Geert Wilders' anti-Islam party PVV and the pro-animal group Partij voor de Dieren are both claiming the extra seat in the European parliament which the Netherlands will get if Ireland backs the EU treaty.
The Netherlands currently has 25 seats - four of which went to the PVV.The PvdD narrowly missed out on winning one.
If every EU country backs the Lisbon treaty, the Netherlands will get an extra seat in parliament. 'Unfortunately, the political choice [about how to allocate the seat] was not taken before the election,' Henk Kummeling of the voting council told the Volkskrant on Thursday.
There are two options: the first is to give the seat to a party already in the EU parliament which has the most 'extra' votes. That would be the PVV. Or the seat could go to the party which almost won a seat - as happens at the local elections. In that case the PvdD would win.
Junior home affairs minister Ank Bijleveld told MPs last month she backed the first option. But MPs will have the final say.
PvdD party leader Marianne Thieme said she would go to court to claim the seat if
necessary.
Ironically, both the PVV and PvdD oppose the Lisbon treaty which makes the extra seat possible, the Volkskrant points out.
© DutchNews.nl
Thursday 11 June 2009
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