SPAIN IS pressing its EU partners to agree a new protocol to the Lisbon Treaty to alter the number of sitting MEPs if the treaty finally enters into force.
Madrid wants all 27 EU leaders to sign up to the protocol at next month’s European summit and then ratify it in national parliaments if Ireland votes Yes in an autumn referendum. This controversial legal manoeuvre could enable Ireland to get its own guarantees on Lisbon enshrined in the EU treaties earlier than anticipated by the Government. But it could also complicate negotiations at the EU summit in Brussels.
“We intend to put forward a text at the June council, which says that the extra 18 MEPs from 12 countries that are included in the terms of the Lisbon Treaty should take their seats as soon as the Lisbon Treaty enters into force,” said Diego López Garrido, Spain’s minister of state for European affairs.
If all EU states sign up to the protocol and ratify it in early 2010, this would enable the number of MEPs in the European Parliament to increase from the 736 allowed in the Treaty of Nice to the 754 allowed under Lisbon.
If the new protocol is not agreed and ratified, the extra 18 MEPs from 12 countries allowed under Lisbon cannot legally take their seats until 2014 because the European elections are currently being conducted under the Nice treaty.
Spain is particularly anxious to enable the additional MEPs to take their seats because it will be allocated four of the 18 extra seats.
France, Sweden, Austria, Britain, Poland, Portugal, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Latvia, Slovenia and Malta would also receive more MEPs under the Lisbon Treaty.
Mr López Garrido said yesterday there would be an “imbalance” between the EU institutions if the MEPs could not take their seats until the end of the new legislature due to transition problems when moving from the Nice treaty to Lisbon Treaty.
“The treaty introduces changes to both the Council of Ministers and the parliament, so we obviously need to introduce the reforms for both institutions at the same time,” he said.
The Spanish push to have a protocol to Lisbon ratified by all 27 national parliaments in early 2010 could potentially offer the Government a vehicle through which it could get its own protocol containing its sought guarantees ratified at the same time.
It had initially planned to get this ratified, and therefore enshrined in the EU treaties, with the next accession treaty – probably Croatia in 2011 or 2012.
Enshrining the guarantees in the EU treaties would provide cast-iron legal certainty to the public on the issues in question.
But some member states such as Britain may oppose reopening the Lisbon debate in their national parliaments, particularly before a general election.
“The Spanish could cause a lot of problems if they insist on this,” said Sara Hagemann, analyst with the European Policy Centre.
“No one has a problem with the content of a protocol that enables the MEPs to take their seats but it could be used . . . in Britain to reopen the debate on Lisbon.”
There are also fears among some diplomats that raising the issue at the European Council could prompt other EU states to seek to make changes to Lisbon, potentially opening a Pandora’s box of new requests.
Mr López Garrido said the Spanish proposal was just a small technical adjustment rather than a change to Lisbon and should not prompt other requests. Britain has not raised any problem with the proposal, he added.
But one EU diplomat said it was still unclear whether the Spanish proposal would find support at the leaders’ summit in June.
“The main issue is the Irish guarantees and no one will want this to interfere with that,” he said.