The European Parliament
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Figure 1 :: The European Parliament building in Brussels
The European Parliament (EP) is elected by the citizens of the Members States (MS) of the European Union (EU). The EP's origins date back to the founding treaties of the EU in the 1950s, and since 1979 the EP's members (MEPs) have been directly elected by the people they represent.
Elections for the EP are held every five years and all MS citizens entitled to vote in their MS can also vote in the European elections. As a consequence the EP is the most democratic of the EU institutions. In total 455 million people are able to vote in the EP elections with 732 MEPs from all of the 25 EU countries.
The MEPs are not organised in relation to the countries they represent. Instead they belong to one of seven Europe-wide political groups that range from the openly pro-federalist Europe to those that want less integration than exists at present.
The EP is headed by a President and in 2004, Josep Borrell Fontelles was elected to this post.
The EP is based in three locations across Europe. The administrative offices are in Luxembourg, while meetings of the EP take place in both Strasbourg (France) and Brussels (Belgium).
Figure 2 :: Inside the European Parliament
What the European Parliament does
The European Parliament has three main roles:
- Passing European laws
- Democratic supervision over other EU institutions
- Authority over the EU budget (shared with the Council)
Passing European laws (jointly with the Council)
- Parliament can:-
- Approve a proposal made by the Commission
- Reject the proposal
- Ask for amendments to be made to the proposal
- Approving a proposal means that there must be an absolute majority of the votes cast.
- This means that, of the votes cast by the MEPs, over 50% must be in favour of acceptance.
- Co-decision procedure
- The EP shares the power to pass laws equally with the Council.
- If the two institutions can not agree on a piece of legislation, it is put before a conciliation committee.
- This is composed of an equal number of Council and Parliament representatives.
- Once there is an agreement, the document is sent to both institutions for adoption.
- A link to a diagram showing the decision making process is set out below.
www.europa.eu.int/comm/codecision/stepbystep/diagram_en.htm
Fgure 3 :: The European Parliament building in Strasbourg
Democratic supervision over other EU institutions
- The EP has the power to approve or reject the nomination of commissioners for the Commission.
- Parliament interviews all candidates, but can only accept or reject the Commission as a whole.
- The EP also has the right to reprimand the Commission as a whole.
- This means that the Commission is always accountable to the EP.
- MEPs can question Commission members and the commissioners are legally required to answer those questions.
- The EP also scrutinises the work of the Council
- The EP can also set up committees of inquiry to investigate matters of concern
- Finally the President of the EP is invited to speak at every EU summit (a meeting of the European Council) to talk about the concerns of the EP.
Authority over the EU budget (shared with the Council)
- This role means that the EP can influence spending.
- At the end of the budgetary procedure the EP can vote to accept or reject the budget as a whole.
- The President of the Parliament must sign the budget before it can come into force.
- The EP also monitors how the budget is spent.
For more information visit www.europa.eu.int/institutions/parliament/index_en.htm
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