12 I EUROPEAN SEED I EUROPEAN-SEED.COM A CLOSER LOOK AT EU COUNCIL, PARLIAMENT AND COMMISSION. BY: MARCEL BRUINS EU DECISION MAKING Various European institutions are involved in decision-making at EU level. The most important bodies are: •  The European Parliament, representing the EU’s citizens and is directly elected by them •  The European Council, consisting of the Heads of State or Government of the EU Member States •  The Council, representing the governments of the EU Member States •  The European Commission, which represents the interests of the EU as a whole The European Council defines the general political direc- tion and priorities of the EU, but it does not exercise legislative functions. Generally, it is the European Commission that pro- poses new laws and it is the European Parliament and Council that adopt them. The Member States and the Commission then implement them. TYPES OF LEGISLATION There are several types of legislation, and these are applied in different ways. •  A regulation is a law that is applicable and binding in all Member States directly. It does not need to be passed into national law by the Member States although national laws may need to be changed to avoid conflicting with the regulation. •  A directive is a law that binds the Member States, or a group of Member States, to achieve a particular objective. Usually, directives must be transposed into national law to become effective. Significantly, a directive specifies the result to be achieved: it is up to the Member States indi- vidually to decide how this is done. •  A decision can be addressed to Member States, groups of people, or even individuals. It is binding in its entirety. Decisions are used, for example, to rule on proposed mergers between companies. • Recommendations and opinions have no binding force. THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT - THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE www.europarl.eu Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are directly elected by EU citizens to represent their interests. Elections are held every five years and all EU citizens over 18 years old (16 in Austria) — some 380 million — are entitled to vote. The Parliament has 751 MEPs from all 28 Member States. The official seat of the European Parliament is in Strasbourg (France), although the institution has three places of work: Strasbourg, Brussels (Belgium) and Luxembourg. The main meetings of the whole Parliament, known as ‘plenary sessions’, take place in Strasbourg 12 times per year. Additional plenary sessions are held in Brussels. Committee meetings are also held in Brussels. COMPOSITION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT The seats in the European Parliament are allocated among the Member States on the basis of their share of the EU population. Most MEPs are associated with a national political party in their home country. In the European Parliament the national parties group into EU-wide political groupings and most MEPs belong to one of these. ROLES OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT The Parliament is the legislative arm of the EU, directly elected by the EU citizens and has three main roles: 1.  It shares with the Council the power to legislate — to pass laws. The fact that it is a directly elected body helps guarantee the democratic legitimacy of European law. 2.  It exercises democratic supervision over all EU institu- tions, and in particular the Commission. It has the power to approve or reject the nomination of the President of the Commission and Commissioners, and the right to censure the Commission as a whole. 3.  It shares authority with the Council over the EU budget and can therefore influence EU spending. At the end of the budget procedure, it adopts or rejects the budget in its entirety. THE EUROPEAN COUNCIL - SETTING THE STRATEGY www.european-council.europa.eu The European Council brings together the Heads of State or Government from each Member State, the President of the European Council and the President of the European Commission the EU’s top political leaders, i.e. Prime Ministers and Presidents. They meet at least four times a year to give the EU as a whole general political direction and priorities. ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN COUNCIL As a summit meeting of the Heads of State or Government of all the EU Member States, the European Council represents the highest level of political cooperation between the Member States. WHO’S PULLING THE STRINGS IN THE EU?