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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?
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