July 11, 2019

The European Parliament in numbers!

July 2nd marked the official beginning of the 9th legislature of the European Parliament!  At EU40, we have crunched the numbers and here are some golden insights we have discovered.

In the 2019-2024 mandate, 751 MEPs represent over 500 million EU Citizens. This EP has seen a high number of first-time members, accounting for roughly 60% of new faces (435 new MEPs + 16 MEPs from earlier terms). 

Women have nowadays the highest number of seats ever!  Yet there is still not a full gender balance in the house: 40% of the current MEPs are women.
The graph below shows the trend from 1979 up to the previous mandate, where women were reaching 36%.

Image result for women in european parliament

The average age of the new EP is 50 years old; in the past, it spanned from 48 to 51 years old.  The current oldest MEP is Silvio Berlusconi (now 82 y/o – EPP) and the youngest MEP is Kira Peter-Hansen, Green MEP from Denmark (21 y/o).  Interestingly, at 21, Kira is the youngest MEP ever, since Ilka SCHRÖDER, MEP from 1999 until 2004, was 21 and a half when she was elected. 

The number of MEPs under 40 is 158; 113 of them are on the pro-European side. The graph below shows an analysis of the age per party (Non-Affiliated are considered in this case as a single block).