Provisional solution?

From the election in 2009 the European Parliament is expected to have 750 constituencies, including a new national distribution of seats that differs from the present one. At least that is the decision taken by the EP during its session in Brussels on 10-11 October. After the recent enlargements of the EU, the number of MEPs had risen to the present 785, whereas the Treaty of Nice had prescribed 736. Now the ball passes to the European Council in Lisbon (18-19 October), which will be called to evaluate the package of institutional reforms contained in the draft Treaty, as defined by the intergovernmental conference. NEW DISTRIBUTION AND TRANSNATIONAL LISTS. The European Parliament approved the Lamassoure-Severin Report with 378 votes in favour, 154 against and 109 abstentions. It gave rise not only to a heated debate both in the commission and in the chamber, but also to cross-party divisions within the political groups. The Report assigns MEPs to each country on the basis of the resident population in each member state, including immigrants without the right to vote. No country henceforth, according to the Report, shall have more than 96 or less than 6 representatives. On the basis of these criteria, the delegations ought to be composed as follows: Germany 96 deputies (3 seats less than allocated by the Treaty of Nice), France 74 seats (+2), United Kingdom 73 (+1), Italy 72 (no change). And further: Spain 54 deputies, Poland 51, Romania 33, Holland 26, Greece, Portugal, Belgium, Hungary and Czech Republic 22 seats each, Sweden 20, Austria 19, Bulgaria 18, Denmark, Slovakia, Finland 13, Ireland, Lithuania and Latvia 9, Slovenia 8, Estonia, Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta 6. In the event of new members joining the EU – e.g. Croatia – the number of MEPs could be temporarily increased. The Report makes another recommendation: “to help confer a real European dimension on the electoral debate”, the EP “proposes to examine anew the possibility of electing a part of MEPs on the basis of transnational lists”, entrusting “a central role to the European political parties”. OPPOSING POSITIONS IN THE EP. During the lively debate in the chamber, ALAIN LAMASSOURE (France) explained that the solution adopted ought to be considered “provisional” and “be replaced by an automatic formula to be applied after the next EU enlargements”. He therefore explained that the subdivision of seats “is based on Eurostat data relating to population, since the data on citizens are not available”. The author of the Report also made an appeal to member countries “to renounce national self-interest”, appealing in particular to the Italian delegation, which (in the light of the Report’s recommendations) would lose its traditional parity of MEPs with France and the UK. According to ADRIAN SEVERIN (Romania), “this system ensures greater demographic representativeness, greater solidarity between big and small member states and greater democratic legitimacy”. The German People’s Party exponent INGO FRIEDRICH first pointed out that Germany “is the only member states that loses MEPs”, but welcomed the fact that the solution adopted privileges Community interest at the expense of national interests. The Italian CRISTIANA MUSCARDINI (Europe of Nations) spoke of the “evident contradictions” contained in the Report, which “turns upside down the legal concept of citizenship in the way it has always been codified”. Another Italian ALFONSO ANDRIA , Liberal Democrat, expressed his misgivings about the work of the two rapporteurs, “both from the legal and from the more properly political point of view”. Lastly the rapporteurs presented a compromise amendment in which it asks the Council for a precise definition of the term “citizen”, with a view to applying, or possibly rectifying, the formula for the calculation of the number of parliamentary seats to be assigned to each state. “DEATH SENTENE, A VIOLATION OF RIGHT TO LIFE”. The parliamentary session had a number of other questions on its agenda, including a debate on the forthcoming summit in Lisbon, in the presence of the Portuguese Presidents of the Council and Commission, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the boosting of the European airport system. Marking the International Day against the Death Sentence on 10 October, the EP heard a speech from the President of the Parliament, HANS-GERT POETTERING . “Capital punishment is a great violation of human rights” and “in particular of the right to life”, said the German politician, re-affirming the EP’s opposition to “this type of punishment”. Poettering appealed to those countries that still recur to lethal injections, firing squads or other similar methods: “Follow our example, abrogate the death sentence”. The President declared that “the next Olympic Games represent an opportunity to break the wall of silence on capital executions carried out in China” and recalled “the European initiative at the UNO for a universal moratorium as a first step towards the abolition of capital punishment” throughout the world.