Italy will not scupper EU treaty over MEP quota

BERLIN: Italy will not hold the rest of the EU hostage over the proposed reduction in the number of Italian MEPs after 2009, Emma Bonino said on Thursday.

Speaking at the annual ELDR party congress in Berlin, Bonino told this website that she did not see “a need for urgency” in deciding on MEP numbers at the same time as the reform treaty.

“We hope simply that our concerns will be taken on board,” said Bonino, Italy’s European affairs minister and a former European commissioner and MEP.

She explained that Italy “does not appreciate the methodology” used by MEPs to set new national quotas for the European parliament in 2009.

Under the proposals backed by parliament earlier this month, Italy would see its quota reduced from 78 to 72, while similarly sized countries such as the UK will see no change.

Bonino said that MEPs Alain Lamassoure and Adrian Severin had based their calculations on the number of “residents” in each country, while the EU treaty refers to “citizens”.

This, she suggested, had led to flawed calculations and highlighted the need for “clear rules” on which methodology to use.

But fears voiced by some observers, notably UK Liberal Andrew Duff, one of parliament’s three delegates to the IGC, appear unfounded.

Duff was concerned that Italy’s feeling of being short-changed would prompt prime minister Romano Prodi to pressure his fellow EU leaders at the informal summit in Lisbon on Thursday, potentially threatening a deal on the reform treaty.

But Bonino’s assurance that there was “no need for urgency” on this issue suggests that Italian support for the new treaty text remains strong, and that the MEP quota issue will have to be sorted out separately.

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