Text 1 RE: Europäisches Parlament

• The European Parliament (EP) is the only directly elected EU institution.
• Most European voters are disengaged from the EP, with low turnout at elections and less interest compared to national legislatures.
• The EP divides its time between Brussels and Strasbourg.
• The EP is the legislative arm of the EU, sharing responsibility with the Council of Ministers.
• The EP debates, amends, and votes on proposals for new EU laws and the EU budget.
• The EP has the power to confirm or reject senior institutional appointments, such as the president of the Commission.
• The EP cannot introduce new laws or raise revenues, powers typically held by national legislatures.
• Its members are elected from member states for five-year terms and sit in cross-national political groups.
• The EP lacks the ability to form a European 'government', and there is no change of 'government' at stake in EP elections.
• There are few prominent personalities in the EP who can capture public attention.
• The links between national political parties and political groups in the EP are unclear.
• The EP shares powers with the Council of Ministers over legislative proposals from the European Commission and the EU budget.
• Plenary meetings are held in Strasbourg, committees meet in Brussels, and the Secretariat is in Luxembourg.
• Pressure to move the Parliament to Brussels has been resisted by France.
• The EP has 705 members elected for five-year terms, with seats divided among member states based on population.
• The EP is headed by a president elected by its members, and parliamentary work is undertaken in 20 standing committees.
• Most decisions are made under the ordinary legislative procedure.
• The EP can amend proposals up to three times with the Council.
• The EP can confirm nominees to the presidency of the European Commission, the High Representative, the College of Commissioners, and the European ombudsman.
• They also have powers of scrutiny over the Commission.

Comparing legislatures

• In 2019, moderately conservative pro-EU parties lost votes to right-wing anti-EU parties.
• Voter turnout grew for the first time since EP elections were introduced in 1979.
• EU leaders were accused of trying to reclaim powers over the appointment process from the European Parliament.
• There is ongoing competition for power between Parliament, the Commission, and the European Council.
• Parliament argues it deserves more say due to its superior democratic qualities.
• The Commission argues its role represents the EU interest.
• Member states assert their influence in the European Council.
• The EP is one of only two directly elected transnational legislatures in the world.
• The EP represents voters' interests and deliberates on public importance.
• It has powers to make laws and authority over the budget.
• The EP has the power of oversight or scrutiny over the other institutions.
• Parliament has won new powers, like introducing Question Time in 1973 and reconfiguring the number of seats in 1992.
• An EP campaign led to the creation of the Court of Auditors in 1993.
• It lacks the ability to propose legislation, which belongs to the Commission.
• It shares the power to amend and adopt legislation with the Council of Ministers.
• It shares power to approve the EU budget with the Council of Ministers.
• Its ability to hold other EU institutions accountable is limited.

Politics and Governance

• The most important power the EP lacks is making and bringing down governments
• In most member states, the government is decided on by the balance of political parties and must keep the support of the legislature.
• In the case of the EU, the political make-up of the EP has little bearing on the membership or stability of the other EU institutions.
• At the same time, the EP is in the position of having a power relationship with the legislatures of the member states.
• The EP is the most federal of the EU institutions.
• The European Parliament consists of a single chamber with 705 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) elected by universal suffrage for fixed and renewable five-year terms.
• Controversially, it is divided among three different locations: Strasbourg, Brussels, and Luxembourg.
• Split dates back to Committee meetings in Brussels and plenaries in Luxembourg and Strasbourg.
• Since 1981, plenaries have been held in Strasbourg alone, and the split between Strasbourg, Brussels and Luxembourg was confirmed in 1992.
• Since 1999, the French government has the EP in Strasbourg.
• The EP has a new built home in Strasbourg named for Louise Weiss.
• The building is almost empty for most of the year.
• The Espace Léopold complex in Brussels, built for the EP in stages between 1989 and 2009, was big enough to meet all the EP's needs, but has never become its permanent home.
• This forces a travel schedule for MEPs, and increases the EP's annual budget by an estimated €114 million.

Evolution of Parliament

• The EP traces its roots back to the first meeting in Strasbourg on 10 September 1952 of the Common Assembly of the ECSC.
• The Assembly's 78 members could not propose or amend ECSC laws.
• The Assembly was little more than a forum for the discussion of proposals.
• The Treaties of Rome created a 142-member European Parliamentary Assembly shared by the ECSC, the EEC and Euratom.
• The European Parliamentary Assembly met for the first time in Strasbourg in March 1958 with Robert Schuman as its president.
• The EP was given joint powers with the Council of Ministers for approving the Community budget and in 1962 was renamed the European Parliament.
• Many of its members had a dual mandate.
• The EP crossed a political watershed in 1976 when the European Council agreed to an EP proposal that it should be directly elected.
• The first elections were held in June 1979, and MEPs were given a democratic mandate and meeting in public session.
• The membership of the EP more than tripled between 1973 and 1995 (from 198 to 626) as the membership of the EEC/EU grew.
• The EP was given shared responsibility with the Council of Ministers over the Community budget.
• The EP was given an additional boost in 1980 by a decision from the European Court of Justice SA Roquette Frères v. Council (Case 138/79).
• The Single European Act brought another key change with the opinions on proposals for new laws had been non-binding (the so-called 'consultation procedure').
• Maastricht and Amsterdam introduced the co-decision procedure (since renamed the 'ordinary legislative procedure').

Leadership

• The EP is chaired by a president elected by MEPs.
• The president of the EP works with vice-presidents representing the EP's political groups, and has several responsibilities.
• The president of the EP opens, chairs and close EP debates during plenary sessions.
• The president of the EP applies the rules of parliamentary procedure.
• The president of the EP signs the EU budget and all legislative proposals decided by codecision.
• The president of the EP passes proposals to committees and represents Parliament in legal matters and in its relations with other institutions
• Also addressed European Council meetings.
• The president of the EP presides over meetings of the Conference of Presidents and the Bureau of the EP.
• In theory, the president is elected in a vote by MEPs.
• Has MEPs choosing from a slate of competing candidates.
• In reality the president is chosen as a result of bargaining among the leaders of the major groups, particularly the two biggest: the centre-right European People's Party (EPP) and the centre-left Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D).
• These groups have taken turns controlling the office for half terms of two and a half years.
• David Sassoli was elected president in July 2019.
• He is the seventh Italian to hold the presidency, tying the record held by Germany.
• In his first speech in the job he launched an attack on EU leaders.
• A political group has not won a majority of seats in the EP.

Bodies

• The EP is managed by three different bodies.
• The most politically powerful is the Conference of Presidents, consisting of the president and the heads of the EP political groups, and responsible for deciding the timetable and agenda for plenary sessions and managing EP committees.
• The Bureau of the EP is responsible for administrative, organizational and staff issues, monitoring the rules on political groups, and administering the EP budget.
• It consists of the president and the 14 vice-presidents, joined by the five quaestors of the EP, who are responsible for the administrative and financial rules relating to MEPs.
• The Conference of Committee Chairs discusses organizational issues, watches the progress of legislative proposals, and brokers deals between the political groups over the drafting of the parliamentary agenda.

Members of the European Parliament

• Seats in the EP are divided up among the member states roughly on the basis of population, with a cap of 705 and no state allowed more than 96 or less than 6.
• The French and the British have fewer MEPs per capita, while the Maltese have many more.
• Candidates for European elections are chosen according to the rules of their national parties.
• MEPs have an independent mandate and cannot always be bound by those parties.
• MEPs are paid out of the EP budget and are not allowed to hold other significant political offices.
• The political experience of MEPs has improved over the years.
• The EP has attracted more seasoned legislators.
• Many MEPs have served as elected representatives in their national legislatures.
• Others have had experience as national government ministers.
• Experience as an MEP has become more valuable.
• In economic, gender and social terms, the EP looks much like most national legislatures.
• There is a preponderance of white, middle-aged, middle-class professional men from urban backgrounds.
• The proportion of women in the EP has grown.
• Turnover for MEPs at elections is higher than is the case in most national legislatures.

Supporting structure

• As with conventional national legislatures, most of the detailed work of the EP is addressed by a network of committees.
• Parliament also appoints individual MEPs to make initial recommendations on proposed legislation.

Parliamentary committees

• Convening monthly or bimonthly in Brussels, there are now 22 standing (permanent) committees.
• Their responsibilities in the EP reflecting the priorities of European integration.
• MEPs often adopt the positions of their expert colleagues in EP committees that most closely match their own.
• Membership of committees is determined by the seniority of MEPs and by the size of political groups in the EP.
• Most national legislatures, committee chairs are appointed out of the majority party or coalition.
• However, committee positions and chairmanships are divided up among political groups using the d'Hondt method of apportionment.
• The European group set up examine issues including human genetics and other medical technologies, allegations of illegal CIA activities in Europe, climate change, the global financial crisis, and terrorism.
• The EP can set up committees of inquiry to investigate breaches or poor application of EU law.
• There is a Conciliation Committee that meets when the EP and the Council of Ministers have disagreed on the wording of a legislative proposal.
• There are equal numbers of members from each side, with representatives of the Commission also attending.

Rapporteurs

• One of the most important roles in the EP is that of the rapporteur, an MEP who is appointed to a committee to draft a report on a legislative proposal and recommend a position or political line to be followed.
• Appointments are based on a points system.
• Political groups in the EP being given points in relation to their size and essentially bidding against each other for the appointment of rapporteurs to proposals.
• On recurring proposals such as the annual EU budget, assignment takes place on a rotation.
• With the help of policy specialists, members of EP committees, and even interest groups, rapporteurs will solicit information on the subject of the proposal and prepare a report to be put before a plenary session of the EP.