(Adds AD's reaction)

The Labour Party said this evening that the PN had agreed with its position that should a sixth seat in the European Parliament be assigned to Malta, it would be taken by the first runner up in the June 6 elections.

The party observed that a PN spokesman had told a newspaper that the PN agreed that after the allocation of the five seats at the forthcoming election, the sixth seat should be allocated to the candidate who came closest to being elected.

PL leader Joseph Muscat said that that the PL agreed that the next in line should be assigned the sixth seat in the European Parliament, independently of the party he came from.

Alternattiva Demokratika deputy chairman Stephen Cachia said that in fully functioning democracies there was only one acceptable way in which the seat should be attributed - following the Single Transferable Vote system.

The sixth seat should go to the candidate who obtained the highest amount of votes on the last count, following the first five elected candidates.

Any distortion of such basic democratic principle was a travesty of democracy, Mr Cachia said.