The European Parliament is the only EU institution directly elected by citizens. Its 720 members adopt EU laws and the EU budget together with the Council of the EU, and they elect the President of the European Commission and can dismiss the Commission as a whole.
- Acronym
- EP
- Seat
- Strasbourg (official seat and monthly plenary sessions); committees and additional sessions in Brussels; secretariat in Luxembourg
- Established
- 1952 as the Common Assembly of the ECSC; named European Parliament since 30 March 1962; directly elected since 1979
- Members
- 720 Members (MEPs) for the 2024-2029 term, elected in each member state by proportional representation; between 6 and 96 seats per country
- Head
- Roberta Metsola, President since January 2022, re-elected on 16 July 2024
- Legal basis
- Article 14 TEU; Articles 223 to 234 TFEU
The European Parliament represents the citizens of the EU. Its members, called MEPs (Members of the European Parliament), are elected every five years in all member states. Every country must use proportional representation, but the detailed rules and the voting age are set nationally: 18 in most countries, 16 in Austria, Belgium, Germany and Malta, 17 in Greece. Seats are shared out by “degressive proportionality”: larger countries have more seats, but smaller ones have more seats per inhabitant. The Treaty on European Union sets a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 96 seats per country. MEPs sit in political groups by political family, not by nationality.
The Parliament has three kinds of power. It legislates: under the ordinary legislative procedure, which covers most EU laws, a text is adopted only if both the Parliament and the Council of the EU (the ministers of the member states) agree on it. It shares control of the budget: it adopts the annual EU budget with the Council and must consent to the long-term budget. It supervises the Commission: it elects the Commission President, approves the whole Commission before it takes office, and can force it to resign through a motion of censure, which needs a two-thirds majority of votes cast.
Most votes are taken by a majority of the votes cast. Some decisions require a majority of all component members, for example the election of the Commission President. The President of the Parliament is elected by MEPs for a renewable term of two and a half years.
Example
On 27 November 2024, the Parliament approved the second Commission led by Ursula von der Leyen by 370 votes to 282, with 36 abstentions. The new Commission took office on 1 December 2024. Earlier, on 18 July 2024, MEPs had re-elected von der Leyen as Commission President by 401 votes to 284.
Debates and limits
Turnout is a long-running concern. It fell from 61.99% in 1979 to 42.61% in 2014, then rose to 50.66% in 2019 and 50.74% in 2024, according to the Parliament’s official results. Supporters of the Parliament point to this recovery; critics argue that European elections are still fought mainly on national issues.
The Parliament also cannot propose laws on its own in most areas. It can only ask the Commission to make a proposal. In a 2022 resolution, the Parliament itself called for the treaties to be revised to give it a general right of initiative. Others reply that the Commission’s monopoly of initiative protects the balance between institutions and member states.