WE HEAR A lot about the workings of the European Union – especially since Brexit – but understanding it fully can be a tough task due to its complexity.

Grasping its seven institutions, serving over 500 million people, can be difficult for anyone, and not just when you consider the confusing mix of inter-governmental associations, the conflict between national and European law and the various clauses and exceptions within its processes.

So, we decided to focus on the only part of the EU that is elected by the populace – the European Parliament. How does it work, what are its drawbacks, and how does it affect us?

Facts

The European Parliament (EP) is the world’s second largest democratic electorate in the world (after India) and first had elections in 1979, following life as a consultative assembly with little power and appointed parliamentarians.

Elections are held every five years, in which 705 parliamentarians are elected (down from 749 after the UK left the EU) following national elections.

The share of the MEPs from each country is dictated by population – the more people a country has, the more seats it has. However, as the minimum number of MEPs per country is six, and the maximum is 96, a process called degressive proportionality occurs – the higher the population, the more of that population is serviced by a single MEP.

For example, Ireland has a population of approximately 5,000,000 and has 13 MEPs, so we have one MEP for every 348,000 of our population. Germany, with a population of 83,240,000 and with 96 MEPs, has one MEP for every 867,000 of their populace.

While candidates are elected from their national party, they actually take their seats in the EP in an EU-wide party.

There are eight major parties, and they are split according to their political ideology. These range across the political spectrum, from far-right to far-left, and there are 28 seats for non-inscrits, or those without a political party in the parliament.

Processes

Historically, the Parliament lacked legislative power, but the Lisbon Treaty (2009) (infamously rejected by Irish voters on its first iteration) aimed to fix that. It increased the areas in which the Parliament acted as a co-legislator with the Council of Ministers, afforded it control over the European budget and promoted it to an overseer of other European institutions.

However, despite the wide-spread changes that the Lisbon Treaty brought, there are still areas in which the Parliament plays second fiddle to the Council and Commission. Dr. Joseph Lacey, Assistant Professor of Political Theory at the School of Politics and International Relations at UCD believes that the Parliament is sidelined in a number of key areas.

“The parliament was given more co-decision powers after the Lisbon Treaty, but the parliament really lacks parity with the Council on a number of areas, particularly in common, foreign, defence and security policy, as well as the European Monetary policy.

“So while the Lisbon Treaty did increase co-decision on a number of areas, it is definitely not an equal co-legislator on a range of central, EU integration areas.”

Parliament’s approval is not needed in areas like competition law, internal market exemptions, common external tariffs or monopoly laws – these are areas known as special legislative procedures.

One of the main criticisms of the Parliament is that it has a ‘democratic deficit’, as while it has the power to pass laws (in co-decision with the Council on ordinary legislative procedures), it doesn’t have the power to propose new legislation. Only the Commission can propose new laws.

James Temple-Smithson, head of the European Parliament Liaison Office in Ireland, believes that while Parliament lacks the legal initiative to propose new laws, it is not exactly powerless in this regard.

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“It’s certainly true that some people (not just Eurosceptics) think that the European Parliament should be able to propose new laws at its own initiative. For example, this question was discussed by the recent Conference on the Future of Europe.

“However, if the Parliament thinks a particular new law is needed, it’s not powerless: it can pass a resolution calling for the Commission to propose such a law, and the Commission can’t simply ignore that, especially if it’s passed by a large majority of MEPs or repeatedly.”

The Parliament does have a supervisory role for the workings of the EU – as the first institution of the union, it ultimately has power over the other institutions, and can choose to expel the Commission.

So, how does a law get passed? Let’s take the recent EU law on a common charger for electronic devices as an example.

The European Commission tabled a legislative proposal for the law on 23 September 2021. In the time since, both the Parliament and the Council will have studied the law, making sure that it is airtight and propose any changes or modifications to the bill, before taking a vote on the legislation.

The Parliament and the Council reached a provisional agreement on the bill on 7 June 2022, and which will be signed after the summer has ended. The law will become active 24 months after the adoption of the bill.

This work is co-funded by Journal Media and a grant programme from the European Parliament. Any opinions or conclusions expressed in this work are the author’s own. The European Parliament has no involvement in nor responsibility for the editorial content published by the project. For more information, see here.