Home > 1.2.2 Equal voting power/constituency delimitation > REPORT ON CONSTITUENCY DELINEATION AND SEAT ALLOCATION
 
 
 
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Paragraph 65
 

The Treaty on the European Union (TEU), as modified by the Lisbon Treaty and in particular its Article 14(2), has introduced the new principle of degressive proportionality for the allocation of the seats of the European Parliament. More specific rules can be found in Article 4 of the European Council Decision of 28 June 2013, establishing the composition of the European Parliament (EP). Article 14(2) TEU states that “[t]he European Parliament shall be composed of representatives of the Union's citizens. They shall not exceed seven hundred and fifty in number, plus the President. Representation of citizens shall be degressively proportional, with a minimum threshold of six members per Member State. No Member State shall be allocated more than ninety-six seats”. In other words, the system, while taking proportionality into account, will make the smaller countries’ citizens substantially more represented, in proportional terms, than the others. For example, a Maltese citizen has ten times more representation, in proportional terms, than a German one.