The European Parliament

Question 7a: How the EP ascertained its rights.

(The sentences which are bold are mentioned in the power point presentation)

 The Parliament achieved more powers by the Treaties because its members wanted to have more significance and credibility inside the EU.

 The MEPs fought for their own powers and always wanted to be as important as the Council.

 The EP in order to increase its powers it made the decrease of the democratic deficit one of its main priorities and through this it achieved more legislative influence.

 The EP made extensive use of the powers it already had and stretched them to the fullest for example the Maastricht Treaty gave it the power to give its opinion on the designated Commission and instead the EP altered this power to interrogating the Commission to be assigned.

 Vedel report of 1972, refused to give the EP the power to alter legislation but agreed with the idea that the EP could accept or reject the legislation of the Council and make use of the assent procedure (introduced by SEA in 1986: Council must obtain EP's assent before certain decisions can be made). With the assent procedure the EP can reject certain legislation by majority voting of its members.

 The EP has effect on the EU system through its legislative, budgetary and supervisory powers it achieved overtime by the Treaties.

 Under the cooperation procedure the EP made numerous amendments between 1987 and 1993.

 In November 2010, the 2011 budget underwent a deadlock on issues such as flexibility of the budget itself, for when it comes to new responsibilities and engagement of the EP in meetings regarding the Multi-Annual Financial Framework.

Isoglucose case: ECJ declared invalid a part of Community legislation because the EP did not give its opinion.

Case 139/79 Roquette Freres v Council and Case C-21/94 European Parliament v Council:

* The Consultation procedure requires the Council to consult the EP before it adopts an act. EP's views must be considered but are not binding. Nevertheless, the consultation is an essential procedural requirement.

* Legislation has been successfully challenged when, although the EP has been consulted on an initial draft, it has not been consulted after significant amendments were made to the draft (Parliament v Council (Case C-21/94) [1994]).

* Moreover, in Roquette Freres SA v Council (Case 138/79 [1980]) and Maizena GmbH v Council (Case 139/79 [1980]) a regulation was annulled because even though the EP's opinion had been sought, the Regulation was passed before the opinion was obtained.

* Due to the cooperation procedure, the Council may act by a qualified majority provided that it intends accepting the amendments proposed by the Parliament and put forward by the Commission, and the other provision. The Council is also required to, act unanimously after consulting the EP.

 Council could not agree with Community legislation before first getting the opinion of the EP.

 EP puts pressure on Commission to put the EP's opinions in its proposals.

 When the Commission does not accept the amendments the EP makes, the EP has the power to stop temporarily progression of the proposal to the Council by saying the Commission has a weak position.

 The co-decision and the consultation procedures enable the EP to make amendments to the legislation of the EU.

 With the co-decision procedure the EP, Council and Commission are almost all in the same level in the legislative area.

 In the Treaty of Nice, the European Parliament was given the status of a 'privileged' applicant under Article 230 EC, putting it in the same position as the Council, the Commission and the Member States, having unrestricted standing in judicial review proceedings. This gives the European Parliament the power to challenge acts of the other institutions.

 In 1979 there were the first direct elections of the EP and with this the EP gained much more strength in the legislative arena of the EU.

 The EP participates a lot in the legislative area. In fact between 2004 and 2009 the EP gave its decisions on about 1,350 texts.

 The EP ascertains its powers by practicing them and work hard to gain even more powers.

The EP can: (1) Give the Commission advice and opinion during the initiation phase of the proposals produced by the Commission itself.

(2) The EP can produce its own reports (from 1982 onwards the Commission started giving importance to these reports and in the year 2008 the EP produced 151 reports).

(3) The EP can give the Commission proposals (Article 225 TFEU). In 2008 the EP made use of this article and gave the Commission a proposal on the matter of equivalent pay.

(4) The EP also involves itself in the budget and can make changes to it. In 2000 the EP made use of this power to improve the situation in the regional policy sector.

(5) The decision of accepting or not the agenda of the Commission rests entirely with the EP and can therefore impact the legislative agenda of the Commission.

(6) The EP makes use of the Consultation procedure (EP is most fragile since the Council has the last say), the Ordinary legislative procedure (EP works closely with the Council) and the Consent Procedure (the EP has the power to judge proposals in the first reading).

 The EP gained a lot of power in the budgetary area. A draft of the budget is presented to the EP and is given 45 days to make alterations to it and the final stage of the budget is in the hands of the EP which can make final alterations before accepting the budget.

 In 1988 the EP, Council and Commission signed the Interinstitutional Agreement on Budgetary Discipline and Improvement of the Budgetary Procedure (allowed the 3 Institutions to commit themselves to the financial agenda of the annual budget of the period 1988 to 1992) which came to an end in 1992 and were the EP lost a lot of its powers over the budget. However, the EP asked questions to both the Council and the Commission, suggested alterations and released reports