Belgium will have one more seat in the European Parliament from the next legislature: at European elections on 9 June 2024, Belgians will elect 22 MEPs instead of 21, with the extra seat going to a Dutch-speaking candidate.
On Wednesday, the European Parliament approved a decision by the European Council to increase the number of seats in the continental parliament to reflect demographic changes in the EU since the 2019 elections.
The total number of seats in the Parliament will rise from 705 to 720. France, the Netherlands and Spain have each gained two extra seats. Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Austria, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia will have one more MEP. No Member State had to give up a seat.
Belgian voters will therefore choose 22 MEPs on 9 June: 13 Dutch-speakers (up from 12 in 2019), eight Francophones and one German-speaker.
“This decision will lead to a fairer composition of the European Parliament that takes into account the demographics of the Member States, as we have always asked,” commented French Liberal Sandro Gozi, who helped steer the initiative.
MEPs approved the Member States’ decision by 515 votes to 74, with 44 abstentions. During the debate preceding the vote, some MEPs criticised the European Council’s decision to strike out from the original proposal the idea of transnational candidate lists, for which 28 seats would have been allocated.
