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The European Parliament will have 15 more seats after elections; Romania keeps its number of seats
The European Parliament approved on Wednesday, in the plenary session in Strasbourg the decision of the European Council of increasing from 705 to 720 the number of seats in the community legislative for the next mandate, informs a press release.
The proposition of the European Council was based on a report of the EP of June which initiated the process and was motivated by the demographic changes which took place in the European Union after the elections of 2019.
The 15 supplementary seats will be divided between 12 countries.
France, Spain and The Netherlands will receive two supplementary seats each.
Austria, Denmark, Belgium, Poland, Finland, Slovakia, Ireland, Slovenia and Latvia will get one supplementary seat each.
Romania will remain with the same number of seats: 33.
According to the PSD MEP Victor Negrescu, keeping the same number of MEPs is a victory for Romania. ‘ I am a member of the Commission for Constitutional Affairs and I am glad that, together with my Romanian MEPs we have fought that Romania keep 33 seats in the European Parliament. It was not guaranteed. Given the fact that the population of Romania dropped, there were propositions for the reduction of the number of MEPs to 32. We avoided this, we are still 33, which is an important victory, as the calculation formula was a different one. Practically, we, Romania got through political negotiations the 33 seats, the supplementary seat we got as a result of Brexit’ said Negrescu, on Tuesday, at a meeting with the Romanian journalists in Strasbourg.
The European Parliament approved the legislative text with 515 votes in favour, 74 votes against and 44 abstentions. The next European elections, which will take place between 6 and 9 June 2024 will take into consideration the new number of seats in the parliament.
The composition of the parliament is examined before each election round in accordance with the principles established by the treaties. They include a maximum number of 750 deputies plus the President, at least six and at most 96 seats for each country in the EU and the principle ‘ degressive proportionality’.
Similarly, the figures must rely on the most recent data which refer to population.