Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are directly elected by EU citizens to represent their interests. Elections are held every 5 years and all EU citizens over 18 years old (16 in Austria) — some 380 million — are entitled to vote. The Parliament has 751 MEPs from all 28 Member States.
The official seat of the European Parliament is in Strasbourg (France), although the institution has three places of work: Strasbourg, Brussels (Belgium) and Luxembourg. The main meetings of the whole Parliament, known as ‘plenary sessions’, take place in Strasbourg 12 times per year. Additional plenary sessions are held in Brussels. Committee meetings are also held in Brussels.
The seats in the European Parliament are allocated among the Member States on the basis of their share of the EU population.
Most MEPs are associated with a national political party in their home country. In the European Parliament the national parties group into EU-wide political groupings and most MEPs belong to one of these.
| Member State | Number of MEPs |
|---|---|
| Austria | 18 |
| Belgium | 21 |
| Bulgaria | 17 |
| Croatia | 11 |
| Cyprus | 6 |
| Czech Republic | 21 |
| Denmark | 13 |
| Estonia | 6 |
| Finland | 13 |
| France | 74 |
| Germany | 96 |
| Greece | 21 |
| Hungary | 21 |
| Ireland | 11 |
| Italy | 73 |
| Latvia | 8 |
| Lithuania | 11 |
| Luxembourg | 6 |
| Malta | 6 |
| Netherlands | 26 |
| Poland | 51 |
| Portugal | 21 |
| Romania | 32 |
| Slovakia | 13 |
| Slovenia | 8 |
| Spain | 54 |
| Sweden | 20 |
| United Kingdom | 73 |
The Parliament has three main roles:
It shares with the Council the power to legislate — to pass laws. The fact that it is a directly elected body helps guarantee the democratic legitimacy of European law.
It exercises democratic supervision over all EU institutions, and in particular the Commission. It has the power to approve or reject the nomination of the President of the Commission and Commissioners, and the right to censure the Commission as a whole.
It shares authority with the Council over the EU budget and can therefore influence EU spending. At the end of the budget procedure, it adopts or rejects the budget in its entirety.
These three roles are described in greater detail below.
The most common procedure for adopting EU legislation is called the ‘ordinary legislative procedure’ — also known as the ‘co-decision procedure’. This places the European Parliament and the Council on an equal footing, and the laws passed using this procedure are joint acts of the Council and the Parliament. It applies to the majority of EU legislation, covering a wide range of fields such as consumer rights, environmental protection and transport. Under the ordinary legislative procedure the Commission makes a proposal which must be adopted both by the Parliament and the Council. The Parliament’s assent is required for all international agreements in fields covered by the ordinary legislative procedure.
The Parliament must be consulted on a range of other proposals, and its approval is required for important political or institutional decisions, such as social security and protection acts, tax-related provisions in the area of energy and harmonisation of turnover taxes and indirect taxation. The Parliament also provides the impetus for new legislation by examining the Commission’s annual work programme, considering what new laws would be appropriate and asking the Commission to put forward proposals.
The Parliament exercises democratic supervision over the other European institutions. It does so in several ways. Firstly, when a new Commission is to be appointed, the Parliament holds auditions of all the prospective new members and the President of the Commission (nominated by the Member States). They cannot be appointed without the Parliament’s approval.
Furthermore, the Commission is politically answerable to the Parliament, which can pass a ‘motion of censure’ calling for its mass resignation. More generally, the Parliament exercises control by regularly examining reports sent to it by the Commission and asking written and oral questions.
The Commissioners attend plenary sessions of the Parliament and meetings of the parliamentary committees. Similarly, the Parliament holds a regular dialogue with the President of the European Central Bank on monetary policy.
The Parliament also monitors the work of the Council: MEPs regularly ask the Council written and oral questions, and the Council Presidency attends the plenary sessions and takes part in important debates. For some policy areas, which include common foreign and security policy, the Council alone is responsible for decision-making. But the Parliament nonetheless works closely with the Council in these areas.
The Parliament can also exercise democratic control by examining petitions from citizens and setting up special committees of inquiry.
Finally, the Parliament provides input to every EU summit (the European Council meetings). At the opening of each summit, the President of the Parliament is invited to express the Parliament’s views and concerns about topical issues and the items on the European Council’s agenda.
The EU’s annual budget is decided jointly by the Parliament and the Council of the European Union. The Parliament debates it in two successive readings, and it does not come into force until it has been signed by the President of the Parliament.
Its Committee on Budgetary Control monitors how the budget is spent, and each year the Parliament decides whether to approve the Commission’s handling of the budget for the previous financial year. This approval process is technically known as ‘granting a discharge’.
The Parliament elects its own President for a 2½-year term. The President represents the Parliament to the other EU institutions as well as to the outside world, and is assisted by 14 Vice-Presidents. The President of the European Parliament, together with the President of the Council, signs all legislative acts once they are adopted.
The Parliament’s work is divided into two main stages:
Preparing for the plenary session: this is done by the MEPs in the 20 parliamentary committees that specialise in particular areas of EU activity, for example the ECON Committee for Economic and Monetary Affairs or the INTA Committee for International Trade. The issues for debate are also discussed by the political groups.
The plenary session itself: plenary sessions, attended by all MEPs, are normally held in Strasbourg (1 week per month) and sometimes additional sessions are held in Brussels. At plenary sessions, the Parliament examines proposed legislation and votes on amendments before coming to a decision on the text as a whole. Other items on the agenda may include Council or Commission ‘communications’ or questions about what is going on in the EU or in the wider world.
As a rule the Parliament can only take decisions when at least one-third of the MEPs are present for a vote. It normally takes decisions by a majority of votes cast. In special cases, a decision requires that a majority of all the members vote in favour, for example when the Parliament elects the Commission President or votes in the second reading of an ordinary legislative procedure.