The European Parliament is poised to scrap plans to invite 18 future MEPs to join the Parliament this autumn with observer status.
Cost-saving is being cited as the explanation for the change of plan. Parliament officials said that the leaders of the political groups would discuss the matter in September.
Treaty change
The 18 MEPs are to be added to the Parliament, probably next year, taking the total number from the current 736 to 754. The addition follows from a change to the Lisbon treaty, which requires ratification by all the member states. The Parliament changed its procedural rules last November to allow the additional members to sit as observers during the period between the start of the ratification process and entry into force of the treaty change.
As observers, they would not have the right to speak, vote or draft reports. Officials said that several political groups in the Parliament now feel that there is little point in letting the new members sit as observers if ratification of the treaty change by national parliaments takes until next year.
Observer MEPs have traditionally been appointed from national parliaments in countries that were about to join the EU. This was the case when ten, mainly central and eastern European, countries joined the Union in 2004. A similar arrangement was set up before the entry of Bulgaria and Romania in 2007. In those cases, their salaries were paid by national parliaments, while their travel and daily allowances were paid by the European Parliament.
But this time, those in line to become MEPs are not all national parliamentarians and so are not guaranteed a national salary.
No budget
The Parliament has created a €9.4 million budget reserve in its 2011 budget to pay for the extra MEPs, but an official said no extra money had been budgeted for the observers this year.
Several of the 12 countries that will be sending extra MEPs chose them during last year's European elections.
The expansion of the Parliament had been agreed in principle in 2008. It was formally proposed as a change to a protocol attached to the treaty, agreed by a brief intergovernmental conference comprising ambassadors from the 27 member states on 23 June.
Initially the expanded Parliament will have 754 MEPs, but from the 2014 elections Germany will have three fewer MEPs and so the total will then be 751.
? Where the 18 MEPs will come from:
Four from Spain, two each from France, Austria and Sweden, one each from Bulgaria, Italy, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Slovenia, the Netherlands and the UK.
