The Democratic Foundations of the EMU: The European Parliament and the National Parliaments Between Cooperation and Rivalry

2017 ◽  
pp. 27-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Martucci
Keyword(s):  
European Parliament ◽  
National Parliaments

12. The European Parliament

2019 ◽  
pp. 176-188
Author(s):  
Charlotte Burns
Keyword(s):  
Internal Structure ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
European Elections ◽  
Legislative Power ◽  
European Public ◽  
Political Groups ◽  
Representative Function

This chapter focuses upon the European Parliament (EP), an institution that has seen its power dramatically increase in recent times. The EP has been transformed from being a relatively powerless institution into one that is able to have a genuine say in the legislative process and hold the European Union’s executive bodies (the Commission and Council, introduced in Chapters 9 and 10) to account in a range of policy areas. However, increases in the Parliament’s formal powers have not been matched by an increase in popular legitimacy: turnout in European elections is falling. Thus, while the EP’s legislative power is comparable to that enjoyed by many national parliaments, it has struggled to connect with the wider European public. The chapter explores these issues in detail. In the first section, the EP’s evolution from talking shop to co-legislator is reviewed; its powers and influence are explained in the next section; the EP’s internal structure and organization are then discussed with a focus upon the role and behaviour of the political groups, and finally, the European Parliament’s representative function as the EU’s only directly elected institution is discussed.

11. The European Parliament

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Burns
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Constitutional Change ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Eu Legislation ◽  
Internal Politics ◽  
Decision Making Processes

This chapter examines the role of the European Parliament (EP) within the European Union's system of governance. It also considers the function and operation of the EP by focusing on three key areas of importance: the legislative work of the Parliament, its internal politics, and its representative role as a link between the electorate and EU decision-making processes. The chapter first charts the evolution of the EP before discussing its budgetary and legislative powers, along with its advocacy for constitutional change to bring Europe closer to its citizens. It then discusses the influence and internal politics of the EP as well as elections to the EP, noting that national parliaments are now able to block proposed EU legislation. It also describes the principal challenges facing the EP.

The European Parliament's Role in EU Treaty-Making

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 1009-1039 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Ott
Keyword(s):  
Case Law ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
International Treaties ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
International Treaty ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
European Court ◽  
External Relations

The European Parliament's role in EU external relations and treaty-making has increased over the years through constitutional practice and Treaty amendments. Finally, with the Treaty of Lisbon, the European Parliament's constitutional rights in treaty-making establish – in the words of the European Court of Justice (CJEU) – ‘symmetry between legislation-making and treaty-making in compliance with institutional balance provided for by the Treaties’. In a comparative overview, the European Parliament has ascertained more extensive powers over treaty-making compared to the majority of national parliaments which are only involved in politically important international treaties. This contribution addresses the consequences of this symmetry or parallelism and asks whether it leads to structural symmetry or even procedural symmetry which synchronizes the acts of legislating and treaty-making with each other. This contribution analyses the role of the European Parliament in the different phases of international treaty-making against the backdrop of this constitutional practice. This constitutional practice is shaped by intergovernmental agreements, bilateral arrangements and European Parliament resolutions and is influenced by the mounting case law of the CJEU. It also assesses the European Parliament's role in concluding international administrative agreements concluded by the Commission and Europol and how far the constitutional practice is in line with EU primary law.

scholarly journals The political system of European Union after European Parliament Election of 2019

2019 ◽  
pp. 15-30
Author(s):  
Andrii Martynov
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Political System ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
The Eu

The politics of the European Union are different from other organizations and states due to the unique nature of the EU. The common institutions mix the intergovernmental and supranational aspects of the EU. The EU treaties declare the EU to be based on representative democracy and direct elections take place to the European Parliament. The Parliament, together with the European Council, works for the legislative arm of the EU. The Council is composed of national governments thus representing the intergovernmental nature of the European Union. The central theme of this research is the influence of the European Union Political system the Results of May 2019 European Parliament Election. The EU supranational legislature plays an important role as a producer of legal norms in the process of European integration and parliamentary scrutiny of the activities of the EU executive. The European Parliament, as a representative institution of the European Union, helps to overcome the stereotypical notions of a “Brussels bureaucracy” that limits the sovereignty of EU member states. The European Parliament is a political field of interaction between European optimists and European skeptics. The new composition of the European Parliament presents political forces focused on a different vision of the strategy and tactics of the European integration process. European federalists in the “European People’s Party” and “European Socialists and Democrats” consider the strategic prospect of creating a confederate “United States of Europe”. The Brexit withdrawal from the EU could help the federalists win over European skeptics. Critics of the supranational project of European integration do not have a majority in the new composition of the European Parliament. But they are widely represented in many national parliaments of EU Member States. The conflicting interaction between European liberals and far-right populists is the political backdrop for much debate in the European Parliament. The result of this process is the medium term development vector of the European Union.

Documentation Projects and Problems: The European Parliament

1977 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-88
Author(s):  
Frank Carmody
Keyword(s):  
European Parliament ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Member Of Parliament

By way of introduction I would like to define the problems particular to the European Parliament, problems which arise in part because of its very nature. It is, in fact, a very different animal from the national parliaments with which we are acquainted. It has a number of specific problems which arise from the very fact that it is different. Perhaps the most important of these is that the Members of the European Parlimant are all members of their own parliaments in the first place: this is a pre-condition before they can come to the European Parliament and means that on top of a very full job of work in their own parliaments, they are expected to find something in excess of 100 extra days in every year to attend meetings of the European Parliament and its committees. Everyone who has talked to his own member of Parliament will, no doubt, have been told “I haven't got a minute to spare. I haven't the time to do anything extra. I can't do half the things I want to do.” If you then tell him “Well, I'm sorry, but you've got to find 100 days,” you will realise the size of the problem we are facing. For the parliamentarian this must mean that he has much less time for his preparatory meetings, much less time for background reading, much less time for writing reports, and must inevitably place much more reliance on the services which the permanent secretariat can provide. This is the first problem.

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