The European Parliament is one of the three legislative branches of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. The Parliament is composed of 705 members and represents the second-largest democratic electorate in the world. Since 1979, the Parliament has been directly elected every five years by the citizens of the EU through universal suffrage. Voter turnout in parliamentary elections has decreased each time after 1979 until 2019.
About European Parliament in brief
The European Parliament is one of the three legislative branches of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. The Parliament is composed of 705 members and represents the second-largest democratic electorate in the world. Since 1979, the Parliament has been directly elected every five years by the citizens of the EU through universal suffrage. Voter turnout in parliamentary elections has decreased each time after 1979 until 2019, when voter turnout increased by 8 percentage points, and went above 50% for the first time since 1994. Although the European Parliament has legislative power, as does the Council, it does not formally possess the right of initiative – which is a prerogative of the European Commission – as most national parliaments of the member states do. It was not designed in its current form when it first met on 10 September 1952. Its development since its foundation shows how the EU’s structures have evolved without a clear ‘master plan’ Some, such as Tom Reid of the Washington Post, said of the union: ‘nobody would have deliberately designed a government as complex and as redundant as the EU’ The Parliament’s two seats, which have switched several times, are a result of various agreements or lack of agreements. Although most MEPs would prefer to be based just in Brussels, at John Major’s 1992 Edinburgh summit, France engineered a treaty amendment to maintain Parliament’s plenary seat permanently at Strasbourg. The European Parliament’s first meeting was held on 19 March 1958, having been set up in Luxembourg City in 1958. In 1962, it was granted power over the current Parliament’s president and on 13 May it rearranged itself to sit according to political ideology rather than nationality rather than ideology.
The last EU-wide elections were the 2019 elections. In March 2008, Parliament’s celebrations were held in Strasbourg, France, with the 50th anniversary of the Parliament being held in March 2008 rather than March 2002. The first meeting of the current body was held in 1962, and the Parliament’s name was changed to the current European Parliament in 1962. It also changed its name to the European Parliamentary Assembly in 1967, and in 1962 it granted the power over its president to be elected over a period of five years. It is the first of the seven EU institutions to be named after a single country or region, and it is the only one to have a population of more than 100 million people. It shares equal legislative and budgetary powers with the Council. It likewise has equal control over the EU budget. The President is David Sassoli, elected in July 2019. He presides over a multi-party chamber, the five largest groups being the European People’s Party group, the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, Renew Europe, the GreensEuropean Free Alliance and Identity and Democracy. The Parliament’s plenary sessions take place in. Strasbourg as well as in Brussels,. While the Parliament”s committee meetings are held primarily in Brussels. It was a consultative assembly of 78 appointed parliamentarians drawn from member states, having no legislative powers. The body was not mentioned in the original Schuman Declaration.
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This page is based on the article European Parliament published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 06, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
