European Parliament

The European Parliament

Contents
The European Parliament 3
Composition 3
Powers and Roles 4
Legislative Power 5
Ordinary legislative procedure 5
Diagram of the procedure 6
Supervisory Power 7
Budgetary role 8
Role conclusion 8
Power sharing 8
Relationship between EU Law and National Law 9
Distinguishing features from a National Parliament 10
Reference list 11

THEEUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
The Article 13 of the Treaty on European Union mention seven institutions which “shall aim to promote its values, advance its objectives, serve its interests …” Those institutions shall be: the European parliament, the European Council, the Council, the European Commission, the Court of Justice, the European Central Bank and the Court of Auditors.
The European Parliament
TheParliament has been gradually transformed since the 1952 ECSC Treaty from a weak power to a strong institution it represents today. They gave poor powers to the assembly in the ECSC and the original EEC and Euratom Treaties, just consultative and supervisory powers.
Now the Parliament exercises substantial powers of a legislative, budgetary, and supervisory nature. It is important to rememberthat, due to its democratically elected status, the European Parliament represents the interests of the citizens of the European Union.
Composition
It was created originally as the European Assembly and then recognized as a Parliament in the Single European Act. Before 1979 it was only a group of representatives from national assemblies or parliaments. In June 1979, the Members of the Parliamentwere, for the first time, directly elected. It is the largest multinational parliament in the world, representing the interests of 500 million EU citizens.
The meeting place is in Strasbourg (France), but there’s also a secretariat in Luxembourg and Brussels to be closer the Commission and the Council to keep in contact with them.
Before Lisbon Treaty, the Parliament was composed of 736 MEPs, socitizens from smaller countries were more represented that people from bigger Member States.
The Article 14 of the TEU says that the Parliament shall be composed of representatives of Union’s citizens. The seats can’t exceed 750 MEPs, plus the President. The current President is Martin Schulz, from Germany since 12th January 2012. The number of MEPs per Member State is degressively proportional.There’s also a restriction in seats per country. The minimum is six (Cyprus, Malta and Luxembourg) and the maximum 99 (Germany). From 2014 elections the maximum would drop to 96. As says the TEU, the members of the EP should be elected every five years by direct universal suffrage and the President and its officers should be elected by the Parliament from among its members.
Nowadays there are 12MEPs for Ireland. Three for each constituency (Dublin, South, East and Northwest) and represents different political parties: Labour party, Socialist party, Fine Gael, Independent and Fianna Fáil.
In Spain, there are 54 MEPs for six different parties: PP, PSOE, UPyD, The Greens, Coalition for Europe and Communist Party.
Once elected, MEPs are not organized by nationality, but by politicalaffiliation. Each national party is pretty ideological the same as one of the eight European Political Groups: European’s People Party), Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, Group of the Greens, Confederal Group of the European United Left, the Conservatives and Reformists group, Europe of Freedom and Democracy, and the non-attached members.

Seats in the EuropeanParliament

Powers and Roles
The power exercised by the Parliament has been changing over the years. Now exercises substantial powers of legislative, supervisory and budgetary powers. The 14th article of the TEU defines Parliament’s powers: “The EP shall, jointly with the Council, exercise legislative and budgetary functions. It shall exercise functions of political control and consultation...