as very remote from people, that is the danger,” he said.