EU Organization for Dummies?

Does anyone know of a website that clearly and simply explains how the EU works? I’m looking at the EU website and am thoroughly confused. I did a search through ‘General Questions’ and couldn’t find anything about this (I probably botched the search, someone must have asked this before). Here’s what I’m trying to figure out:

As far as I can tell, the main political bodies in the EU are the Parliament, the Commision, the Council, the Court of Justice and the Court of Auditors, is that right?

How are the members of each of these bodies chosen?

How does a law get passed?

Does the Court of Justice review laws to make sure they follow the constitution?

Is there an executive branch? How is it chosen?

Why is the Irish public voting to decide whether the EU can expand?

What is controlled by the EU and what is controlled by the member nations?

I’ve heard that the EU is working towards some kind of unified military command (outside of NATO), how is that coming along?

There is no easy answer to these questions and my experience with Europa Web site is that it is very hard to find information.

It’s all very complicated, because there is no one organising document (like the U.S. Constitution) for the European Union. It is governed by a series of treaties convened over a period of about 50 years. It’s very complicated and it’s not always clear which institution has what authority.

I’ll answer what questions I can off the top of my head and then if you need further detail, I’ll try to dig it up when I get into the office —

The members of the European Parliament are directly elected by the polity of the member states. The members of the European Commission are elected by the parliament. The members of the Council of the European Union (not to be confused with the Council of Europe, which is not a body of the European Union) are chosen by the heads of government of the member states. I don’t know off the top of my head about the Court of Justice and the Court of Auditors. I also am not entirely sure whether these are co-equal with the parliament, the commission, and the council. The commission has a rotating presidency with one member state serving as the president for a six-month term.

The commission is the only body authorised to initiate and enact legislation. In other words, the commission has parliament-like powers (that is, legislative plus executive powers). Once the commission enacts legislation (in the form of a “directive”), the parliament gets an opportunity to comment on it. If it is approved, then the legislation is titled a “Directive of the Commission and the Parliament.” Directives must be implemented by implementing legislation by the legislative bodies of the member states. The commission can also promulgate “regulations,” which do not require implementing legislation in order to become effective. I’m not exactly sure what the role of the council is in this process, but I think they also have some kind of right to comment on legislation.

Actually, to add to the above, I think the members of the Council of the European Union are the heads of government of the member states.

The Parliament is elected by the citizens of the EU, but regarding its legislative powers it is much weaker than a national parliament, although they have been widened steadily throughout the decades. The main legislative body in the EU is still the Council, consisting of the national ministers competent for the matter being debated.
The Commission can be likened to a cabinet, consisting of 20 “Commissioners” ( = ministers). they’re responsible to the Parliament, but there’s a quota regulation concerning the nationality of its members (two Commissioners each from the UK, France, Spain, Germany and Italy, one each from every other of the 15 nations). The executive part is mainly done by national uthorities, though.
The EU doesn’t make “laws,” it makes “Directives” that have to be turned into law by the appopriate national legislations (if they don’t, they’re breaking EU law). Basically, directives are made by the Council, with the Parliament having some rights. This lack of democracy is subject to a lot of criticism, but that’s the way it currently is. As stated before, however, the Parliament is getting more rights.
The Court of Justice makes sure national law complies with EU standards. There’s no EU Constitution yet, but there are multilateral treaties, and a Constitution is being planned.

If the EU is to enlarged, every member nation can veto. The Irish public is voting whether Ireland should use the veto, thus stopping the process of admitting ten Eastern European nations.

The Irish vote this upcoming Saturday is not, repeat not about enlargement of the EU. Enlargement can and will go ahead regardless of the Irish vote (take it from EU President Romano Prodi if you don’t believe me).

What Ireland is voting on is whether or not to accept an increasingly militarised and federalised EU, with more powers in the hands of Brussels rather than those of the member states and their people.

We’re not in GD, so I’ll leave it at that.

I apologize for the error concerning the subject of the referendum - it is indeed the Nice Treaty, not the enlargement. However, Prodi’s statements from the link provided by ruadh seems to be his personal view, not a fact. I’ve heard there’s plenty of legal doubts about whether an Irish no would stop the enlargement process or not. The matter is not too clear.

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Vic Ferrari *
**

As far as I can tell, the main political bodies in the EU are the Parliament, the Commision, the Council, the Court of Justice and the Court of Auditors, is that right? **
I think you can leave the court of auditors out of the “main bodies”

How are the members of each of these bodies chosen?

The members of parliament are elected by the citizens. The number for each country is somewhat dependant on the population (but not directly…there aren’t three times more representants for a country which has three time more citizens, for instance)

The members of the commission are chosen by the Council and approved by the Parliament. Each of the commissioner is in charge of a particular topic (education, agriculture, etc…), like a minister. There is one commissioner for each country, except for the largest ones who have two commissioners.

The Council include one representant of the government of each state. He can be the head of state/government for important matters, the minister of, say agriculture when agriculture issues are debatted, etc…In other words, the council isn’t made of designated and permanent individual members. A council meeting will include different persons depending on the issue at hand.

And by the way, there’s a “presidency” of the Union, which is rotating each six months between the state members. So, one country represent the EU for this period, for instance during diplomatic negociations. However, this system becomes more and more cumbersome with a higher number of members, and somewhat weird when say, the Luxemburg, which doesn’t necessarily have the same means than Germany for instance presides the EU. This could dissapear in the future.

There’s also an individual in charge of the common foreign and security policy, who also act as a representant of the Union (a permanent one, this time).

As you can see, the system is cumbersome and definitely needs some cleaning. There’s currently a commision which is debating over the possible institutionnal reforms. It should make its proposals next year.

Actually, there are several kind of “laws”, ranging from mere recommandations to mandatory for all state members (with fines, etc…if they aren’t enacted). The process is complex with the text moving back and forth between the three bodies. But roughly, they’re initiated by the Cimmission, and must receive the agreement of both other bodies.

Honnestly, I don’t remember clearly, and I’m to lazy to check right now, so don’t take my word for it. As far as I remember, there’s no “automatic” review of the “laws” when they are passed, but the Court can state, when a particular case is is presented by say a citizen or a national court asking for an advice, whether or not a particular european “law” (or national law, for that matter) is in agreement with the treaties. There is no european constitution since it…hmmm…sounds a little supra-nationalist. However there are more and more voices calling for one, so it could happen in the near future.

The Commission and the Council would be a two-headed “executive”.

Because the EU is founded on treaties between sovereign nations. Important changes in the EU, like the institutionnal changes needed for the enlargment, or the enlargment itself, require a new treaty between these nations. The pending treaty of Rome, including these changes has been ratified by all members, except Ireland who will approve it (or not) by a referendum. If the “no” wins in Ireland, the situation will be problematic, and I suppose the EU will have to be very creative to find a way around. It’s a serious concern.

May I leave this one out? Especially since my answer wouldn’t be extremely accurate. Also, there’s no domain totally “controlled” by the EU. But for instance tariffs, trade and concurrence issues are essentially controlled by the EU, while taxes and social policy aren’t.

Well…It’s a difficult issue since there are very conflicting points of view. For instance some countries (the UK being the prime example) think the NATO works just fine, hence thinks European Defense should be subsidiary, and relying on NATO structures. Others (France being the prime example) think the European Defense should be fully independant and should exist beside NATO, and able to operate without it. Some countries (say, Ireland) are also traditionnally “neutral” and don’t like much the concept of an integrated european defense. So, there’s a long way to go, before an agreement can be reached. And even more time before it could be enacted.

Well, you certainly sound like you want to start a GD on this one.

The Treaty of Nice most definitely is about enlargement.

Don’t believe me? here’s how the treaty starts:

As for militarising the EU (or, to put it more neutrally, implementing a common foreign and security policy), this is not a new idea, and already exists in the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the EU, approved by Ireland in a referendum on the previous Amsterdam Treaty.

The only change in the Nice Treaty is in the institutional framework for this policy, which is to be shifted away from the Western European Union and towards the EU itself.

Not only that, but the Nice Treaty specifically caters for member states which, like Ireland, are neutral and do not want to get involved:

And, as if that weren’t enough, the referendum being voted on in Ireland next Saturday includes a specific constitutional provision preventing us from joining any common EU defence policy without another constitutional amendment.

As for ‘fedaralised’, the Nice treaty is emphatically not a fedaralist document. (I for one wish it were, and was very disappointed at the time it was agreed by its dullness and lack of ambition… but that’s another issue!)

The thrust of pretty much all the changes to the Founding Treaty is to tweak the EU structures to allow the Union to (just about) continue to function and make decisions with 25 or 27+ members rather than the current 15.

It extends the number of matters on which qualified majority voting (where a majority of Council votes, both by number of countries and by % of population is necessary to pass a proposal) will replace the existing situation where every country has a veto.

And does pretty much bugger all else.

Some links:
The impartial Referendum Commission’s Nice Treaty site: http://www.thenicetreaty.com/home.html
The text of the Treaty itself:
http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/treaties/dat/nice_treaty_en.pdf

Thanks for the help, guys. It’s more understandable to me now, but it seems that the organization just isn’t all that clear to begin with. :slight_smile:

The Irish people are actually about to vote in the second referendum on the Nice treaty since the first time they voted they gave the wrong answer i.e. No.

Can anyone enlighten me as to what has been changed in the treaty since the previous vote. It cannot be material, since if it were all the other 14 members would need to re ratify it. If it isn’t a material change why should the outcome be different?

There’s only one difference in what Irish people are voting on between the 2nd and 1st referendums – we’re now not only voting to amend the (Irish) constitution to allow ratification of the Nice Treaty, we’re also voting on whether to introduce a clause into the constitution prohibiting Ireland from taking part in any European common defence (there’s only one vote – yes to both or no to both).

This extra amendment has been dreamt up because one of the major arguments of the No campaign before the first referendum was that a Yes vote would mean joining NATO (!).

So, basically, yes, we are voting on the same thing a second time.

But what’s the problem with that, really?

It’s a rather important decision, not so much because of the contents of the treaty itself but because of what our rejection of it means / would mean for our future status and relationships in Europe, and I think it’s absolutely reasonable for the government to be asking the people if they’re really really sure it’s a good idea to throw the thing out.

If I suddenly announced to my parents that I was going to run off to India to live as a mendicant Buddhist monk, I’d like to think that they wouldn’t just say “oh right fair enough, here’s a new begging bowl and don’t forget to bring a spare loincloth”, but they’d make absolutely sure that I really wanted to go.

Anyway, there are plenty of precedents – Denmark took two goes to ratify the Maastricht treaty, and as for us here in Ireland, we’ve had two divorce referendums and three abortion referendums in the last 20 years… so this isn’t too much of a hardship.

Actually, I said that the vote isn’t about enlargement, not that the Treaty isn’t. Obviously enlargement is a major issue in the Treaty, but the OP and Schnitte implied that Ireland was voting purely on that issue, which isn’t true.

Nothing else in your post really contradicts mine, although we might disagree about the term “federalist”. I would say that the centralisation of power via taking the veto from the member states qualifies; you may disagree, but the end result is the same. As for the treaty only continuing a militarisation process already started with Amsterdam, don’t forget that many on the No to Nice side opposed the Amsterdam Treaty as well.

Schnitte, it appears to be the opinion of more than just Prodi that enlargement can go ahead without the Treaty. Taken from today’s Irish Independent (a decidedly pro-Treaty paper):

A note on legislative processes in the EU:

The European Commission, as posted earlier, is the group that initiates and proposes “legislation.” They are charged with acting in the Best Interests of Europe as a whole, not any member state. However, they are subject to lobbying pressures and indirect pressures from their home governments – they can be replaced after their term of service ends.

After a piece of, for simplicity’s sake, legislation, has been initiated by the European Commission, it must be approved by the Council of Ministers appropriate to its subject area. Each Council of Ministers for each policy group is composed of state-government-responsible ministers (i.e, the French minister of agriculture and British minister of agriculture are on the EU Agricultural Council of Ministers, etc.). A piece of agriculture-related legislation must be approved by the agriculture ministers, and a piece of security/military related legislation/directive must be approved by the defense ministers.

Here lies an important nuance: sometimes unanimity is required to pass directives in the Council of Ministers, and sometimes it is not. From 1966 to 1986, proposals had to be approved by unanimous vote of the Council of Ministers to become law, under a process called “assent.” No vote by the European Parliament was required, and indeed no European Parliament existed until 1979. For issues dealing with traditional “state sovereignty” policy areas (common foreign and security policy, land use, justice, EU taxation) unanimity is still required.

Since the early 80s, and especially 1986 and the Single European Act however, some issues have become subject to what is called Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) in the Council of Ministers. Under a voting process called “consultation” the Council may approve legislation by QMV or may approve an amended version of the Commission-passed legislation by unanimous vote.

Things get more complicated with the two other EU decisionmaking procedures, “cooperation” and “codecision”.

Cooperation procedures start the same way as consultation, with Commission proposal and Council approval (by QMV or unanimity). BUT after that, legislation must pass another hurdle: approval by absolute majority (50% plus one vote) of the European Parliament. EP members are elected by the people of Europe, and are grouped by party (Green, Conservative, etc.) in the Parliament. They are also subject to lobbying pressures. Under cooperation procedures the EP may also reject the legislation by absolute majority, or amend it. IF the EP passes the legislation, it is law. If the EP rejects the legislation, the European Commission will be given the chance to resubmit or withdraw it. If the EP amends the legislation, the Commission may choose to resubmit it (to the Council of Ministers) with or without the amendments.

One other legislative procedure, the co-decision procedure, was established in 1992 by the Maastricht Treaty. Procedures are similar to cooperation, with a few changes. Under this procedure, if the EP votes to reject the legislation, it FAILS and is not given back to the Commission for resubmittal. There is also a complex procedure for dealing with amendments to legislation made by the EP.

Since the Nice Treaty (2000), a qualified majority for QMV in the Council of Ministers is approximately 3/4.

It should be noted that changes in the structure of the EU and amendments of the treaties governing the EU are generally made after EU summits. The 1986 Single European Act, 1992 Maastricht Treaty, and 2000 Nice Treaty were all put in place after EU summits. The country hosting the summit generally puts its stamp on the outcome – Maastricht was a more integrationist treaty and the Netherlands a more integrationist state; Nice did not change very much and carried the stamp of France, a state that has traditionally valued state sovereignty. The next summit is scheduled for 2004, and will be in Germany, an integrationist state. This is not a hard and fast rule, but something of a generality.

Issues relevant to traditional realms of state sovereignty (defense, state fiscal policy, enlargement of the EU, changes in the treaty, etc.) are generally reserved for unanimous consent of all member states. Economic and trade issues have traditionally been subject to the less exacting approval standard of QMV, and often (in cooperation and codecision) have EP involvement in policy.

Common foreign and security policy is going at a sloooooow pace. There are a lot of contentious issues. Britain is strongly allied with American security interests and other European states are generally not…this means there are a lot of political fights over the direction and scope of CFSP. Britain generally wants to emphasize NATO’s role in European security (US is a part of NATO), while other states are (somewhat) more integrationist. Integration of states’ defense policy is the slowest of all integation issues for the EU, because security policy is MOST central to traditional conceptions of individual state sovereignty. States generally don’t want to give up control over their military to supranational bodies. Recently, the EU did create a 60,000 troop strong Rapid Reaction Force, independent of NATO, but on-the-ground actions of this force would require the support of…you guessed it…NATO facilities.

Confused? Ask the Poli Sci nerd!

The referndums on abortion and divorce are red herrings, on these issues societal judgement varies with time and a number of referenda spread over 20 years is eminently reasonable.

However, the Irish and Danish double votes both took place within a few months on essentially the same question. Your argument about certainty of the decison is laughable, if it were true you would expect duplicated referenda regardless of the initial outcome. Indeed it would have been more justifiable if there had been a second referendum following a yes vote. A No vote simply maintains the status quo whereas a yes vote changes it.

To use your own analogy, would you expect your parents to try to talk you into becoming a Bhuddist if you had announced your intention not to become one? That is the analogy here, the Irish people voted not to do something and their Governemnt is now trying to talk them into it. Presumably if they vote no again they will have to have another referendum until they get the right answer.

This doesn’t really make sense.

The Irish constitution has been amended by referendum 25 times so far, and we have had a substantial number of further, failed, referendums.

Most of these referendums have had uncontroversial outcomes (the bail laws were changed a few years ago by referendum in Ireland! nobody noticed!), or wide margins of victory for one side or the other (the Good Friday agreement (on peace in Northern Ireland) was approved by very nearly 100% of the Irish electorate, while a proposal by Ireland’s largest political party to get rid of our proportional representation electoral system was trounced so badly that the subject scarcely gets a mention any more).

Sometimes also, a referendum whose outcome was very close yields a result which quickly becomes uncontroversial (divorce was voted in in 1995 by just over 50% of the electorate but is now almost universally accepted).

All in all, the circumstances are very rare that there is not a recognition by both public and politicians that a referendum has settled the issue.

Abortion and divorce have been two exceptions, due to particular factors within Irish society.

Again, why?

Nice is a continuation of, not a radical departure from, the trend of Ireland’s relationship with the EU. One can say that Nice should be voted against as a protest against the whole EU project, but that would be an extremely radical departure for the Irish people, who have been explicitly committed by signing up to the Treaty of Rome in 1973 to ‘ever closer union’.

A No vote would seriously call into question Ireland’s commitment to the European project, and severely damage our relations with all the countries of the EU and particularly with the candidate countries.

To use a quieter but related analogy, if I were at university and, having completed two years of my studies, refused to register for my next year of studies, I would again expect my parents to ask if I were sure that I did not want to sign up to continue with the course I had already chosen.

There is a definite truth to your contention that the Irish Government is now trying to talk the Irish people into voting for Nice – the first time around, it was so widely assumed not just by the Government but by all the mainstream political parties and by much of the rest of (pro-european) society that a Yes vote was going to happen (as had happened at every previous European referendum (4 that I can think of offhand, generally by a landslide)), that a great degree of complacency sunk in in many quarters, with the result that the turnout for the referendum was 35% of the electorate.

This time, an actual Yes campaign has been launched – in that important sense, there is every difference between the two referendums.

I’ll just mention in passing that the Yugoslavs are about to run their election again because the turnout was below 50% the first time…

This will not happen. It is accepted by all sides that this is the last chance for Nice, both because of time constraints, and because there actually is a respect for the will of the Irish people (you really really want to drop out of uni and become a dhoti-wearing cowpat-burning friar? well, ok then, but don’t say I didn’t warn you…)

This doesn’t really make sense.

The Irish constitution has been amended by referendum 25 times so far, and we have had a substantial number of further, failed, referendums.

Most of these referendums have had uncontroversial outcomes (the bail laws were changed a few years ago by referendum in Ireland! nobody noticed!), or wide margins of victory for one side or the other (the Good Friday agreement (on peace in Northern Ireland) was approved by very nearly 100% of the Irish electorate, while a proposal by Ireland’s largest political party to get rid of our proportional representation electoral system was trounced so badly that the subject scarcely gets a mention any more).

Sometimes also, a referendum whose outcome was very close yields a result which quickly becomes uncontroversial (divorce was voted in in 1995 by just over 50% of the electorate but is now almost universally accepted).

All in all, the circumstances are very rare that there is not a recognition by both public and politicians that a referendum has settled the issue.

Abortion and divorce have been two exceptions, due to particular factors within Irish society.

Again, why?

Nice is a continuation of, not a radical departure from, the trend of Ireland’s relationship with the EU. One can say that Nice should be voted against as a protest against the whole EU project, but that would be an extremely radical departure for the Irish people, who have been explicitly committed by signing up to the Treaty of Rome in 1973 to ‘ever closer union’.

A No vote would seriously call into question Ireland’s commitment to the European project, and severely damage our relations with all the countries of the EU and particularly with the candidate countries.

To use a quieter but related analogy, if I were at university and, having completed two years of my studies, refused to register for my next year of studies, I would again expect my parents to ask if I were sure that I did not want to sign up to continue with the course I had already chosen.

There is a definite truth to your contention that the Irish Government is now trying to talk the Irish people into voting for Nice – the first time around, it was so widely assumed not just by the Government but by all the mainstream political parties and by much of the rest of (pro-european) society that a Yes vote was going to happen (as had happened at every previous European referendum (4 that I can think of offhand, generally by a landslide)), that a great degree of complacency sunk in in many quarters, with the result that the turnout for the referendum was 35% of the electorate.

This time, an actual Yes campaign has been launched – in that important sense, there is every difference between the two referendums.

I’ll just mention in passing that the Yugoslavs are about to run their election again because the turnout was below 50% the first time…

This will not happen. It is accepted by all sides that this is the last chance for Nice, both because of time constraints, and because there actually is a respect for the will of the Irish people (you really really want to drop out of uni and become a dhoti-wearing cowpat-burning friar? well, ok then, but don’t say I didn’t warn you…)