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THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

The European Parliament is the representative institution of the European Union. The members of the European Parliament (the MEPs) are elected in the Member States by direct universal suffrage. The term of office of the European Parliament is 5 years. The European Parliament cannot be dissolved even by itself.

The number of MEPs to be elected in different Member States depends on their population; however this ratio is not strictly proportional. For instance, Germany has 99 seats while Luxembourg has 6.

Nowadays, the European Parliament is composed of 626 members. After the enlargement of the Union this number will increase up to 732.

Inside the European Parliament, the MEPs unite with each other not according to their national origin but under the political party basis. These groupings of MEPs are called “political groups” (i.e. factions). After the last elections of 1999 the largest political group within the European Parliament is formed by the right-of-centre “European People’s Party” (approximately 230 MEPs); the second largest faction is that of the “Party of European Socialists” (around 180 MEPs); the number of MEPs belonging to the other factions is substantially lower.

The governing bodies of the European Parliament are its President (P. Cox since February, 2002), its Bureau which is responsible for administrative matters (the Bureau consists of the President and the 14 Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament, together with the Quaestors sitting in an advisory capacity) and the Conference of Presidents (the organ of political guidance composed of the President of the Parliament and the presidents of the factions established by the MEPs).

In the same way as the national parliaments, the European Parliament constitutes the permanent committees dealing with the specific subjects. The Parliament is also empowered to set up the temporary committees including the committees of inquiry.

The European Parliaments works in sessions. Its seat is in Strasbourg. At the same time, the Parliament holds some of its part-sessions in Brussels and its General Secretariat is located in Luxembourg.

Initially, the European Parliament had been given rather modest powers. Its preporatives were significantly increased in 1980-s and even in a more drastic way in 1990-s, the trend remaining in force for the XXI century.

At the present time, the European Parliament has as its main powers, inter alia:

–        Participation in the legislative procedure. The European Parliament together with the Council takes part in discussions leading up to adoption of the normative acts and of the other measures which are proposed as a general rule by the Commission. The European Parliament does not have an equal say for all the subjects being discussed. In some cases it participates in the legislative procedure in an advisory capacity (the “consultation” or the “cooperation” procedures); in other cases the Parliament can take decisions itself (the “co-decision” procedure);

–        Participation in the adoption of the budget of the European Union (acting jointly with the Council of the European Union);

–        Supervising powers with respect to the other bodies and officials of the European Union (first and foremost these powers relate to the Commission);

–        The powers to form organs and appoint officials, in particular the vote of approval to the Commission, the appointment of the Ombudsman;

–        Giving assent to some of the major EC international treaties;

–        Approval of the admission of new Member States to the European Union.

Tchetverikov A.O.