Sixth seat still not in sight

Six months after the start of the new European Parliament legislature, there is no indication yet when Malta's sixth MEP may be able take his place in the Brussels Chamber.

Following the full ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, which will enter into force this week, the EP approved amendments to its rules of procedure in order to allow an additional 18 MEPs from 12 member states to join the Parliament, as envisaged by the Treaty.

However, no date has been set for this to take place, nor even when the new MEPs can at least move to Brussels as observers.

Malta's sixth seat, when it becomes available, will be filled by former Labour MP Joseph Cuschieri who ended up as the runner-up in last June's election.

A spokesman for the EP admitted that the issue of the additional seats was proving to be very complicated.

"First of all in order for the new members to join there is still to be concluded a complicated legislative process, which includes a new protocol to be agreed by the 27 member states. This will then also have to be ratified by the 27 individual parliaments forming the Union. This is expected to take some time, possible even another two years," the spokesman said.

The other difficulty is who member states will send to Brussels as MEPs. Although some states like Malta and Spain had anticipated the new scenario and last June elected "reserve MEPs", others, like France, will probably have to hold another election.

"This is also another obstacle as the EP is of the opinion that all new MEPs should be allowed to take their seats at one go. It will not be possible to have the Maltese MEP in place while the French seats remain empty," the spokesman said.

In order to accommodate the MEPs-in-waiting, the EP is toying with the idea of inviting the 12 member states to nominate observer MEPs for now. Even so, there is still no clue when this process might get underway.

In the event, the observers would still not have any power in the Brussels Chamber as they would not be able to speak or vote but only to observe. Neither would they receive the €7,665 a month salary and other allowances paid to the sitting MEPs but just be entitled to travelling costs, the EP spokesman said.

"Since they will not be fully fledged MEPs they cannot receive a salary out of EU funds."

During the Lisbon Treaty negotiations the government had managed to negotiate an additional seat for Malta by insisting that the minimum threshold per member state should be set at six seats independent of a country's size. As a result, the population of Malta will be the most highly represented in the EU. Every Maltese MEP represents just 66,000 people while a German MEP represents 830,000.