Monday, 14th June 2010
Euro parliament ‘democratic deficit’ needs reform
The democratic deficit at the heart of the EU means the Maltese are ten times more influential than Britons in the European Parliament.
That’s because seat allocations in the Brussels legislature mean each British MEP represents 861,960 people, compared to just 83,276 for Maltese lawmakers.
As a result, Malta and other small states are hugely over-represented, while major funders of the EU, such as Britain, lose out.
The shock figures were revealed by Scottish Conservative MEP Struan Stevenson, who called for a fair system based on an equal number of electors per seat across the EU.
Relative to their size, Europe’s most influential countries are Malta (83,267 people per seat), Luxembourg (83,701 people per seat) and Cyprus (133,642 people per seat), as their number of seats is high relative to their populations.
By contrast, Spain, France and the UK are the least influential, as each of their seats represents nearly ten times as many electors as the smallest countries.
Mr Stevenson said:
“The balance of power in the Brussels parliament is firmly tilted in favour of tiny nations like Malta and Luxembourg, whose influence in seats – and votes - is totally disproportionate to their size.
“Meanwhile, despite the UK pouring billions into EU coffers every year, British voters are among the least influential in the EU because we are under-represented relative to our population.
“The only way to solve the problem is by making each European parliamentary seat represent an equal, Europe-wide average, of 680,814 people.
“So for example, Scotland, whose 5.19 million people are currently represented by six MEPs, would have its allocation increased to eight. The UK as a whole would see its seats increase from 72 at present to 91 under a fair system.
“To ensure that some tiny countries didn’t lose out, a rule could be introduced to ensure countries had a minimum of three seats. And countries with populations of less than 15 million would still have 169 seats together – far more than any single large country.
“This has the dual advantage of giving all Europeans fair representation, without significantly increasing the number of seats in the European Parliament.”
The table below shows the number of people represented per seat in the European Parliament. Populations for EU Member States are official 2010 Eurostat projections. (http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&language=en&pcode=tps00001&tableSelection=1&footnotes=yes&labeling=labels&plugin=1).
Rank is from ‘most influential’ to ‘least influential’, based on population represented per seat in the European Parliament. On this measure, Malta is the most influential nation in the EU, with 83,267 people represented per seat. Spain is the least influential, with 921,743 people represented per seat.
*small nations marked with an asterisk would get a minimum of three seats under Struan’s proposal.
2. A study by the think-tank Open Europe has estimated that over the period 2007-13, the UK will pay £57 billion more into EU coffers than it receives out again (contributions of £103bn minus EU spending on Britain of £46bn).
