The current situation





There are currently 754 MEPs but when Croatia joins later this year, it will get 12 seats, bringing the total to 766.





Why new numbers?





When the Lisbon treaty was being negotiated, it was decided to put a cap on the total number of MEPs to prevent the European Parliament growing indefinitely every time a new member state joins the EU. This is why the treaty sets a number of restrictions:





The maximum number of MEPs is 750 plus the president

The maximum number of MEPs per country is 96

The minimum number of MEPs per country is 6

The division of seats should be according to degressive proportionality, meaning the more citizens a member sate has, the more seats it will get, but also the more citizens each MEP will represent. So MEPs from smaller countries represent fewer people than their colleagues from larger states.





The allocation of seats is also being adjusted to take into account changes in the population of member states. While some got bigger, others got smaller.













Parliament can submit a proposal on its composition to the European Council, which must then decide by unanimous vote. EP can then approve or reject the decision by the Council, but it cannot change the content of the proposal.





Proposal





For the next parliamentary term, Germany would have to give up three seats, while 12 will lose one seat each (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania), according to the proposal adopted on 19 February by the constitutional affairs committee. The next elections for the European Parliament will take place in May or June 2014.





The committee also agreed to submit a new proposal before the end of 2015 to establish a durable and transparent system for allocating seats among EU member states before each European election. This should take into account demographic developments and not exclude the possibility of reserving a number of seats to members elected on transnational lists.





Next steps





The proposal will be discussed in full plenary on 13 March and voted on by all MEPs the following day.





Proposal for 2014-2019 approved by the EP's constitutional affairs committee







Member States Seats - current allocation Seats - proposed allocation 2014-2019 Difference Germany 99 96 -3 France 74 74 = UK 73 73 = Italy 73 73 = Spain 54 54 = Poland 51 51 = Romania 33 32 -1 Netherlands 26 26 = Greece 22 21 -1 Belgium 22 21 -1 Portugal 22 21 -1 Czech Republic 22 21 -1 Hungary 22 21 -1 Sweden 20 20 = Austria 19 18 -1 Bulgaria 18 17 -1 Denmark 13 13 = Slovakia 13 13 = Finland 13 13 = Ireland 12 11 -1 Croatia* 12 11 -1 Lithuania 12 11 -1 Slovenia 8 8 = Latvia 9 8 -1 Estonia 6 6 = Cyprus 6 6 = Luxembourg 6 6 = Malta 6 6 = TOTAL 766 751 -15





* Croatia will join the EU on 1 July 2013



