European Parliament

The European Parliament (formerly European Parliamentary Assembly) is the parliamentary body of the European Union (EU), directly elected by EU citizens once every five years. Together with the Council of Ministers, it composes the legislative branch of the institutions of the Union. It meets in two locations: Strasbourg and Brussels.

The Parliament has restricted legislative power. It cannot initiate legislation, but can amend or veto it in many policy areas. In certain other policy areas, it only has the right to be consulted. It also supervises the European Commission; it must approve all appointments to it, and can dismiss it with a vote of censure. It also has the right to control the EU budget. The European Parliament has no power to interfere directly with laws made in any member state country of the EU, though EU laws do supersede laws made at national level.

Other organisations of European countries, such as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Council of Europe, and the Western European Union, have parliamentary assemblies as well, but the members of these assemblies are appointed by national parliaments as opposed to direct election.

The European Parliament represents around 496 million citizens of the EU. Its members are known as Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). Since January 1, 2007, there are 785 MEPs. Since January 1, 2009, The European Parliament has a total of 736 members distributed between member states according to the size of their populations based on the principle of "degressive proportionality". The number will be increased to 754 when a Protocol is approved and ratified by all 27 member states. From 2014 it will be 751 - unless new enlargements may have altered the numbers.

Since 1979 the MEPs have been elected by direct universal voting every five years. There is no uniform voting system for the election of MEPs; rather, each member state is free to choose its own system, subject to three restrictions:

· The system must be a form of proportional representation, under either the party list or Single Transferable Vote system.

· The electoral area may be subdivided if this will not generally affect the proportional nature of the voting system.

· Any election threshold on the national level must not exceed five percent.

The allocation of seats to each member state is based on the principle of degressive proportionality, so that, while the size of the population of each country is taken into account, smaller states elect more MEPs than would be strictly justified by their populations alone. As the number of MEPs granted to each country has arisen from treaty negotiations, there is no precise formula for the apportionment of seats among member states. No change in this configuration can occur without the unanimous consent of all governments.

The Lisbon Treaty has removed the distinction between compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure, thus giving the European Parliament an influence on all budgetary categories.

The European Parliament now also have greater influence in a greater number of areas as the co-decision procedure is applied in more areas - now called the "ordinary legislative procedure".

With the Lisbon Treaty the seats in the European Parliament are distributed according to the formalised principle of "degressive proportionality" securing each member state at least 6 seats and a maximum of 96 in a Parliament of 751 members - from 2014, where the numbers may have changed again because of new enlargements.

Here is the table for the different member states.

Table 2.1.

Members of the European Parliament

Country	Current Allocation	Election Period 2009-2014	Lisbon Treaty
Germany
France
United Kingdom
Italy
Spain
Poland
Romania
Netherlands
Greece
Belgium
Portugal
Hungary
Czech Republic
Sweden
Austria
Bulgaria
Slovakia
Denmark
Finland
Ireland
Lithuania
Latvia
Slovenia
Estonia
Cyprus
Luxembourg
Malta
Total

In December 2008, Government leaders of the EU countries decided in a declaration on how to shift to new numbers of MEP’s. There will be a pause after the Lisbon Treaty enters into force. The number of MEP’s in the 2009-2014 election period will increase to 754, equal to that of the Lisbon Treaty + 3 Members from Germany (99 total).