18 additional seats were designated to be filled by "observers" when the Lisbon treaty goes into force, to account for new seat distribution with the Lisbon Treaty. On 23 June an intergovernmental conference (IGC) of EU member states amended a protocol attached to the Lisbon treaty on transitional arrangements. Those transitional arrangements were originally envisaged as taking the total number of MEPs from 785 to 751 for the 2009 elections. The amended text says that the protocol "shall enter into force if possible on 1 December 2010". Germany is allowed to retain its three additional MEPs until the next elections in 2014.