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ECPR 5th Pan-European Conference on EU Politics  INEQUALITIES IN REPRESENTATION IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT   Prof. RICHARD ROSE & Dr PATRICK BERNHAGEN    Porto, Portugal 23-26 June 2010

REPRESENTATION IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

One person, one vote: YES; all EU citizens can vote

One vote, one value: NO; the value varies radically between countries

Figure 1.1 CROSS-NATIONAL INEQUALITY IN EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, 2009

Index of inequality (100 = complete equality)

Source: Calculated by dividing the population per MEP in each country by the number of electors per MEP in the whole EU, as reported in Table 1, and multiplying the result by 100.

1212

1933

414242

54606162

6668707172727575

9697

113122123126

131134

0 50 100 150

LuxembourgMalta

CyprusEstonia

LithuaniaLatvia

SloveniaIrelandFinland

SlovakiaDenmarkBulgariaHungary

Czech Rep.PortugalBelgiumAustria

SwedenGreece

RomaniaNetherlands

Poland Italy

GermanyUnited King.

France Spain

Under-represented

Over-represented

Figure 1.2. DEGREES OF INEQUALITY IN REPRESENTATION

4 4

2735

50

0

20

40

60

80

100

US HouseRep

Bundestag EP, 2009 Bundesrat US Senate

Gini Index of Inequality

Source: Calculated by the authors.

Maximum inequality

Explanation

PATH DEPENDENT INEQUALITIES IN REPRESENTATION

The ECSC pact in the early 1950s

Carried over into the Council of Ministers in 1957

And into the first elected Parliament 1979

Increasing inequality: Gini index 0.21 in 1979; 0.27 in 2010

MEPs Votes mn

Votesper MEP

% EPmean

Euro. People's 265 54.0 204,000 101

Socials & Democrats 184 37.9 206,000 102

ALDE 84 17.2 204,000 101

Greens 55 12.3 223,000 110

Con & Reform 54 7.7 142,000 70

Left-Nordic Green 35 6.4 182,000 90

Freedom & Democ'y 32 7.7 240,000 119

Non-aligned 27 5.6 207,000 102

European Parliament 736 149.0 202,000 100

Table 3.1 EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT PARTIES: VOTES PER MEP

Votes Seats

Countrieswith seats

N (000) % % N % DiffSeats-vote

EPP 26 54,043 36.2 36.0 265 +0.2

SD 27 37,924 25.4 25.0 184 +0.4

ALDE 19 17,246 11.5 11.4 84 +0.1

Greens 14 12,258 8.2 7.5 55 +0.7

ECR 8 7,779 5.2 7.3 54 -2.1

Left 13 6,433 4.3 4.8 35 -0.5

EFD 9 7,676 5.2 4.3 32 +0.9

Non-aligned

9 5,600 3.7 3.7 27 0.0

Totals 27 149,000 100% 100% 736

Table 3.2 PROPORTIONALITY OF REPRESENTATION OF EP PARTY GROUPS

Seats, party groups as of EP 26 July 2009. Numbers to be double checked.

b s.e.

Over-representation in EP 5.68** 2.05

Per capita GDP, 2007 0.02** 0.01

Employment in agriculture % 26.03** 11.9

Unemployment 63.26 39.24

Outliers (Belgium, Luxembourg) 656.88** 303.17

** p < 0.05

Table 3.3 EFFECT OF OVER-REPRESENTATION ON EU BENEFITS

Dependent variable: Net benefit from contribution to EU budget, 2008Variance accounted for: adjusted R2 58%

Source: Net benefit: Calculated from Potton (2010: Table 1). Representation index as in Figure 1.1. Per capita GDP: Eurostat. Percent employment in agriculture, unemployment 2007: World Bank.

RE-ALLOCATING MEPs

LISBON TREATY CONSTRAINTS

Minimum of 6 seats per party

Maximum of 96 seats per country

CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION

Gini Index of Inequality. 0 means no inequality

Pareto optimal. No (or very few countries) lose an MEP

Lamassoure-Severin definition of degressive proportionality

Gini Pareto Non-ordinalLam.Severin

Gain Lose

Status quo

4.1 Existing 0.27 n.a. 9

Adaptive reforms

4.2 Add 18 seats 0.27 12 0 5

4.3 Enlargement to 29 0.29 10 11 0

4.4 Match EU Council 0.35 22 5 5

New design

4.5 Square root formula 0.36 20 6 0

4.6 Parabolic 0.26 11 9 2

4.7 Mixed methods 0.25 12 14 5

Table 4.1 ALTERNATIVE FORMULA FOR ALLOCATING EP SEATS COMPARED

Sources: As cited in the text.

IMPLICATIONS

Party coalitions rather than national populations drive the EP

Trans and inter-institutional politics drive EU outputs

Inputs of voters remote or absent as well as unequal

Majone and Scharpf now claim more popular input needed

But the question is: HOW?