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The main institutions of the European Union are the European Parliament, the
Council of the European Union and the European Commission.
The European Parliament represents the interests of the European citizens and is elected by direct universal
suffrage for a period of five years. Members of the Parliament do not sit in national
delegations but form trans-national groups (Christian Democrats, Socialists, Liberals,
etc.) according to the political club they belong to.
The Council of the European Union represents the interests of Member States and is made up of ministers of national
governments. Its members vary according to the subjects on the agenda since each
country is represented by the minister responsible for the matters discussed (Social
Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Transport, etc.).
As a norm, the Council acts by a qualified majority of its members. However,
when it comes to certain sensitive subjects (common foreign and security policy,
taxation, asylum and immigration policy) Council decisions are taken by unanimity
of votes. The operation of qualified majority voting is based on the principle
of the weighting of votes. This means that the total number of votes within the
Council – currently 345 – is distributed according to the demographic weight of
Member States.
The European Commission represents the general interests of the European Union and carries out legislative
and executive functions. Its 27 members (Commissioners) are appointed by national
governments for a 5-year term, one for each member State. Notwithstanding, Commissioners
operate in full autonomy and only in the interest of the EU.
...Legal Instruments
The main legislative instruments adopted by the EU are regulations and directives.
Regulations are similar to common national laws, they are binding in all their parts, apply
directly to all member States, and do not need to be transposed by national authorities.
Conversely, directives are binding on member States only as to the result to
be achieved, but leave them a certain degree of freedom as regards the modality
of transposition into the national legal order. If a directive has not been transposed
into national legislation in a member State, or it has been transposed only in
part, European citizens have the right to invoke the directive in national courts.
European institutions can also adopt decisions, recommendations and opinions.
Decisions can be compared to administrative acts and address specific recipients,
be them member States or individuals. On the contrary, recommendations and opinions
are non-binding acts and address member States or individuals.
...Legislative Procedure
With few exceptions, regulations and directives are adopted under the codecision procedure, which requires the joint agreement of the Council and the Parliament over the
same legislative text. Such procedure starts off with a proposal of the Commission,
on which the Parliament votes a first time (first reading), with the possibility
of proposing amendments. Then, the Council has to decide whether to adopt the
act as transmitted by the Parliament or to come up with its own proposal, also
called “common position”, to be submitted to the Parliament for a second vote
(second reading). The legislative procedure often terminates with the second reading
where the Parliament either approves or rejects the Council ‘s position.
Nevertheless, if the Parliament decides to introduce some amendments to the Council
position, the legislative text is returned once again to the Council for a further
assessment, with the participation of the Commission.
In case the Council does not adopt the amended text of the Parliament, a conciliation
committee, evenly constituted by representatives from the Parliament and the Council,
is set up. This is the last chance to reach an agreement and bring to a successful
conclusion the legislative procedure. In fact, if the two bodies fail to secure
an accord, the legislative proposal is definitively rejected.
Bibliographic Sources (EU websites)
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