More Seat in EU Parliament Before Turkish Membership (If Successful)
2.55pm Brussels / 8.55am DC
Just weeks ago there was a “dramatical deal” between 5 parties, Sweden - NATO - U.S. - Turkiye - EU (European Union) that the Turkish finally say YES for Sweden's bid to be a new NATO member. Some indication that, for “YES” by Turkiye, Biden will allow or approve selling F-16 to Turkiye. Also the EU will intensify - and seriously, to make sure that Turkiye will be a new member of the EU. Islamic / Muslim majority population country to be a “Christianity Club” EU. Moslem / Muslim Turkiye is 9th biggest after Indonesia (around 242 million), India (around 220 million), Nigeria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, China (around 130 million), Egypt (around 107 million), and Iran (87 million).
To make more sense: Turkiye population is 85,847,761 (July 27th, 2023), and Germany's population is 83,291,629 (July 27th, 2023). If Turkiye successfully becomes a new member of the European Union, of course, Turkiye will have at least the same total seat in EU Parliament as Germany.
This month, or more detail, July-December 2023, the EU Chair is Spain. PM Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón (to be PM since June 2nd, 2018) already knew Erdogan a long time ago. Economic Indicators Comparison Spain with a GDP of $1.4T ranked the 14th largest economy in the world (very slightly behind Indonesia), while Turkey ranked 19th with $771.4B. Spain and Turkey are enjoying a burgeoning economic and political relationship.
Specific for Spain after the election 6 days ago. The left is set to face an equal bloc of right-wing MPs keen to reject Sánchez’s bid to remain Spain’s prime minister. Getting Junts to abstain is no longer enough — some of the separatist party’s MPs will now need to vote in the Socialist leader's favor. On Friday ballots from voters living abroad were counted; final results are pending, but it looks like the center-right Popular Party will win a seat allocated to the Socialists.
An electoral repeat is now much more likely. Holding new elections will likely be bad for separatist parties: With the exception of EH Bildu, all other groups of this kind lost seats in last Sunday's vote, and they're likely to lose even more if electors have to go back to the polls in December or January. If preliminary reports are correct, PM Pedro Sánchez's narrow path to remain in Moncloa Palace just got narrower, and Spain is now a lot more likely to go back to the polls in a few months. Teruel has a population of 35,675 in 2014, making it the least populated provincial capital in the country. Parties from long-ignored regions are benefitting from that situation — and setting themselves up to be unlikely kingmakers.
EU Chair January-June 2024 (when election EU Parliament held) is Belgium. Charles Michel is former PM Belgium (Oct 11 2014-Oct 27 2019). EU Chair July-December 2024 is Hungary, of course Viktor Orban is close friend - close ally of Erdogan. If Turkiye's candidacy in the EU very smooth, same promise by EU Charles Michel weeks ago, maybe Turkiye will be officially an EU member (even) December this year. Realistic: maybe in July 2025, when the EU Chair (July-December 2025) is Denmark, a Stoltenberg NATO’s country.
20 Hours ago, the decision in the EU, European Parliament will be bigger after the 2024 elections, growing from 705 to 720 seats. Just before (if happens) Turkiye one day becomes a new member of the EU. Sweden (member of EU since January 1st, 1995) indebted with the Turkiye role and or “green light” by Erdogan. Indirectly, SecGen NATO, Stoltenberg, a Danish, was also indebted too. Denmark has been an EU member since January 1st, 1973. No country will lose any spots in the hemicycle.
The changes — which still need formal legal approval by the European Council and the Parliament itself — will take the number of seats from 705 to 720 between 2024 and 2029.
The European Parliament is composed based on the principle of “degressive proportionality”, which means that larger countries are underrepresented and smaller countries are overrepresented. In other words, an EP seat from a big country represents far more people than a seat from a small country: an MEP from Germany represents 860,000 people, an MEP from Malta only 86,000. The Maltese population is only 520k, and until today, the President of EU Parliament is Maltese, Roberta Metsola (since January 18th, 2022).
In a document that sets out the shape and size of the next European Parliament, EU governments have deleted any mention of creating a common continental constituency or so-called transnational list - an EU-wide constituency of 28 MEPs who all voters would elect. This composition change will and must happen before elections, as for the Parliament's demands it looks highly unlikely if not impossible that any changes will be made with less than a year to go until the elections.
Basic principle is the larger a country (in terms of population), the more citizens each seat in the European Parliament should represent If you rank countries from large to small, the number of citizens per seat should decrease.
Following population changes, the current composition of the EP (status quo) no longer fulfils this criterion. Currently, Spain, Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, Ireland, and Slovenia are underrepresented. Therefore, the EP proposed to add 2 additional seats to Spain (especially coincidence that Spain now is EU Chair) and the Netherlands, and 1 seat to Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Slovenia, Finland, Slovakia, and Latvia. Last three seats were required to make sure that new seats for Austria, Denmark, Ireland, and Slovenia don’t mess up degressive proportionality.
Big winners are France (get + 2 seats), and Poland plus Belgium (+ 1 seat): not necessarily required to ensure degressive proportionality, but also not jeopardising it. Belgium reserves one seat for its German-Speaking community of 78,000 citizens (compare 86,000 citizens per seat in Malta).
With “no change and or because Germany not propose anything”, agree with current seat, ONE DAY if Turkiye to be a new EU member, maybe EU Parliament re-set again total seats and to be 816. 96 Seats and 96 seats for Germany and Turkiye.
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Very interesting :)