I was wondering if someone here could explain to me the difference between the European Parliment, Commision, Council and whatever else there may be as well as their comparative importance and how their members are elected. It’s all a bundled mystery to me.
Try your luck at Wikipedia.
Moderator Note
iljistch, from the GQ Rules:
If you can’t provide a better answer than the one you did, then there’s no need for you to post in GQ. No warning issued, but don’t do this again.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
The parliament is the legislative branch of the Union. It votes “laws” (called regulations or directives), approves the budget, approves or revokes the commission. The citizens of each member state elect a given number of MPs, dependant on (but not directly proportional to) its population. For instance, Germany (pop 81 millions) elects 96, Malta (pop 400 000) elects 6.
The commission is the executive. There’s one member (the equivalent of a minister) from each member state (which results in a weird division of tasks). The composition of the commission is proposed by the council and approved by the parliament.
The council is the assembly of the heads of state or government of the member states (German chancellor, French president, British prime minister, etc…). Its main role is to sort out/find a consensus about the most contentious issues.
(there’s also a “council of ministers”, made up of the ministers of each country in charge of whatever is currently being discussed, like the ministers of agriculture for agricultural policies, that can propose “laws” to the parliament)
This video is only somewhat relevant, but like all the CGPGrey stuff its very well done:
The Council of Europe is separate from the European Union, isn’t it, clairobscur? Or is there another Council that’s part of the EU?
You’ve got your Council of Europe, which is an international organisation distinct from (and predating) the EU. The members of the Council are states; there are currently (I think) 47 of them, so it’s much bigger than the EU. It includes most (but not quite all) of the former Soviet states. The Council promotes co-operation and the setting of shared standards in a wide range of legal, political and cultural matters.
Then, within the EU, you’ve got:
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Your** European Council **which, as already noted, is an assembly of the heads of government of member states, plus the Council’s own president (usually a former head of one of the national governments) and the President of the European Commission. The European Council provides a sort of collective presidency for the EU and sets policy priorities and gives strategic direction, but it has no legislative or executive powers.
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Your Council of the European Union, also called the Council of Ministers. This Council includes a government minister from each member state, the ministers attending varying according to the business to be transacted. At one meeting the agriculture ministers attend, to discuss agricultural policy, at another the environment ministers attend, and so forth. The presidency of this Council rotates between the Member States every six months. The Council shares legislative authority with the Parliament; (most) legislative proposals made by the European Commission need to be approved both by the Council and the Parliament. This Council also controls EU foreign policy, and shares control over the EU budget with the Parliament.
I expect that the various European states don’t all have quite the same set of ministries-- Who decides who the relevant minister is to send to each council? Might the same person end up going to councils on different topics, if they both happen to be encompassed by his ministry? What if a nation has two ministries relevant to different aspects of a topic-- Do they both go?
That’s not correct. The “Council” is the Council of Ministers; it meets in whatever composition is on the agenda, so if the draft that’s under discussion relates to, for instance, agriculture, then the Council will be composed of the national ministers for agriculture; for finance, the national ministers of finance, etc. Legally, however, these are just various compositions of the same organ, namely, the “Council of the EU”, and this body is consistently referred to as the “Council” in legal acts. What you, clairobscur, describe as the “Council” is, in fact, the “Europan Council”, which is composed of the national heads of state and government. It’s an organ different from the “Council”.
And it’s not correct to describe the Parliament as the “legislative” branch of the Union, to which the “Council” proposes laws. Proposals for regulations and directives always come from the Commission. The Parliament and the Council are jointly the legislative bodies of the EU, and most acts - i.e., those for which no special legislative procedure is provided for in the Treaties - require the consent of both the Council and the Parliament.
There’s formal agreement as to the various topics that each meeting of the Council will deal with. Each state then decides for itself which Minister will go. Ministers of course attend with a team of advisers, and are briefed beforehand. If a member state’s division of government business into ministries/departments doesn’t align exactly with the Council’s division, some thought may have to be given as to which to two (or more) ministers will attend at a particular Council meeting to represent that member state; that’s a matter purely for the member state concerned. But whoever attends can be briefed and supported by a team of officials from two (or more) departments.
It also happens from time to time that the obvious minister can’t go because of pressure of other business, so instead the member state is represented by a ministerial colleague. Equally I think a member state is free to send someone who is not a Minister, but is, e.g., a senior permanent official of the relevant government department, though that’s comparatively unusual.
Also worth noting that the Council of Europe - a separate organisation from the European Union - is the one responsible for the European Court of Human Rights. EU courts pay the European Convention on Human Rights reverence but some of its signatories are not members of the EU. Europe loves its courts, councils, being members of a club…
I understand the rule (although I didn’t know it, I guess I need to read up), but in this case I feel my response really was the most appropriate one, as this was a factual question of the type that Wikipedia was specifically created to answer, with no opportunity that I could see to make the answer better than the standard one that can be found in many places.
There are also a number of other intergovernmental entities in Europe, many of which predate the EU, such as the ESA and CERN.
To my knowledge, it’s common practice in Germany to send one of the state (as opposed to federal) ministers to represent Germany if the matter on the table falls within the competencies of the states within the German constitutional system; this does not affect the fact, of course, that as towards the rest of the EU, that minister’s vote in the Council counts in the name of Germany. The justifying rationale here is that state ministers, too, are of ministerial rank.