Following today's vote on amendments to a draft Regulation on the harmonisation and provision of population data which saw plenary vote in favour of the plans, GUE/NGL MEP Thomas Händel has described the dossier as an “attempt by the Commission to underpin ‘double majority’ voting in the Council based on the population criterion enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty, in order to use harmonised EU statistics on demography for working out the power dynamics between Member States in Council.”

Händel, the GUE/NGL Shadow rapporteur on the Sógor dossier, added: “A debate about how population numbers have to be counted is a matter of sensitivity to many countries in the EU and needs to be discussed separately at the institutional level and not hidden in a somewhat technical Commission Regulation. Therefore the GUE/NGL voted against this proposal and calls for further discussions on the issue.”
 

GUE/NGL Press Contacts:
Emily Macintosh +32 470 85 05 08
David Lundy +32 470 85 05 09
Gay Kavanagh +32 473 84 23 20
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