Italy is set to fight plans to cut the number of seats in the European Parliament using a method which would see Rome lose more MEPs than any other country.
The EP's constitutional affairs committee on Tuesday approved the plan to allocate seats according to the resident population of each EU member. The calculation would include immigrants.
"This criterion is against the spirit of the (European Union's founding) Treaty and is therefore unacceptable. The members of the European Parliament represent the citizens of the Union," said European Affairs Minister Emma Bonino.
She argued that immigrants from outside the EU were not Italian citizens and therefore should not be included in the calculation of parliamentary seats.
Under the proposed changes Italy would lose six of its 78 MEPs. Britain and France, which have larger immigrant populations than Italy, would lose five and four respectively.
The draft re-allocation, which is to go to the European Parliament for debate and a vote on October 11, would mean that for the first time Italy would weigh less in the EP than France and Germany.
Assuming the changes pass, they will then go before the 27 government leaders at an EU summit in Lisbon on October 18 and 19.
"The (Italian) government is unlikely to give its assent to a proposal which violates the founding principles of the new Treaty and unjustly penalises our country," said Rocco Cangelosi, Italy's permanent representative at the EU.
The reduction in the number of MEPs was decided in 2004 at an IGC (Intergovernmental Conference) which was hosted by Italy and which closed with EU governments ratifying the European Union's draft constitution.
The agreement was that after European elections in June 2009, the total number of MEPs would be cut from 785 to 750.
Italy already saw its share of EP seats cut drastically by the Treaty of Nice in 2001, when they fell from 87 to 72. Other countries also saw their totals fall as the Union made space in the parliament for the new states joining the EU.
