The European Parliament voted on Thursday on the number of seats EU member states would have after the new European treaty is passed, which is scheduled to reduce the size of the European legislative body to 750 seats from the current 785.

Bulgaria was initially due to lose one seat, which it regained under the proposal tabled by France's Alain Lamassoure and Romania's Adrian Severin, adopted by the European Parliament by 378 votes in favour, 154 against and 109 abstentions.

Bulgaria thus becomes one of the six countries that will have their allocations unchanged, while another four will have theirs increased, with small countries benefiting from the changes, while larger ones seeing their presence scaled down somewhat.

Bulgaria elected its first 18 MEPs in May, with five parties winning enough votes to send their representatives to the European parliament.

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