Between June 6 and 9, more than 370 million European citizens are called at urns to renew the 720 seats in the European Parliamentin some elections that begin this Thursday in the Netherlands and will end on Sundaywhen the majority of countries They have summoned their citizens. Once the elections were held, mid july The tenth legislature of the European Parliament will begin, which will last five yearsand a new one will be formed European Commission (EC)which is the institution that proposes the European laws and implements community policies and budget.
The European Parliament is the only institution of the European Union (EU) which is formed by the direct election of citizens and, together with the Council of the EU – made up of the Member States –is responsible for shaping and approving the community club legislation.
What does the European Parliament do?
53% of the laws in Spain they’re coming from regulations and directives that they agree on Europe. For example, in the current legislature, which started in 2019, regulations such as the artificial intelligence law, the universal charger law, the climate law or the reform of the electricity market were adopted.
The European Parliament also has supervisory powers, such as approving the president election of the European Commission, monitor other community institutions or examine citizens’ requests, as well as approve the budget of the European Union.
The work of Parliament is carried out mainly in two stages: in the parliamentary committees and in technical meetingswhere legislation is prepared, and in the plenary sessions, where it is debated and approved. The European Parliament has twenty commissions and three subcommittees, dealing with a specific policy area to examine the proposals coming from the European Commission. In them, the MEPs and political groups They can propose amendments or ask to reject a bill. In plenary sessions all members of the European Parliament meet in the chamber for the final vote on proposed legislation. They are usually held in Strasbourg for four days each month, but there are four additional, shorter sessions in Brussels.
He number of MEPs for each country is not exactly proportional to its populationbut that the smaller countries have more than what they would get for the regressive proportionality system. In any case, no country can have less than 6 (Malta, Luxembourg and Cyprus) or more than 96 MEPs (Germany), and the total number cannot exceed 751.
political groups
Members of the European Parliament are grouped by political affinities, not by nationalities. For example, The Spanish PP joins the European People’s Party (EPP) and the PSOE joins the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats. Currently there seven groups politicians: the European People’s Party; the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats; Renew Europe, which includes the PNV and Ciudadanos; the Greens/ALE, with ERC and the BNG; The Left, with Unidas Podemos and Bildu; and the two extreme right parties: the Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), in which Vox is part, and Identity and Democracy (ID). There are also some MEPs who do not belong to any political group and who are part of the ‘non-registered’, as has been the case of Together for Catalonia in the last legislature.
Each political party has a head of list or ‘spitzenkandidat’, a mechanism promoted ten years ago to try to democratize the election of the president of the European Commission. Thus, the candidate from the group with the most votes in the elections would, theoretically, have more votes to become president of the next Commission. In practice, this is not always the case and there is no guarantee that Member States cannot turn their backs on the candidate on the list with the most votes. In fact, the current president of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyenwas not the head of the list of her party, the EPP, in the 2019 elections. This time, Von der Leyen does present herself as the head of the ‘popular’ list and aspires to be re-elected for a second term.
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