European Parliament approves Malta's sixth seat

Malta was yesterday assured of an additional MEP from 2009 onwards as the European Parliament gave its consent to a new distribution of seats between the EU's 27 member states.

MEPs approved the new allocation as co-drafted by French MEP Alain Lamassoure and Romanian MEP Adrian Severin with 378 votes in favour, 154 against and 109 abstentions.

At the same time, MEPs proposed that the agreement will again be revised, well in advance of the beginning of the 2014-2019 legislative term, in order to take account of demographic changes and "avoid the traditional political horse-trading between member states".

With the new system, Malta will now be at par with Luxembourg, Cyprus and Estonia, which will all have six seats as from 2009. Malta is the only member state with only five MEPs.

Yesterday's vote was marred by a polemic stirred by Italian Prime Minister and former Commission President Romano Prodi while in Brussels.

Quoted by the Italian newspaper Il Giornale, Mr Prodi lamented with Italian MEPs that he could not understand how Malta was given six seats, the same number as Slovenia.

Mr Prodi's comments are factually wrong, as according to yesterday's agreement, Slovenia was allocated a total of eight seats.

Italian MEPs are up in arms with regard to the distribution criteria used by the two European Parliament rapporteurs, arguing that their country has been heavily penalised by losing six seats. Their main disagreement is that the distribution method used was based on the number of residents and not the number of citizens in member states.

According to the new system, for the first time in the European Parliament's history, Italy lost its pairing with France and the UK and will now have fewer seats than these two "big" countries. This has obviously irritated the Italians and led Mr Prodi to travel to Brussels on Wednesday to lobby, unsuccessfully, over the issue.

Mr Prodi's blunder followed another Italian complaint which also involved Malta.

During the debate on Wednesday, Italian MEP Luca Romagnoli used the Maltese example to score a point for Italy. He said he couldn't understand why Malta got six seats, the same as Estonia, which has three times Malta's population.

Malta's sixth seat was acquired following intense lobbying by the Maltese government over the past years to establish a minimum threshold of MEPs representing a country in the European Parliament. Last June, EU leaders agreed unanimously that this threshold should be established at six MEPs.

Mr Prodi's comments about Malta soon attracted a reaction.

In a joint statement, the two Nationalist MEPs Simon Busuttil and David Casa expressed their surprise and disbelief at Mr Prodi's comments and said the Italian Prime Minister got his facts wrong on at least three counts.

They said the new Reform Treaty, supported by Mr Prodi himself, already stipulated a minimum threshold of six seats per member state. Moreover, this provision in the treaty was taken from the text of the European Constitution, also supported by Mr Prodi both as Italian Prime Minister and as President of the European Commission.

"Malta's six seats are already in the Reform Treaty and the European Constitution, both of which establish a minimum threshold of six seats", the MEPs noted. "He is also wrong on Slovenia, which was allocated eight seats, not six, and is therefore not on the same level as Malta," they said.