I think you're looking at the wrong aspect... consider two cases.
First, suppose that in Malta, there is a political party that has majority backing, or near-majority. In this case, the Maltese will look at an EU election reform that gives Malta a single seat, realise that the big party will win every election in the coming decades, and say "WTF is this? Why should we even hold elections if we already know the outcome? This isn't democratic, I'll be no part of this."
Second, suppose that in Malta, there is no political party close to majority backing. In this case, the Maltese will look at an EU election reform that gives Malta a single seat, realise that the winning candidate will never have wide popular support, and say "WTF is this? Why should we even hold elections if no winner will have popular backing? This isn't democratic, I'll be no part of this."
Sometimes people suggest avoiding the problem by not having such small places. However, Malta does exist. If there were a reform proposing to merge Malta's EU votes with Italy's,
the Maltese would look at it and say "WTF? Why should we even hold elections if the representative will always be a party hack from Rome who doesn't even speak our language?"
AIUI the common way to solve this is to give really small places about five or six seats, so that winning 20% of the votes is enough. That transforms an existential problem of democracy in the small places into a small skew in the elected body.
First, suppose that in Malta, there is a political party that has majority backing, or near-majority. In this case, the Maltese will look at an EU election reform that gives Malta a single seat, realise that the big party will win every election in the coming decades, and say "WTF is this? Why should we even hold elections if we already know the outcome? This isn't democratic, I'll be no part of this."
Second, suppose that in Malta, there is no political party close to majority backing. In this case, the Maltese will look at an EU election reform that gives Malta a single seat, realise that the winning candidate will never have wide popular support, and say "WTF is this? Why should we even hold elections if no winner will have popular backing? This isn't democratic, I'll be no part of this."
Sometimes people suggest avoiding the problem by not having such small places. However, Malta does exist. If there were a reform proposing to merge Malta's EU votes with Italy's, the Maltese would look at it and say "WTF? Why should we even hold elections if the representative will always be a party hack from Rome who doesn't even speak our language?"
AIUI the common way to solve this is to give really small places about five or six seats, so that winning 20% of the votes is enough. That transforms an existential problem of democracy in the small places into a small skew in the elected body.