European Parliament elections 2009 (86): Are the Scottish underrepresented?

Via Tom I found the follwoing in a blog entry by Jeff:

Think on this:

• Slovakia has a population of 5.4m people and is represented by 14 MEPs.

• Finland has a population of 5.3m and is represented by 14 MEPs.

• Ireland has a population of 4.4m people and is represented by 13 MEPs.

• Lithuania has a population of 3.3m people and is represented by 13 MEPs.

• Latvia has a population of 2.2m people and is represented by 9 MEPs.

• Slovenia has a population of 2m people and is represented by 7 MEPs.

• Estonia has a population of 1.3m people and is represented by 6 MEPs.

• Scotland has a population of 5.2m pople and is represented by a mere 6 MEPs.
  

In fact, if you calculate the number of inhabitants per MEP, then Scotland is close to the overal ratio of the United Kingdom (the UK is subdivided into 12 constituencies of 4-10 MEPs), which itself has a comparable ration to the the largest member state, Germany.

So in comparison with small EU member states Scotland might be underrepresented, but in relation to the number of MEPs of the UK, a Scottish vote has a similar weight to the vote of any other UK citizen.

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