The EU operates through a hybrid system of supranational independent institutions and intergovernmentally made decisions negotiated by the countries part of the Union (the Member States). Important institutions of the EU include the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union, the European Council, the Court of Justice of the European Union, and the European Central Bank.
The European Parliament (EP) is the Community institution that represents the peoples of the Member States of the European Union.
The European Parliament is the only directly-elected body of the European Union.
The 736 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) represent 500 million citizens of the EU. They are elected once every five years by voters from the 27 Member States of the European Union. The MEPs are elected by universal suffrage since 1979. The present Parliament is in place until 2014.
The EP holds the legislative power together with the Council of the European Union (for most decisions, there are rare exceptions though) and forms the bicameral branch of the EU. The initiative of legislative work belongs to the European Commission though. It has equal control over the EU budget. The European Commission is accountable to Parliament: in particular Parliament can veto it and its President and can force the body to resign.
The Parliament also has a great deal of indirect influence, through non-binding resolutions and committee hearings.
The Parliament organises its work, through a system of twenty (standing) specialised committees consisting of 28 to 86 MEPs each (reflecting the political makeup of the whole Parliament) including a chair, a bureau and secretariat. The chairs coordinate their work through the Conference of Committees Chairmen.
The Committees EPHA is the most in relation with are:
– Committee on Employment and Social Affairs – EMPL
– Environment, Public Health and Food Safety – ENVI
– Industry, Research and Energy – ITRE
– Internal Market and Consumer Protection – IMCO
There are seven political groups (and the “non-attached”) sitting in the EP, the two largest being the European People’s Party (EPP) and the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D). The others are:
– The Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE),
– The Greens – European Free Alliance (Greens – EFA),
– The European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR),
– European United Left–Nordic Green Left (EUL-NGL),
– Europe of Freedom and Democracy – the right-wing Eurosceptic political group in the European Parliament.
Parliament has two meeting places, the original one, the Louise Weiss building in Strasbourg, which serves for twelve four-day plenary sessions per year and is the official seat, and the Espace Léopold complex in Brussels, the larger of the two, which serves for committee meetings, political groups and complementary plenary sessions. The Secretariat of the European Parliament, the Parliament’s administrative body, is based in Luxembourg.
www.europarl.europa.eu