In Search of a Methodical Approach to Seat Apportionment in the European Parliament

The European Parliament is as soon as once more attempting to sort out the issue of apportion its seats between member states. In a type of uncommon Treaty situations, Parliament is obliged to provoke this process itself [Article 14(2) TEU]. It has up to now failed on this obligation, and discovering a good answer nonetheless proves troublesome. The closest to an knowledgeable debate throughout the Parliament got here in 2011 when it commissioned a research that produced the basic ‘base plus proportional’ formulation, named the Cambridge Compromise (CamCom), which amply demonstrated the extreme deviance of Parliament’s then arbitrary seat allocation.1)

Within the absence of settlement on a way, the apply has been to proceed to commerce parliamentary seats, usually in an unseemly trend, as half and parcel of the EU’s bigger institutional bargaining. This has led the European Council to exhort the Parliament greater than as soon as (and now once more for 2026) to “suggest an goal, honest, sturdy and clear seat distribution technique”.2) The extended failure to regularise the system for the composition of the European Parliament is changing into extra severe. The EU by no means fails to criticise lapses in electoral legislation or apply the place third international locations are involved. It stands responsible of hypocrisy until and till it could actually put its personal Home so as.

Article 14(2) says: “The European Council shall undertake by unanimity, on the initiative of the European Parliament and with its consent, the choice establishing the composition” of the Home. Adjustments to the relative allocation of seats ought to occur “in good time” earlier than the top of every five-year time period of the Parliament as a way to take account of the accession or secession of a member state in addition to of the persevering with demographic churn.3)

The particular formal standards are properly established in Article 14(2). Parliament should have not more than 751 seats. No state shall be allotted fewer than 6 seats or greater than 96. Apportionment is to be “degressively proportional”, which implies that an MEP from a extra populous state represents extra individuals than an MEP from a much less populous state. Dimension is calculated in line with the internationally recognised commonplace of whole resident inhabitants, no matter nationality and excluding refugees. In accordance with good federalist ideas, the bigger states conform to be under-represented to permit for smaller states to be higher represented.

Some extra casual situations also needs to be taken under consideration. The Union’s legislature is bicameral, with the residents’ chamber of the Parliament and the states’ chamber of the Council [Article 10(2) TEU]. As a normal rule — though there are necessary exceptions — nothing can develop into EU legislation until it has been handed by each Homes [Article 294 TFEU].4) The from side to side between Parliament and Council, within the grip of co-decision, is the stuff of Brussels politics. It follows, subsequently, that any change to the voting weights or system in a single chamber could have an effect on the identical within the different. The precept of “mutual honest cooperation” between the EU establishments would appear to be related right here [Article 13(2) TEU].

The federal dimension

It helps to see the EU as a youthful, but contested, federal polity. Democratic federal methods are an inevitable compromise between, on the one hand, the constitutional precept of the “equality of Member States earlier than the Treaties” [Article 4(2) TEU], and, however, the democratic precept of 1 individual one vote or “equality of its residents” [Article 9 TEU]. Each nationwide of a member state is an EU citizen with the appropriate to vote and to face as a candidate in elections to the European Parliament wherever they stay within the Union [Article 20 TFEU; Article 39(1) CFR].

No electoral system is ideal. However any instantly elected federal parliament should mirror that primary compromise between statehood and citizenship in a passable method. Europe’s federal system should be capable to confound sceptical and even hostile challenges to the European Court docket of Justice by sure litigious nationwide constitutional courts.5) The EU’s rising federal constitutional order depends on “honest cooperation” between the Union and its member states [Article 4(3) TEU]. Discovering an equitable steadiness of energy, subsequently, between member states of various sorts and sizes is vital to the profitable functioning of the democratic Union and the mutual reinforcement of its twin European and nationwide identities.

All these normal ideas, taken collectively, needs to be given sensible software within the design of a everlasting system to apportion seats between the states.

The purpose

The target is to agree on a mathematical formulation that, by assembly the varied standards, will serve to reinforce the soundness and legitimacy of the European Union as an entire, whose very functioning is “based on consultant democracy” [Article 10(1) TEU]. Ideally, the tactic chosen needs to be settled and subsequently sturdy, proof against fixed revision. Its entrenchment in EU legislation by regulation, permitting for no deviance, ought to additional legit the European Parliament and quieten its critics who query its fame.

Though undoubtedly advanced for the non-mathematician, the chosen technique needs to be sufficiently clear to be at the very least explicable by the common MEP in addition to understandable to the media. As we now have implied, the tactic needs to be litigation proof, a de jure realisation of the de facto federal compromise on which the EU relies.

A deputy elected on the normal election of the European Parliament should not be disadvantaged of his or her mandate due to the mid-term accession of a brand new member state. The Home might be permitted to inflate briefly above 751 seats till the next election. In regular circumstances, it needs to be presumed that every one 751 seats might be crammed. With a good formulation in place, it will likely be pointless in addition to deceptive to go away vacant an arbitrary variety of seats to cater for some putative future accession state. Increasing the scale of the Home on a everlasting foundation to accommodate enlargement would require treaty change. However there is no such thing as a urge for food for this amongst sitting MEPs. Already, talking time for backbench deputies in plenary is closely constricted: there may be not a lot price saying in a speech of lower than 90 seconds.

Regardless of the unreal cap of 96 seats, discrimination in opposition to German pursuits needs to be so far as potential minimised till such time as future enlargement of the Union reduces Germany’s allocation — because it certainly will when Ukraine joins (and/or the UK comes again).

Any apportionment technique needs to be simply adaptable to the long run introduction of transnational occasion lists from which a portion of MEPs might be elected for a pan-European constituency. Transnational lists will Europeanise the parliamentary elections and pressure into being correct federal political events with out which the event of EU consultant democracy is handicapped. That is the official coverage of the European Parliament.6)

The tactic deployed to reapportion seats each 5 years ought to goal to minimise disruption to the Home. It shouldn’t provoke disputes, particularly of an intractable nature between small, medium and enormous states claiming unfairness. The steadiness of the establishment of Parliament is extremely fascinating, enabling it at all times to maintain the code of interinstitutional steadiness with the Council.

The choices

With these stipulations in thoughts, Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs Committee (AFCO) organised a workshop (14 February) to contemplate three various formulae, all of which respect the precept of degressive proportionality.7) (None contact the query of bicameral steadiness with the Council.) The primary choice is a Energy variant of CamCom by Friedrich Pukelsheim and Geoffrey Grimmett. This well-rehearsed proposal — involving 4 base seats, plus energy parameter and divisor — meets all the factors mentioned above and is future proof. Solely 7 seats would should be transferred out of the 751 in comparison with the official 2024-29 composition.

The second choice is the elegant Fastened-Proportional-Sq. Root system (FPS) of Victoriano Ramirez Gonzalez. Solely 8 seats would should be switched from the present composition in a Home of 720 MEPs. Nevertheless, as a result of the proposal permits for versatile interpretation, its adoption would danger fixed battles between the pursuits of small states wanting a better variety of fastened seats, massive states placing better salience on proportionality, and middle-sized states prioritising the sq. root issue. And FPS doesn’t present for a hard and fast Home of 751 MEPs.

The third various by Manfred Muller suggests one potential solution to introduce a transnational ingredient within the Home. He would add additional ‘occasion’ seats on prime of a sq. root proportional allocation for the bigger portion of seats. However his system would depend the votes for nationwide events inside member states and accord them not directly to EU events. He wouldn’t give residents a second poll to vote instantly for really federal political events.

Parliament now realises that the set up of transnational lists is unlikely to occur with out treaty change, suitably crafted in a constitutional Conference [Article 48(3) TEU].8) Parliament can also be looking for to regulate the voting system within the Council, altering the edge of QMV from the Lisbon formulation of 55% of states representing 65% of the inhabitants to 60% of the states representing 60% of the inhabitants.9) One other, and probably higher, strategy can be to make use of the sq. root formulation for Council QMV votes. The magic of the sq. root reduces the differentials between states of various sizes, thereby introducing a component of degressive proportionality into the Union’s second chamber. Respecting interinstitutional steadiness, the introduction of the Energy variant of CamCom will scale back the clout of middling-sized states within the Parliament, whereas the sq. root voting system will advance their curiosity within the Council. On such beautiful offers are federal unions properly constructed.

Within the current Brussels workshop, MEPs — lacking the purpose — badgered the scientists to barter between themselves one single proposal, thereby relieving Parliament from having to take a political determination between various mathematical strategies. In apply, subsequently, a constitutional Conference is prone to be wanted to settle all these issues in an open, complete and consensual means. If AFCO manages in the intervening time to provide an correct and purposeful report, the European Parliament can have made an necessary contribution to bettering its personal legitimacy — and in getting ready the Union for democratic enlargement.10)