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The June 10-13 European elections will be the first to be held under the EU's 2000 Nice Treaty, which created winners and losers as part of a shake-up to allow the addition of 10 more member states to the bloc.

The parliament's composition has had to be rejigged to make way for MEPs from the newcomers, which joined on May 1.

Britain, France and Italy will see their representation go down from 87 to 78 members.

Germany will continue to send 99 lawmakers to the EU assembly as a result of a deal that allowed five nights of fraught negotiations on the French Riviera in December 2000 to finally end in agreement.

That marathon summit left the EU with the unloved Nice Treaty.

Germany accepted voting parity with Britain, France and Italy in the EU's Council of Ministers in return for having a larger number of MEPs.

The treaty redistributes the number of deputies in the European Parliament, from 626 before the enlargement to 732 after the elections.

Among the new entrants Poland is the best-represented with 54 seats, the same number as Spain. Malta has the smallest number of seats, at five.

The number of seats promised at Nice to Romania (33) and to Bulgaria (17), which are unlikely to join the EU before 2007 at the earliest, have been redistributed.

For the few weeks between the May 1 expansion and the elections, the parliament has numbered 786 members.

That will be trimmed to 732 in the polls, and in any case under the EU's first constitution the number is not meant to exceed 736 despite future enlargements.

Among other firsts, Gibraltar will be taking part in the European elections after an EU court order that the British territory at the foot of Spain must be represented in the parliament.

However, because of its small size Gibraltar has been lumped into the South West constituency of Britain. - Sapa-AFP

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