European constituency brushes regions under the carpet

In April the Committee on Institutional Affairs of the European Parliament approved a report that wanted to modify the rules for European elections. Frieda Brepoels, Member of the European Parliament for the N-VA, believes that the call for 25 additional MEPs is unacceptable at a time when savings have to be made. Furthermore she doesn't think that a European constituency will bring people closer to the European decision-making process. However what makes this text even more difficult for the N-VA to swallow is that it excludes any form of prior guaranteed representation for autonomous (constitutional) regions. This kind of representation has already been established for Flanders but this is not the case for regions such as Catalonia and the Basque Country in Spain. The proposal must now be approved by the whole of the European Parliament during the plenary session in June, and then by the Council. Furthermore, as this proposal involves a modification to the existing European Treaty it must be approved by all competent parliaments in the Member States. The N-VA will not support the proposal in its current form.