The Cambridge Compromise achieves degressive proportionality without distorting the meaning of “citizens” beyond the minimum. It does so in each of its two stages. The first stage of assigning base seats treats all Member States alike. This is extremely degressive since it neglects population figures entirely. The second stage of proportional allocation of the remaining seats embodies a mild form of degressivity through the use of upward rounding, so introducing a slight bias in favour of the less populous Member States which reinforces the effect of degressive proportionality.