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European Parliament
The European Parliament 
The European Parliament (EP) is the only European institution directly elected by citizens. It is made up of 736 MEPs and has three fundamental powers: legislative, budgetary and political control of the other European institutions.
The European Parliament represents 500 million inhabitants of the 27 member states of the European Union. As an institution representing European citizens, the Parliament is one of the main democratic foundations of the EU.
Missions
The European Parliament has joint powers on legislative and budgetary functions with the Council of the European Union. It develops ideas on societal problems and, through its resolutions, fulfils its political impetus role.
The Parliament has three main powers:
Legislative power:
The European Parliament participates in the creation of community legislative acts to varying degrees. Its role has gradually developed from an exclusively consultative one to one with codecision power which places it on equal footing with the Council. The Lisbon Treaty sanctions the codecision procedure as "ordinary legislative procedure" and significantly extends its field of competencies, thus reinforcing the role of Parliament and thus the democratic nature of decision making within the institutions.
As a result of the Lisbon Treaty, the “ordinary legislative procedure” concerns 85 areas (41 more than enshrined in the Nice Treaty). Agriculture and fishing, freedom, security and justice as well as common commercial policy among others, are from now on governed by the codecision process.
Within the codecision procedure, the Parliament gives its opinion on first reading of a European Commission proposal: it gives its opinion on the proposal by simple majority.
If the Council then approves all the (potential) amendments made by the MEPs, the act can be adopted. If the Council adopts another position ("common position"), the Parliament gives its opinion on a second reading and decides whether to accept this position or to amend it again (it will then go back to Council). The Parliament may also choose to reject the proposal and it will not be adopted.
Notwithstanding the exceptions allowed for by the treaties, a text cannot therefore be adopted if there is disagreement between the Council and the European Parliament. In cases where there is persistent disagreement, the act is examined by a conciliation committee.
Along with the ordinary procedure, the Parliament is involved in two special procedures. Firstly, the consent procedure allows Parliament to amend a text but gives it veto rights in areas such as investiture of the Commission, accession to the Union, signing of international agreements or judicial cooperation in criminal matters. The consultation procedure is obligatory in about fifty areas and enables Parliament to give its opinion which, however, is not legally binding.
Budgetary power:
The budget of the European Union is established in a multiannual financial framework (it amounts to €862,3 billion for the period 2007-2013), and the annual amount is voted on every year: for 2010, the European Parliament adopted a budget of €122,937 billion.The European Parliament and the Council of the European Council share budgetary competency and vote on the European Commission's proposals.
However, the Lisbon Treaty grants the Parliament a deciding role in the adoption of the budget.
In the framework of the budgetary procedure, the European Commission develops a budget plan on which opinion is given by the Council and then the Parliament which can approve or amend (by simple majority) the Council’s position.
If this proposal is amended, a conciliation procedure takes over. With this procedure, Parliament can reject (by simple majority) the new plan despite the approval of Council or it can approve (by a majority of its members and 3/5 of the vote) the new plan despite its rejection by Council.
Political control of the European institutions
The European Parliament has several powers of control. This power relates to:
- election of the president of the European Commission. The Lisbon Treaty ensures that nomination of the Commission President must be approved by absolute majority (no longer by simple majority) by the Parliament at the proposal of the European Council. The European Council must also take into account the result of the European elections and consult the Parliament on its proposal;
- censure of the European Commission by motion of censure vote (voted by a majority of MEPs and 2/3 of the vote);
- the power to form, at the request of a quarter of its members, a temporary committee of inquiry to examine potential contraventions or maladministrations in the application of community law. For example, temporary committees have investigated delayed European intervention into BSE (also known as “mad cow disease”) and into involvement of European countries in the transport and illegal detention of CIA prisoners;
- the European Parliament receives petitions from any citizen on a subject related to the EU and concerning the citizen directly;
- nomination of a European ombudsman. Elected by the Parliament for a five-year term, the ombudsman examines complaints from citizens concerning cases of maladministration of community institutions or bodies and looks for an out-of-court solution to the dispute;
- asking the Commission written or oral questions;
- the right to hear the European Council and the Council, and to review the annual report presented by the Commission.
Functioning
Composition
Today, the European Parliament has 736 MEPs elected for a 5-year renewable term. Although the Lisbon Treaty makes provisions for expanding this number to 751 (750 plus the president), this change will not take place until 2014 (with a likely transitional period of 754 MEPs from 2012 to 2014).
The first elections by direct universal suffrage to the European Parliament took place in June 1979. Prior to that, MEPs were named by each national parliament. The most recent European elections took place on June 4-7 2009 in the 27 member states of the EU.
The distribution of seats is carried out by the member states in accordance with the principle of degressive proportionality which takes the population of each state into account: the more populous a state is, the higher the number of MEPs it will send to parliament but this advantage diminishes as population increases.
Thus, the European Parliament has five Maltese MEPs (for a population of 400,000, so one MEP per 80,000 inhabitants) and 99 German MEPs (for a population of 82,000,000 inhabitants, so one MEP for 830,000 inhabitants). France has 72 MEPs (74 from 2014).
The Lisbon Treaty does not define the exact number of MEPs per member state but does state the minimum number (6) and the maximum number (95), a rule which will come fully into force during the next legislature in 2014. The number of MEPs per member state is decided by unanimous decision at the European Council at the proposal of the European Parliament and having obtained its approval.
Organisation
Jerzy Buzek (Poland) – EPP – has been President of the European Parliament since July 14th 2009. His mandate is for two and a half years.
Mr. Buzek is the first president of the Parliament to come from an eastern country. A former member of the ‘Solidarnosc’ union, this professor of technical science was Prime Minister of Poland from 1997 to 2001. He was elected to the European Parliament in 2004.
Read his biography here
The ruling bodies of the EP are:
- the Bureau of the EP: consists of the president, the 14 vice-presidents and the five quaestors elected by Parliament for a renewable term of two and a half years. It draws up Parliament’s preliminary draft budget and manages all administrative, staff and organisational matters. The current president of the Parliament is Jerzy Buzek, a Polish MEP (EPP);
- the Conference of Presidents consists of the President of the Parliament and the presidents of the political groups. This is the political body of the European Parliament. The Conference of Presidents organises the work of the European Parliament and the legislative planning, deciding the responsibilities and membership of parliamentary committees and delegations, and plays an intermediary role between the Parliament and the other EU institutions, national parliaments and non-EU countries. It makes decisions based on consensus or weighted vote based on the number of MEPs in each political group.
22 permanent parliamentary committees prepare work for plenary sittings: foreign affairs; development; international trade; budgets; budgetary control; economic and monetary affairs; employment and social affairs; environment; public health and food security; industry, research and energy; internal market and consumer protection; transport and tourism; regional development; agriculture; fishing; culture and education; legal affairs; civil liberties; constitutional affairs; women’s rights and gender equality; petitions; human rights; security and defence.
The Parliament is organised into political groups: the MEPs do not form groups based on national delegations but rather on the basis of political affinity of the national party to which they belong.
To form a political group, 25 MEPs from at least one quarter of the member states (today that means seven states) are required. Non-attached MEPs do not belong to any political group.
The political groups decide on the questions that will be dealt with during the plenary session; they can also introduce amendments to committee reports which will be voted on during the plenary session.
Before the session, they decide on the position to be adopted by the political group. Nevertheless, no member can be forced to vote a particular way.
Today, there are seven political groups to which are added the non-attached MEPs (most of whom belong to the extreme right). The majority group is the European People’s Party (EPP) which has 265 centre-right, Christian democratic and conservative MEPs. Next is the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) which has 184 socialist, social democrat, labour and democrat MEPs.
Headquarters and place of work
The Parliament sits for plenary session 12 times per year (four days once a month) in Strasbourg.
Between each monthly session, one week is dedicated to the specialised permanent committees, one week to political group meetings and one week when the MEPs returns to their national constituencies. These sessions and meetings take place in Brussels.
The General Secretariat and its departments are based in Luxembourg. The Parliament also has a permanent representation in each member state.
Sources
F.X. Priollaud et D. Siritzky : Le Traité de Lisbonne, La Documentation française, Paris, 2008.
Lisbon Treaty - Scadplus - Europa
How the European Union works - Your guide to the European Institutions - Easy Reading Corner - Europa
23/12/09
