European Federation

European Federation

Saturday, 21 May 2016

Composition of the Chamber of Deputies



Chamber of Deputies is a constitutional and legislative body at the federal level in European Union (European Federation). It consists of 645 deputies. It is elected based on the proportional electoral law, wherein each Member State shall create a single constituency. In the Constitution has been legally sanctioned principle of degressive proportional distribution of seats in the Chamber of Deputies . The Constitution says:


Article 80

    (1) The Chamber of Deputies shall be composed of 645 Deputies.

    (2) Elections to the Chamber of Deputies shall be universal, equal, direct and proportional and shall be conducted by secret ballot. If, no later than on the day of vote, he has attained 18 years of age, any citizen of the Union, shall have the right to vote for the  representatives to the Chamber of Deputies.

    (3) Each Member State constitutes an electoral constituency.

    (4) The number of representatives per each Member State is set out in the European supplementary law, in proportion to population. Necessary adjustments are made in the year before the election, so that no Member State had no less than 3 and not more than 96 seats.

 

 

As a result, you can not arbitrarily determine the number of seats for each Member State because European laws are limited in this respect, clearly sounding provisions of the Constitution. In Article 80, paragraph 4 have been fixed boundary conditions under which no Member State can have fewer than 3 deputies and not more than 96 deputies. The main purpose of establishing such conditions for the allocation of seats in the Chamber of Deputies aims to make the smallest reduction of the large Member States, while ensuring that less populated representatives of the Member States the right in the Chamber of Deputies. On the basis of such rules falls to the Germans 73 seats, France 60 seats and Malta, Iceland and Luxembourg each have 3 seats.



Members per Member State



Rank

Member State

Population

Number of Seats





1
Germany

81285000


73

2

France

67087000

60

3

United Kingom

64800000

59

4

Italy

60725000
55
5

Spain

47705000

44

6

Ukraine

42813557

40

7

Poland

38484000

36

8

Romania

19942642

20

9

Netherlands

16924000

18

10

Belgium

11250659

13

11

Greece

10846979

12

12

Czech Republic

10537818

12

13

Portugal

10374822

12

14

Hungary

9849000

11

15

Sweden

9816666

11

16

Belarus

9485300

11

17

Austria

8602112

10

18

Switzerland

8279700

10

19

Bulgaria

7202198

9

20

Serbia

7114393

9

21

Denmark

5678348

8

22

Finland

5489639

8

23

Slovakia

5421349
8

24

Norway

5189435

7

25

Ireland

4635400

7

26

Croatia

4225316

7

27

Bosnia and Herzegovina

3791622

6

28

Georgia

3729500

6

29

Moldova

3555200

6

30

Armenia

3005500

6

31

Lithuania


2900787
5

32

Albania

2893005

5

33

Macedonia

2069172

5

34

Slovenia

2068299

5

35

Latvia

1978300

5

36

Kosovo

1827231

5

37

Estonia

1313271

4

38

Cyprus

858000

4

39

Montenegro

621207

4

40

Luxembourg

562958

3

41

Malta

445426

3

42

Iceland

330610

3



Totals

605715421


645




    

The provision of Article 80 of the Constitution introduces a fair distribution degressively proportional seats in parliament, according to this principle more populated country can not have a smaller representation of the less populated. Additionally provided is the principle of the relative proportionality, which is that the larger the Member State, the more citizens represents his deputy.

 

            It should be emphasized that the use of pure principle of proportionality in the allocation of seats in the Chamber of Deputies would pose great disparities and injustices. If we assume round down received proportion that Iceland, Malta and Luxembourg did not receive a single mandate, Germany would have their 86 and France 71. If they wish to provide Iceland, Malta and Luxembourg at least one representative, then Germany would receive no less than 245 seats and France has 202 seats in the parliament consisting of at least 1832 deputies. This situation is not acceptable for organizational reasons. A large number of collective bodies hinders the daily performance of their duties, and at least the minimum representation of each member of the community seems to be necessary.

 

For this reason, it proposed in the Constitution another solution, which was named regressive proportionality.