Representing every EU Citizen
How are decisions made in Parliament?
The Committees
What happens to Parliaments decision

Representing every EU citizen
Made up of 785 MEPs, all of whom have been elected by the EU’s 492 million citizens, the European Parliament represents everyone across the 27 EU member states.  

The MEPs main task is to debate and vote on European legislation that affects all of us at some point in our daily lives.

The 1997 Amsterdam Treaty gave the European Parliament an increased role in policy making and although its influence is still relatively small compared the Council and Commission Parliament is consulted about major decisions and has substantial shared power with the Council.

For more information on the European Parliament please visit www.europarl.europa.eu 

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How are decisions made in Parliament?
The process’ by which decisions are reached in the Parliament often vary depending on the type of legislation or other decisions being made.

Much of the work which influences the final decision taken by the Parliament on a piece of proposed legislation takes place at an informal level, outside the formal Committee meetings and plenary sessions.  Lobbying by the public, businesses and other organisations and meetings with representatives from the Commission , Council or Presidency as well as bodies such as the Economic and Social Committee all have an influence.

Within the Parliament, Rapporteurs will discuss their report with their colleagues and advisors within Political groupings.  There is a considerable amount of negotiation with MEPs from other political groups in order to try and get as much support for the report as possible.  

The Rapporteur is responsible for writing a Report on the Commission document on behalf of the Committee.  A typical report would consist of a number of amendments, or changes to the text where the Rapporteur thinks that improvements need to be made.


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The Committees
There are 17 permanent Committees dealing with different subject areas in the European Parliament each with a number of MEPs who are full members and others who are ‘substitute members’.  There are also a number of temporary committees which are formed as important matters arise – for example CIA Extraordinary Rendition Flights.

For more information on the Committees Jean works on please click here

Committee work processing legislation
Stage 1: When a piece of draft legislation is sent to Parliament from the Commission, it is given to the relevant Committee to deal with. 

Stage 2: The Committee, by co-ordinating the political groups, allocates one of its members as ‘Rapporteur’.

Stage 3: Normally one or more of other Committees produce an opinion on the original proposal.

For example:
The Civil Liberties Committee is responsible for producing the report in the proposal for a Community Immigration Policy.  The Employment and Social Affairs Committee has been asked to write an Opinion on the proposal in which they will ask the former committee to include certain points in its report which cover the subject from the employment and social angle.

Stage 4: Once the Rapporteur has produced the report, other Committee members may also submit amendments to the text.

Stage 5: The report then goes to vote in the Committee.  The Committee votes on whether to accept each submitted amendment into the text, and finally whether to accept the report as a whole.  The majority of reports are accepted, and go on to be voted on by the whole Parliament in the plenary session.   

Plenary Session: when the whole Parliament meets together to discuss reports, amend them and put them to vote, thus adopting its position on the matter.  Amendments may therefore also be submitted prior to the plenary vote.


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What happens to Parliament’s decision?
The report adopted by the Parliament then passes to the Council for their consideration.  What happens at this stage depends on the procedure the proposal falls under.  The number of times a piece of legislation in preparation goes back and forth between players, from the time of the initial proposal to its final adoption as a piece of EU legislation, varies according to the procedure.

The legal base of each proposal, as set out in the Treaties, determines which procedure it falls under.  The process can take years.  Parliament often deals with the same proposal twice, as there is frequently a ‘Second Reading’ (if it is co-decision procedure) after the Parliament’s decision the first time round has been considered by the Council and Commission. 

How much influence the Parliament’s own decision on a particular proposal has on the final piece of legislation varies – it is just one of a number of institutions involved in forming legislation.  A lot of bargaining and give and take goes on between the different institutions involved.

There are four different decision procedures.  Which one a legislative proposal falls under depends, broadly speaking, on its subject area.  Since 1997 more EU legislation is subject to co-decision procedure, but agricultural, justice and home affairs, trade, fiscal harmonisation and EMU issues are still not:  

• Co-decision procedure:  On some matters the Parliament’s opinion must be taken into account, the Co-decision procedure determines that the legislation can not be passed with out Parliament’s agreement. 
  
• Consultation procedure:  The consultation procedure sees the Parliament give its opinion but this does not have to be taken into account by the Council, which has the final say.
  
• Cooperation Procedure: This gives the Parliament more say in the consultation but less in co-decision. However this is now rarely used.
  
• Assent procedure: reserves solely for special measures.

It is in the Parliament’s interests that as much as possible is based on co-decision procedure, where its powers are strongest, and as little as possible is based on the consultation procedure, where its powers are weakest.

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