Legislative Observatory
European Parliament
Please fill in this field to find a procedure

Composition of the European Parliament with a view to the 2014 elections

2012/2309(INL)

The European Parliament adopted by 536 votes to 111 with 44 abstentions a resolution on the composition of the European Parliament with a view to the 2014 elections, and submitted to the European Council a proposal establishing the composition of the European Parliament for the 2014-2019 parliamentary term.

Parliament recalls that when the next parliamentary term starts in 2014, the current derogation from Article 14(2) of the Treaty on European Union will expire and as a result, the total number of seats will need to be reduced by 15 in order to bring the number of seats into line with the number laid down by Treaty provision and also to take account of the accession of Croatia. Thus, the European Parliament will be composed of 751 Members (750, plus the President), i.e. there will be 15 fewer seats than the number currently in force.

To minimise the loss of seats for Member States, and in the application of the principle of degressive proportionality provided for in the Treaty, whereby Members from larger Member States represent more citizens than those from smaller ones, Parliament proposes the following:

12 Member States will each lose one seat (Romania, Greece, Belgium, Portugal, Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria, Bulgaria, Ireland, Croatia, Lithuania and Latvia) and no Member State will increase its number of seats;

  • the remaining 3 seats in the 15-seat reduction will come from Germany, whose share of seats will be cut from 99 to 96 (the maximum allowed by the Lisbon Treaty). These 3 extra seats were part of a transitional arrangement that arrangement that expires at the end of the current legislature.
  • Parliament adds that it undertakes to submit, before the end of 2015, a new proposal for a decision of the European Council with the aim of establishing, sufficiently far in advance of the beginning of the 2019-2024 parliamentary term, a durable and transparent system which will allow seats to be apportioned amongst the Member States in an objective manner, based on the principle of degressive proportionality. 

Members note that the new system for apportioning seats in Parliament should be established in conjunction with a review of the voting system in the Council and they are determined to make proposals to this end at the next Convention revising the Treaty.

Lastly, Parliament underlines the urgent need to adopt this decision, which requires its consent, as soon as so that the Member States can enact, in good time, the necessary domestic measures for organising the elections to the European Parliament for the 2014-2019 parliamentary term.