How powerful is the European Parliament?
BETWEEN JUNE 6TH and 9th the European Union will hold an election for the European Parliament. The chamber has long had a reputation for toothlessness: critics have derided it as a “paper tiger” and a “Mickey Mouse” assembly. Most attempts to enact change, they say, get tangled in red tape. Yet the European Parliament has gradually become more powerful since its inception as a directly elected chamber in 1979. The outcome of the election will help to determine how the EU tackles a range of geopolitical problems, from the war in Ukraine to climate change. How does the parliament work and why does it matter?
The European Parliament has a complex structure. Voters in member countries elect an MEP for their constituency: dozens of national and European parties are represented. Many of them join a continental political group, of which there are currently seven. The biggest is the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP). Its centre-left equivalent is the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D). There are also groups for liberals, greens, soft Eurosceptics, the hard right and the hard left (read our guide to all seven).
In conjunction with the national governments represented in the Council of the European Union, MEPs decide on EU-wide laws on matters such as the environment, public health and security. The parliament also helps to set the bloc’s budget and can block trade deals. And it supervises other institutions such as the European Commission, the EU’s powerful executive arm.
That role will be particularly important after the election. In 2009 the Lisbon treaty gave the parliament a say in the selection of the commission’s president. Since 2014 most parties in the chamber have selected a preferred candidate for the commission’s top job. The leaders of the EU’s 27 member states can still pick whom they wish, but the parliament must back their choice. Ursula von der Leyen, the current president, is seeking a second term as the lead candidate for the EPP. She is the favourite, but her victory is not guaranteed. The centrist factions that backed her nomination in 2019 may win only a slim majority in the parliament this time; some of their MEPs could break ranks.
Other jobs are up for grabs, too. The presidency of the European Council is usually filled by a former or current leader of a member country. MEPs also approve the appointment of the commission, whose high representative, in effect the bloc’s foreign minister, will be chosen by the European Council. Negotiations could drag on for months, gridlocking the parliament.
Some treat the European Parliament elections as a bellwether for national contests. Germany holds a federal election in 2025; France will have a presidential vote in 2027. Leaders in both countries will await the results with trepidation: in each the main opposition party is comfortably leading the race, according to our poll tracker. If the union shifts to the right, there will be other consequences, too. Ukraine depends on its European allies for money and weapons, the scale of which could be curtailed. The hard right also wants to weaken the EU’s ambitious carbon-cutting plans. The two centrist groups will probably still come first and second. But the hard-right Identity & Democracy group could become the third-biggest faction in the chamber for the first time. ■