EU parliament head blasts plan to take away his voting rights

(STRASBOURG) - European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering vowed Monday to strongly oppose moves to scrap his voting rights under plans to revamp and reduce the assembly.

"Nobody, not the president of the Council (of 27 EU member nations) nor anyone else can remove the voting rights of the president of the European Parliament for institutional reasons," he said at the opening of an assembly session in the French city of Strasbourg.

"I will oppose it, I will oppose it vehemently and I think that we will reach agreement on it," the German conservative MEP added.

The idea to scrap the parliamentary head's voting rights was agreed by European leaders at a summit in Lisbon last week, during discussions on the EU's new reform treaty.

Agreement on the treaty, drawn up to replace the bloc's failed constitutional project, was reached early Friday.

It introduces a ceiling of 750 MEPs in the chamber which currently includes 785 deputies.

Under the proposals, the Italian quota would be reduced to 72 seats, thereby losing parliamentary parity with France (74) and Britain (73).

To prevent Italy's dissatisfaction threatening a deal, the leaders agreed to hand Rome one extra seat.

But with the 750 cap retained, some creative thinking was required to avoid taking that seat from somewhere else and merely transferring the gripe to another EU capital.

Hence the 750 plus one plan, which would strip the president of voting rights.

The parliament has not decided whether to put the scheme to the vote.