A Parliament of Degressive Representativeness?

For the election of the European Parliament, the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe introduces an absolute novelty, degressive proportionality, while the established principle of electoral equality makes no appearance at all. The normative goals in the Treaty text, when turned into operational electoral rules, entail serious obstacles implying an unnecessary provocation of the electorate. We argue that, since nobody knows its meaning, "degressiveness" ought to be deleted from the text, while the principle of electoral equality, treasured by all Member States, should be included

Llull's Writings on Electoral Systems

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Degressive representation of Member States in the European Parliament 2019-2024

Primary law of the European Union demands that the allocation of the seats of the European Parliament between the Member States must obey the principle of degressive proportionality. The principle embodies the political aim that the more populous states agree to be underrepresented in order to allow the less populous states to be better represented. This paper reviews four allocation methods achieving this goal: the Cambridge Compromise, the Power Compromise, the Modified Cambridge Compromise, and the 0.5-DPL Method. After a year of committee deliberations, Parliament decreed on 7 February 2018 an allocation of seats for the 2019 elections that realizes degressive proportionality, but otherwise lacks methodological grounding. The allocation emerged from haggling and bargaining behind closed doors

Compositional Proportionality among European Political Parties at European Parliament Elections

A new method is proposed for the apportionment of seats in the European Parliament among political parties at European level: compositional proportionality. Compositional proportionality achieves two goals. Firstly, it safeguards the composition of the European Parliament, that is, it realizes the preordained allocation of seats between the Member States. Secondly, it apportions the subset of seats to which it applies proportionally to unionwide vote totals, that is, it reflects the political division of the Union citizens according to the motto “one person–one vote”. Compositional proportionality is demonstrated using the data of the 2014 elections. However, since past elections were contested by domestic parties rather than by European parties, the unionwide vote totals of those domestic parties who joined the same political group in the 2014 European Parliament are hypothetically substituted for the non-existing vote totals of political parties at European level.A new method is proposed for the apportionment of seats in the European Parliament among political parties at European level: compositional proportionality. Compositional proportionality achieves two goals. Firstly, it safeguards the composition of the European Parliament, that is, it realizes the preordained allocation of seats between the Member States. Secondly, it apportions the subset of seats to which it applies proportionally to unionwide vote totals, that is, it reflects the political division of the Union citizens according to the motto “one person–one vote”. Compositional proportionality is demonstrated using the data of the 2014 elections. However, since past elections were contested by domestic parties rather than by European parties, the unionwide vote totals of those domestic parties who joined the same political group in the 2014 European Parliament are hypothetically substituted for the non-existing vote totals of political parties at European level

Compositional Proportionality among European Political Parties at European Parliament Elections

A new method is proposed for the apportionment of seats in the European Parliament among political parties at European level: compositional proportionality. Compositional proportionality achieves two goals. Firstly, it safeguards the composition of the European Parliament, that is, it realizes the preordained allocation of seats between the Member States. Secondly, it apportions the subset of seats to which it applies proportionally to unionwide vote totals, that is, it reflects the political division of the Union citizens according to the motto “one person–one vote”. Compositional proportionality is demonstrated using the data of the 2014 elections. However, since past elections were contested by domestic parties rather than by European parties, the unionwide vote totals of those domestic parties who joined the same political group in the 2014 European Parliament are hypothetically substituted for the non-existing vote totals of political parties at European level

Future European Parliament Elections: Ten Steps Towards Uniform Procedures

Procedural steps for the European Parliament elections are proposed so as to achieve more uniformity among the national electoral provisions of the 27 Member States. The steps include the creation of a European Electoral Authority, the enhancement of the European party system, and the consolidation of the many diverse seat apportionment methods into the single equality-oriented divisor method with standard rounding (Webster/Sainte-Lague). The introduction of semi-open list systems is addressed, as is the formation of a single European constituency for the election of an additional twenty-five MEPs. In the long run the translation of votes into seats could be carried out using the biproportional variant of the divisor method with standard rounding, in order to better mirror the structure of the European Union

A power-weighted variant of the EU27 Cambridge Compromise

The Cambridge Compromise composition of the European Parliament allocates five base seats to each Member State's citizenry, and apportions the remaining seats proportionately to population figures using the divisor method with rounding upwards and observing a 96 seat capping. The power-weighted variant avoids the capping step, proceeding instead by a progressive non-linear downweighting of the population figures until the largest State is allocated exactly 96 seats. The pertinent calculations of the variant are described, and its relative constitutional merits are discussed

The allocation between EU member states of seats in the European Parliament

This note contains the recommendation for a mathematical basis for the apportionment of the seats in the European Parliament between the Member States of the European Union. This is the unanimous recommendation of the Participants in the Cambridge Apportionment Meeting, held at the instigation of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs at the Centre for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge, on 28–29 January 2011

The allocation between the EU member states of the seats in the European Parliament Cambridge Compromise

This Note contains the recommendation for a mathematical basis for the apportionment of the seats in the European Parliament between the Member States of the European Union. This is the unanimous recommendation of the Participants in the Cambridge Apportionment Meeting, held at the instigation of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs at the Centre for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge, on 28-29 January 2011.Proportional Representation, degressive proportionality, apportionment, European Parliament. Classification