Remember the battle of the square root, Poland’s chaotic manoeuvre at June’s summit in Brussels to win more voting rights? Warsaw wanted votes weighted according to the square root of population and at least fought back the advance of reform for a few years.

Now brace yourself for the citizens’ war, this time led by Italy. The early skirmishes are being fought in the European parliament but the front could yet move to Lisbon, complicating EU leaders’ hopes of finally laying the reform treaty to rest.

It concerns the way seats are allocating in the European parliament, which is shrinking even as the EU prepares to accept new members.

The amount each country has matters, as parliament will win further powers and already has to agree a big chunk of European legislation.

The French have, as ever when power-broking is involved, one of their own in charge. Alain Lamassoure, a former Europe minister and adviser to President Nicolas Sarkozy, has drawn up a balanced reform that favours France, along with his junior partner, Adrian Severin of Romania. On Tuesday the parliament’s constitutional committee approved it by 17 votes to 5..

The parliamentary arithmetic is complicated. From the 2009 elections until 2014 there will be 736 seats in Strasbourg, down from the current 785. Under the reform treaty, that will increase to 750 from 2014 on.

Germany has to be reduced from 99 to 96 seats, as that is the new maximum for any country. Malta must receive one, as six is the minimum. That leaves 16 to give out.

Fast-growing Spain gets four, Poland one, France two and the UK one, all based on proportion of population, or “digressive proportionality” as the policy wonks call it.

That leaves the Poles unhappy at losing parity with Spain. Italy is unhappy because it will fall behind the UK and France. They all have 72 from 2009-14.

So the Italian mathematicians – and lawyers - have been at work. The new treaty says MEPs represent citizens, not residents, points out Paolo Alberti, spokesman of the Liberal group in parliament. Many immigrants cannot vote whereas all Italian citizens abroad can vote at home.

“A Chinese living in France would be taken into account (although not allowed to vote) whereas an Italian living in Switzerland (but voting in Italy) wouldn’t and an Italian living in France (but preferring to vote in Italy) would be considered as represented by a French MEP. It is clearly a nonsense and it has no legal basis,” he says.

Rome believes 3.5m Italians could be disenfranchised. According to figures provided by Mr Alberti, the proposal gives them one MEP per 8.3m citizens, whereas France has one for every 8m. Interestingly, the figures also show that Portugal and Greece have half as many citizens abroad as at home.

The parliament is set to approve it next week, after which it is up to EU ministers to sort things out.

October 2nd, 2007 in MEPs | Permalink