MEPs today approved the new distribution of the European Parliament’s seats for 27 Member States, after the UK’s departure, for the next legislative mandate from 2019-2024.
The new agreement cuts 46 seats from the European Parliament after Brexit and corrects the imbalances in the current allocation of seats to Member States, while using a minimal number of the seats vacated by the UK post-Brexit. The adopted proposal brings the number of elected MEPs down from 751 to 705.
The idea of setting up pan-European constituencies and transnational lists for the upcoming European Elections was defeated. The EPP Group voted against the introduction of transnational lists.
„They are neither European nor democratic”, EPP MEP Ramona Mănescu wrote.
”This transnational list would have been an artificial construction with no legal base, which in practice would have generated exactly the opposite of a greater democratization of the European Parliament. In addition, transnational mandates are the perfect platform for extremists and populists, and it is not by chance that the parties in this spectrum are those who have also supported the idea”, Mănescu wrote.
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