As from the 2009 election, the European Parliament will have 750 seats, with a new national allocation, different from the current one, which is regulated by the Nice Treaty. Today in Brussels, the Assembly approved the report of the MEPs Alain Lamassoure and Adrian Severin (378 for, 154 against, 109 abstained), which allocates MEPs to each country according to the resident population of each member state, including immigrants having no voting rights. In addition, no country may have more than 96 MEPs (this is the number of German MEPs) or less than 6 MEPs (Estonia, Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta). In addition, the allocation of the seats to the most populated countries has changed: France will have 74, the United Kingdom 73, Italy 72, Spain 54, and Poland 51. Instead, "to contribute to giving a true European dimension to the electoral debate", the Assembly "intends to consider the possibility to appoint part of MEPs on trans-national lists", giving "a central role to the European political parties". The decision taken by Parliament will now be submitted to the heads of State and Government, who will review it during the Lisbon summit next week, to assess the group of institutional reforms proposed by the draft Treaty emerged from the IGC.
