Even though it can have a say in legislation, it cannot initiate it, only amend it or veto it. This is left to the council of ministers. In many ways, the European Parliament is very similar to the House of Lords in the UK. The European parliament also controls the Commission to an extent – it must approve all appointments to it. It also controls the budget of the EU.
Because the EU contains around 450 million citizens, it has many MEPs to express their views to parliament. There are 732 MEPs in the European parliament, and the system for voting is free for the country to decide, as long as it follows certain guidelines. The system must be a form of proportional representation, the electoral area can be subdivided if this will not generally affect the proportional nature of the voting system, and any election threshold on the national level must not exceed five percent.
The allocation of seats to each member state is based on the population of the country, but also, smaller states elect more MEPs than would be justified by their populations. This is called degressive proportionality.
The European Parliament’s powers are influential is deciding EU legislation in Europe. In the co-decision procedure, which is now the most common method of introducing legislation, the bill must pass through the European Parliament to be passed. Of course, during this procedure, it can make amendments, or even prevent the draft legislation from becoming law. Another of it’s powers includes the power of supervising over a few EU institutions, including the commission. This means that if the European Parliament disagrees with a decision from another institution, it can use action against that institution. An example of this is in 1999, where the European Parliament caused the resignation of the whole commission.
Another important responsibility of the European Parliament is to approve the annual budget, which involves the day-to-day payment of all the officials in the institutions.
A controversial aspect of the Parliament is its tendency to move between cities during the month. Because of a protocol attached to the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Parliament must attend monthly meetings in Strasbourg. For practical reasons however, preparatory legislative work and committee meetings take place in Brussels. Moreover, the Parliament’s Secretariat, which employs the majority of its staff, is located in Luxembourg.
Moving various files and equipment between two cities tales 10 large trucks, and the cost of two locations are estimated at 200 million euros a year, which is money taken from the pockets of the 450 million EU citizens. A force of 30 men loads the trucks for the 400 km journey between the two locations. Around 5,000 people attached to the European Parliament, such as parliamentarians, advisors, clerks and journalists, also move between Brussels and Strasbourg. Most of the parliamentarians are against using Strasbourg and various initiatives have been taken over the years to have Brussels as the sole location.
The third most important in law making powers is the commission. The commission is like a civil service if you will. Each member state appoints a commissioner, but the commission also includes all of the specialist staff that makes up the various departments. The individual departments have responsibility for introducing policy and preparing draft legislation in the form of regulations and directives.
There are many responsibilities of the EU, but the three that are key to the institution are initiating legislation, enforcing EU law, and implementing the EU budget. To initiate legislation, the commission puts forward proposals on anything covered by the treaties. It then presents it to Parliament and the Council. The commission enforces EU law by taking action in the ECJ, and this is why it is often considered as the watchdog of the treaties. Any countries that do not follow the word of the treaties get sanctions, if they do not abide by the ECJs decision. The commission implements the budget of the EU by managing it, even though it is national and social authorities that usually spend the money.
The commission consists of 25 executive members, one from each member state of the EU supported by several thousand European civil servants divided into departments called Directorate-general. The term of the commission though, usually refers to the administrative body, and to the term of commissioners who lead it.
Even though the commission houses a representative from each member state, they are not allowed to take instructions from their country. They are supposed to be independent, and only represent the interests of the citizens of the EU as a whole.
The only criticism of the commission is that it is not elected by the people of the EU, but by the governments of each member state. Because the commission is the executive, eurosceptics argue this case. Even though the commission has no legislative power though, it is the only part of the EU which can draft European Laws.
The commission always has an elected President, which the European Council chooses, but this decision must be agreed by the European Parliament to make it more democratic. The remaining commissioners are then appointed from each member state by their government, in agreement with the president who must decide the role of each commissioner. Finally the commission as a whole must be approved by the parliament, to make it as democratic as possible.
Also, the European Parliament has the right at any time for the commission to resign through a vote of no confidence. This requires a vote that makes up at least two-thirds of those voting and a majority of the total membership of the Parliament. While it has never used this power, it threatened to use it against the Commission headed by Jacques Santer in 1999, with the result that the whole Commission resigned of its own accord.
The enlargement of the Union on 1 May 2004 increased the number of member states from 15 to 25, and had an effect on the make-up of the Commission. Prior to this date, there were 20 Commissioners. In the months after May 2004 the size of the Commission was temporarily increased to 30 members - consisting of the 20 Commissioners already in post, plus one from each of the 10 acceding member states. The number was reduced to 25, with one Commissioner from each member state, when the Barroso commission took office in November 2004 (This is the current commission).
If the new Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe is adopted, the size of the Commission will be further reduced. Member states will take it in turns to nominate Commissioners, with any given state making a nomination on two out of every three occasions that a new Commission is to be appointed.
The final main institution and the one with the least power is the European Court of Justice, supported by the court of first instance. The Court of Justice of the European Communities, usually called the European Court of Justice (ECJ), is the supreme court of the European Union (EU). It is based in Luxembourg, unlike most of the rest of the European Union institutions, which are based in Brussels and Strasbourg. The ECJ is staffed by Judges-Rapporteurs and Advocates-General who assist them by providing reasoned opinions. There is one judge for every member state, and there are eight Advocates-General. The judges are selected from high-level judges from the member states, but they must all be impartial and must all swear on an oath.
The existence of the ECJ is as follows. It ensures that the law is observed in the interpretation and application is identified in Article 220 of the European Community Treaty. By doing this, it can three main objectives, the first being that is ensures that in application and interpretation the EU law is observed. The second objective is that is provides a forum in which to resolve disputes between the institutions, the member states, and individuals, in respect to the law. The final responsibility is that it ensures that individual rights are protected.
The Judges select one of their equals to be President of the Court for a renewable term of three years. He may be re-elected. He directs the judicial business and the administration of the Court; he presides at hearings and deliberations in chambers. He assigns the cases to one of the chambers for any preparatory inquiries and appoints a Judge from the chamber to act as rapporteur. He sets the dates and timetable for the sessions of the Grand Chamber and of the full Court.
Each member state of the European Union has the power to nominate one judge, so their number coincides most of the time with the number of member states. However, as the ECJ can only sit with an uneven number of judges, additional judges have been appointed at times when there was an even number of member states. Five of the eight Advocates General are nominated as of right by the 5 big member states of the European Union: Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain. The other 3 positions rotate in alphabetical order between the 20 smaller member states; currently, the Netherlands, Austria and Portugal are thus represented. However, being only a little smaller than Spain, Poland has repeatedly requested a permanent Advocate General.
Advocates General play a special role within the Court of Justice. They are neither judge nor prosecutor, yet they assist with each case and deliver their opinions on questions. The Advocates-General assist the Court in its task. They deliver, in open court and with complete impartiality and independence, opinions in all cases, save as otherwise decided by the Court where a case does not raise any new points of law. Their duties should not be confused with those of a public prosecutor or similar body.
Although the Advocates General are full members of the ECJ, it is important to note that they are not judges and they do not take part in the court's deliberations. It is the role of the Advocates General to propose to the Court, in complete independence, a legal solution to the cases for which they are responsible. The Advocate General’s Opinion, although often in fact followed, is not binding on the Court.
Just like any law making system, the EU has different sources of law. The primary sources are the treaties themselves. They define the powers of the various EU institutions, they define the rights and obligations of the member states, and they set out the treaty objectives, as most treaties have an overall aim to them.
Secondary legislations is made up of four main sources; regulations, directives, decisions, recommendations and opinions. If the member state fails to pass the required national legislation, or if the national legislation does not adequately comply with the requirements of the directive, the European Commission can initiate legal action against the member state in the European Court of Justice.
A Regulation is a legislative act of the European Union which has a general scope, is compulsory and is directly applicable in all Member States. Regulations constitute one of the most powerful forms of EU law and must be given immediate force of law in Member States without the need to enact implementing measures. In contrast directives are only binding as to the objectives to be achieved, bind only those Member States to whom they are addressed and require implementation in order to have the force of law.
A decision is a law which is not of general application, but only applies to its particular addressee of the decision. They are usually addressed to specific individuals if there has been a breach of EU law.
European Laws are created via legislative procedures. The choice of procedure used for each specific legislative proposal depends on the policy area of the proposal in question. For instance, consumer protection legislation is always decided using the codecision procedure. These rules were originally laid down in the Treaties of the European Union. Whenever the Council is involved in legislating it either votes by unanimity or by qualified majority which like the choice of procedure depends on the policy areas in question.
The Codecision procedure (Article 251) is the main legislative procedure by which directives are adopted. The Council of the European Union and the European Parliament jointly adopt legislation based on a proposal by the European Commission. Both Parliament and Council are required to agree on an identical text before a proposal can be adopted.
The procedure was introduced with the Maastricht Treaty, the treaty that originally created the European Union as it is known today, and was initially intended to replace the Cooperation procedure, which I will explain later. The Codecision procedure was amended by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The Cooperation procedure (also known as the Article 252 procedure) used to be a very important procedure which covered a wide variety of enacted legislation. It marked the first step toward real power by the European Parliament. Under the procedure the Council can, with the support of Parliament and acting on a proposal by the Commission, adopt a proposal by a qualified majority, but the Council can also overrule a rejection of the particular proposed law by the Parliament by adopting a proposal unanimously.
Another procedure is the Consultation Procedure. Before the Single European Act the Consultation procedure was the most widely used legislative procedure in the then European Community. Under this procedure the Council can adopt legislation based on a proposal by the European Commission after consulting the European Parliament. While being required to consult Parliament on legislative proposals the Council is not bound by Parliament's position. In practice the Council would frequently ignore whatever Parliament might suggest and even sometimes reach an agreement before receiving Parliament's opinion.
Yet another procedure is called the Assent procedure. Under this procedure, the Council can adopt legislation based on a proposal by the European Commission after obtaining the consent of Parliament. Thus Parliament has the legal power to accept or reject any proposal but no legal mechanism exists for proposing amendments.
