Politics of the European Union

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Politics of the European Union
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The political structure of the

Although direct elections take place every five years, there are no cohesive political parties in the national sense. Instead, there are alliances of ideologically associated parties who sit and vote together in Parliament. The two largest parties are the European People's Party (centre-right, mostly Christian Democrat) and the Party of European Socialists (centre-left, mostly Social Democrat) with the former forming the largest group in Parliament since 1999. As well as there being left and right dividing lines in European politics, there are also divides between those for and against European integration (Pro-Europeanism and Euroscepticism) which shapes the continually changing nature of the EU which adopts successive reforming treaties. The latter was a significant political force in the United Kingdom in the decades and years before leaving the Union, and some member states are less integrated than others due to legal opt-outs.

The democratic legitimation of the European Union rests on the Treaty System. The move toward unification first arose in the Kellogg-Briand Pact in 1928, which gained adherent countries during negotiations and took on a theme of integration for the achievement of peace between the Great Powers.^[1] After the Second World War, European society sought to end conflict permanently between states, seeing the rivalry between France and Germany as the most worrying example. In the spirit of the Marshall Plan^[how?], those two states signed the Treaty of Paris in 1951, establishing the European Coal and Steel Community. Since then, the Treaty of Paris, which focused on price setting and competition for purposes of a common market, has been superseded. The legal basis for the European Community now rests on two treaties: the Treaty of Rome of 1958; and the Treaty of Maastricht of 1992. The various additions and modifications of treaties has led to a patchwork of policy and planning, which contributes to the unwieldiness of the EU. The pastiche of treaties, and not a single actualising charter of government, form the constitutional basis of the European Union. This ambiguity is what critics call a primary cause of "democratic deficit."

The EU itself is a

The competences of the European Union stem from the original Coal and Steel Community, which had as its goal an integrated market. The original competences were regulatory in nature, restricted to matters of maintaining a healthy business environment. Rulings were confined to laws covering trade, currency, and competition. Increases in the number of EU competences result from a process known as functional spillover. Functional spillover resulted in, first, the integration of banking and insurance industries to manage finance and investment. The size of the bureaucracies increased, requiring modifications to the treaty system as the scope of competences integrated more and more functions. While member states hold their sovereignty inviolate, they remain within a system to which they have delegated the tasks of managing the marketplace. These tasks have expanded to include the competences of free movement of persons, employment, transportation, and environmental regulation.

The Ordinary Legislative Procedure (OLP) is the formal, main legislative procedure. In OLP, the European Parliament (EP) and the Council act in much the same way as a bicameral congress, such as the British Upper and Lower Houses or the American Congress. The co-decision rule in Maastricht, and the subsequent Lisbon Treaty, ultimately gave the EP and the Council equal weight and formalised OLP as the main legislative procedure. It also gives the EP veto power. The two legislative powers of the OLP are directives and regulations. A directive requires the member states to pass the new law individually, a process called "transposition." The difference in the timing of completing transposition is the "democratic deficit." A regulation acts on all the member states at once and is effective immediately.

The other legislation option is the Special Legislative Procedure (SLP). The SLP consists of the passing of laws proposed by member states, the Central Bank or Investment Bank, or the Court of Justice. Judicial activism—the interpretation of the spirit of law rather than the letter of law—is handled by the SLP. The procedure is discussed either in the EP with consultation with the council, or in the council with participation of the EP. In other words, the consultative role stops short of the equal weight given to both the EP and the council. While provided for in the treaties, the SLP is not as formal as the OLP, relying less on the hierarchical structure. This lends more credence to Kleine's argument of the contrariness of the EU's agenda-setting procedure.^[3]

In the OLP, there are four types of rulings: Regulations, Directives, Decisions, and Recommendations. Decision-making is shared by the European Parliament and the council, which are equally weighted. Regulations are binding on all member states effective immediately. Directives are binding on all member states, but the implementation is left up to the national courts in a process called transposition. However, since member states set their own timelines for transposition, there is a democratic deficit between states. Decisions are binding on non-state litigants to whom they are addressed.^[4] Recommendations are intended to guide legal judgments and are non-binding, similar to opinions.

In the SLP, the council is the sole ruling body. The European Parliament is involved strictly in a consultative role and can be ignored.

There are twenty-seven

Some member states are outside certain areas of the EU, for example the eurozone is composed of only 20 of the 27 members and the Schengen Agreement currently includes only 23 of the EU members. However, the majority of these are in the process of joining these blocs. A number of countries outside the EU are involved in certain EU activities such as the euro, Schengen, single market or defence.^[5][6][7]

The primary institutions of the European Union are the European Commission, the European Council, the Council of the European Union (Council) and the European Parliament.

The

The European Parliament shares the

The European Council is the group of

The Council of the European Union (informally known as the Council of Ministers or just the council) is a body holding legislative and some limited executive powers and is thus the main decision-making body of the Union. Its

The European Commission is composed of one appointee from each state, currently twenty-seven, but is designed to be independent of national interests. The body is responsible for drafting all