Degressively proportional representation in the European Parliament: European Union law versus reality

ABSTRACT

As the European Parliament is the first transnational representative body based on the Member States representation, the apportionment of seats among the European Union Member States may be a relevant issue. This article is conceived as an idiographic case study and presents an analysis of the composition of the European Parliament in the territorial representation perspective. According to the 2007 Lisbon Treaty, there should be degressively proportional representation in the European Parliament. Following that existing EU legislation implies an uneven representation of citizens in the European Parliament across the EU Member States, this study pursues the following two goals. Firstly, it seeks to quantify malapportionment (the degressive proportionality principle), i.e. distortion of the proportional representation of the Member States (malapportionment) and under-/over-representation of individual Member States, in European elections since 1979 when the direct elections of MEPs were introduced. Secondly, it aims to answer whether there has in fact been a degressively proportional representation in the European Parliament. This article concludes that malapportionment has stabilized at fourteen to fifteen per cent of the total seats since the 2004 European election, but there has been no degressively proportional representation in the European Parliament since 2004.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 ‘Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (Paris, 18 April 1951)’, Art. 20.

2 Following the adoption of the Rome Treaty, a common representative body, the European Parliamentary Assembly, was established in 1958 for all three European communities. It was renamed the European Parliament four years later. For the sake of simplicity, the text will thus work with the term ‘European Parliament’ to refer to the European Parliamentary Assembly as well as to the representative body that immediately preceded the establishment of the European Parliamentary Assembly, i.e. the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community (1952–58).

3 ‘Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community’, Art. 24.

4 D.M. Viola, ‘The Genesis of the European Parliament: From Appointed Consultative ASSEMBLY to Directly Elected Legislative Body’, in D.M. Viola (ed.), Routledge Handbook of European Elections (London and New York, 2016), p. 3.

5 For more details on strengthening the European Parliament within the EU‘s institutional structure see, for example, D. Spierenburg & R. Poidevin, The History of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community: Supranationality in Operation (London, 1994); J. Smith, Europe’s Elected Parliament (Sheffield, 1999); B. Rittberger, Building Europe’s Parliament: Democratic Representation Beyond the Nation State (Oxford, 2005); S. Hix, A.G. Noury & G. Roland, Democratic Politics in the European Parliament (Cambridge, 2007); R. Corbett, F. Jacobs & D. Neville, The European Parliament. 9th Edition (London, 2016); D.M. Viola (ed.), Routledge Handbook of European Elections (London and New York, 2016); O. Costa (ed.), The European Parliament in Times of EU Crisis: Dynamics and Transformations (Cham, 2019).

6 A. Duff, ‘Finding the balance of power in a post-national democracy’, Mathematical Social Sciences 63, (2012), p. 74.

7 See, for example, R. Rose, P. Bernhagen & G. Borz, ‘Evaluating competing criteria for allocating parliamentary seats’, Mathematical Social Sciences 63, (2012), pp. 85–9; R. Rose, Representing Europeans: A Pragmatic Approach (Oxford, 2013); J. Charvát, ‘Apportionment amongst Member States and the Value of a Vote in the 2014 European Parliament Elections’, Revista de Stiinte Politice/Revue des Sciences Politiques 48, (2015), pp. 179–90; J. Haman, ‘The Concept of Degressive and Progressive Proportionality and its Normative and Descriptive Applications’, Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric 50, (2017), pp. 67–91; J. Charvát, ‘Poměrné sestupné zastoupení v Evropském parlamentu: unijní právo vs. realita’, Czech Journal of International Relations 54, (2019), pp. 22–40; J. Charvát, ‘EU Member States’ Representation in the European Parliament: the Politics of Seat Apportionment in a Historical Perspective’, European Studies – The Review of European Law, Economics and Politics 9, (2022), pp. 154–77.

8 See, for example, V. Ramírez, A. Palomares & M.L. Márquez, ‘Degressively proportional methods for the allotment of the European Parliament seats amongst the EU member states’, in B. Simeone & F. Pukelsheim (eds), Mathematics and Democracy: Recent Advances in Voting Systems and Collective Choice (Cham, 2006), pp. 205–20; P. Dniestrzański, ‘Degressive proportionality: source, findings and discussion of the Cambridge Compromise’, Mathematical Ecomomics 7, (2011), pp. 39–50; B.L. Delgado-Márquez, M. Kaeding & A. Palomares, ‘A more balanced composition of the European Parliament with degressive proportionality’, European Union Politics 14, (2013), pp. 458–71; F. Pukelsheim, ‘Compositional Proportionality among European Political Parties at European Parliament Elections’, Central European Political Science Review 20, (2018), pp. 1–15; or the special issue of Mathematical Social Sciences 63, (2012).

9 Rose, Representing Europeans, p. 6.

10 The term ‘European election(s)’ will be used as a synonym for ‘European Parliamentary election(s)’.

11 For more details see, for example, T.J. Allen & R. Taagepera, ‘Seat allocation in federal second chambers: Logical models in Canada and Germany’, Mathematical Social Sciences 87, (2017), pp. 2–30.

12 See, for example, F. Dehousse, ‘Rapport de Fernand Dehousse sur les Institutions de la Communauté européenne’ (La Haye, 1953).

13 The Consultative (now Parliamentary) Assembly of the European Council, in which France and Italy had 18 representatives, while Belgium or the Netherlands were represented by six and Luxembourg by three representatives (Germany became its part in July 1950), was an indisputable inspiration.

14 In the very beginning, France, as the main initiator of the integration process, demanded the same number of representatives as Germany, although Germany had a quarter more population. During the negotiations, Italy, the then second most populous country of the Communities after Germany, obtained the same number of delegates as Germany and France. Thus, a parity representation of Germany, France, Italy and the Benelux Union was originally envisaged. In the end, however, the Benelux countries negotiated a total of twenty-four seats in the Common Assembly, of which four seats were granted to Luxembourg to have a relevant representation in the Common Assembly (Spierenburg & Poidevin, The History of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community, p. 25).

15 The Report proposed each Member State of up to a million of inhabitants being entitled to six MEPs and of less than 2.5 million inhabitants to twelve MEPs. States with a larger population would be entitled to at least 12 seats, and the size of their representation would increase with a growing total population as follows: the Member States of up to 5 million inhabitants should be given an additional seat for every 500,000 inhabitants; with a size from 5 to 10 million, an additional seat should be given for every 750,000 inhabitants; with a size from 10 to 50 million, an additional seat should be given for every million inhabitants; and countries with larger populations should be given a seat for every 1,5 million inhabitants. As a result, Germany would have 71, the United Kingdom 67, Italy 66, France 65, the Netherlands 27, Belgium 23, Denmark 17, Ireland 13 and Luxembourg six seats in the European Parliament with a total of 355 MEPs in 1979 (‘Report on behalf of the Political Affairs Committee on the adoption of a Draft Convention introducing elections to the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage’ (rapporteur: Schelto Patijn), European Communities Document 368/74, (1975)). In a similar vein, the European Parliament considered the mid-1992 proposal of each Member State having at least six seats. Other seats exceeding this basis should be allocated according to population size so that the Member States of up to 25 million inhabitants should be given a new seat for every 500,000 inhabitants; with a size from 25 million to 60 million, an additional seat in the European Parliament should be given for every million inhabitants; and countries with larger populations should be given a seat for every 2 million inhabitants. In the end, however, the European Parliament withdrew from this idea and this principle of the seat allocation has never been applied in practice (A. Moberg, ‘EP seats: The politics behind math’, Mathematical Social Sciences 63, (2012), pp. 78–84, 80; Haman, The Concept of Degressive and Progressive Proportionality and its Normative and Descriptive Applications, p. 75).

16 C.H. Huber, ‘Approaches to European Elections’, in C. Sasse, D.A. Brew, J. Georgel, G. Hand, C.H. Huber, & G. van den Berghe, The European Parliament: Towards a Uniform Procedure for Direct Elections (Florence, 1981), pp. 83–180.

17 Belgium did not get the seat back after Greenland left the EU in 1985.

18 ‘European Parliament Resolution of 9 October 1991 on democratic representation in the European Parliament of the 16 million new Germany EC citizens (B3-1531/91/rev.)’, Official Journal of European Communities C280, (1991), p. 94.

19 ‘Decision amending the Act concerning the election of the representatives of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage, annexed to Council Decision 76/787/ECSC, EEC, Euratom of 20 September 1976’, Official Journal of the European Communities L033, (1993), p. 15.

20 The original proposal assumed 750 MEPs. However, the representatives of Italy did not agree with it, having 72 seats, while the United Kingdom having 73 and France 74 seats. At the last minute, the Italian representatives obtained a change during the Lisbon conference, which increased the total number of deputies 751, with the extra seat for Italy (Duff, ‘Finding the balance of power in a post-national democracy’, p. 75). Therefore, the wording in the Lisbon Treaty is that the number of MEPs ‘shall not exceed seven hundred and fifty in number, plus the President’ (Art. 14).

21 ‘European Parliament resolution of 7 February 2018 on the composition of the European Parliament (2017/2054(INL) – 2017/0900(NLE))’, (2018).

22 In the 2014 European elections, France average population per seat was 12.5 times higher than of Malta, the most over-represented country, and nearly 10 times higher than of Luxembourg. In 2019, the United Kingdom average population per MEP was nearly 11.5 times higher than of Malta, and more than 9 times higher than of Luxembourg (for more details, see Appendices 3 and 4).

23 A. Lamassoure & A. Severin, ‘Report on the composition of the European Parliament (2007/2169(INI))’, (2007).

24 ‘European Council Decision of 28 June 2013 establishing the composition of the European Parliament (2013/312/EU)’, Official Journal of the European Communities L181, (2013), pp. 57–58, Art. 1.

25 ‘European Council Decision of 28 June 2013’, Art. 1.

26 J. Loosemore & V.J. Hanby, ‘The Theoretical Limits of Maximum Distortion: Some Analytical Expressions for Electoral Systems’, British Journal of Political Science 1, (1971), pp. 467–77.

27 D. Samuels & R. Snyder, ‘The Value of a Vote: Malapportionment in Comparative Perspective’, British Journal of Political Science 31, (2001), p. 654.

28 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&plugin=1&pcode=tps00001&language=en

29 Duff, ‘Finding the balance of power in a post-national democracy’, p. 75.

30 ‘European Council Decision of 28 June 2013’, Art. 1.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jakub Charvát

Jakub Charvát is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science and Anglophone Studies at the Metropolitan University Prague, The Czech Republic. His research interests include electoral studies, party politics, political communication, and politics in Central Europe.