University of Connecticut, Department of Political Science
Lecture: European Politics, Fall 2005

The European Commission, the European Parliament,
and the European Council

by: Claudia Baczewski

Table of Contents

1 Introduction 3

2 The European Parliament 3

3 The European Commission  5

4 The Council 6

5 Conclusion  9

6 Bibliography  9

1 Introduction

The European Union (EU) is an intergovernmental and supranational union of 25 European countries, known as Member States. The most important EU institutions are the Council of the European Union, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Court of Justice. The paper aims at explaining what these institutions are and how they are set up. It concentrates on the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Council. Furthermore, the paper is going to discuss criticisms and provides proposals on how these three institutions could perform better.

2 The European Parliament

The European Parliament (EUROPARL) is the Community organ, which represents the peoples of the 25 Member States of the European Union. Since 1979 it gets elected every five years in general, free and secret elections. Between 1952 and 1979 the members of the EUROPARL got appointed by the National Parliaments of the Member States. The political structures of the Member States are reflected in the political factions of the EUROPARL. There are seven factions and several delegates not belonging to any faction. On 20 July 2004 the EUROPARL constituted itself for the sixth time and has now 732 delegates. EUROPARL is the only supranational institution, whose members get elected by general direct suffrage.

Its political role is being an international forum, where all internal and external activities of the European Union are discussed. The President of the European Parliament directs its activities and acts as its representative. His term of office lasts two and a half years, being half of a legislative period. The President directs Parliament’s activities, chairs plenary sittings and declares the budget finally adopted. He represents the European Parliament in the outside world and in its relations with the other Community organs.

Working together with National Parliaments

The European Parliament informs the national parliaments about its activities. Different committees regularly invite members of national parliaments to their meetings. The purpose of the meetings is to consult with national parliaments about new proposals. Under the draft European Constitution national parliaments have the power to examine and discuss any legislative proposal before the Council discusses it and takes a decision.

Criticism

The biggest criticism of the EUROPARL is that its politicians have somewhat failed in their native countries and have now been sent off to the European Parliament. Critics conclude that for that reason the European Parliament does not consist of the best politicians of each Member State, which also lowers its reputation under the citizens of the EU.

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