41-498: 1st Half: 2nd Half: Other Vice-Presidents: See List The ninth European Parliament was elected during the 2019 elections and sat until the tenth European Parliament was sworn in on 16 July 2024. The President of the European Parliament is chosen through the votes of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and serves a term lasting 2.5 years, with the option for re-election. The responsibilities of
82-619: A national parliament: MEPs that previously served as President of the European Parliament: MEPs that previously served as foreign minister: When the United Kingdom left the EU, 27 seats were reallocated to the other member states and the other 46 seats were abolished, for a total of 705 MEPs. (2019–2020) (2020–2024) MEPs are divided up among 20 standing committees. Each MEP is usually member of one committee and
123-545: A new voting system based on the Nice system entered into force. The voting weights of the member states according to that voting system are shown in the table on the right. The voting system was replaced by the Treaty of Lisbon, effective 1 November 2014. The following conditions applied to taking decisions: The last condition was only checked upon request by a member state. In the absence of consensus, qualified majority voting
164-462: A portfolio, and the Council sent the list of candidates to the European Parliament. Candidates were then questioned about their knowledge of the assigned portfolio and confirmed by European Parliament Committees. When all of the candidates were confirmed by the respective committee, European Parliament took a vote of confirmation of the new European Commission in the plenary session. European Commission
205-469: A qualifying majority of 258 votes (74.78%) after enlargement to 27 countries. However, the treaties of accession following the Treaty of Nice clarified the required majority. After the accession of Croatia, on 1 July 2013, at least 260 votes out of a total of 352 by at least 15 member states were required for legislation to be adopted by qualified majority. Croatia had 7 votes (the same as Denmark, Ireland, Lithuania, Slovakia and Finland). From 1 July 2013,
246-559: A second round of voting is conducted to allocate the remaining positions following identical conditions. Should a third round of voting become necessary, a simple majority suffices to occupy the remaining seats. The precedence of Vice Presidents is established by the order in which they are elected, and in cases of a tie, seniority is determined by age. During each round of voting, MEPs have the capacity to cast votes for as many candidates as there are available seats for that particular round. However, they are obligated to vote for more than half of
287-403: A substitute member of another. Committees discuss legislative proposals from the commission before the European Parliament decides on them in plenary session. The European Parliament has an equal role to the Council of the EU in the ordinary legislative procedure , which is usually used in decision-making process at the EU level. Each committee elects its chair and vice chairs to lead the work of
328-543: The Treaty on European Union , as amended by the Treaty of Lisbon , stipulates that the Council voting arrangements of the Nice Treaty applied until 31 October 2014. Article 16 also states the conditions for a qualified majority , effective since 1 November 2014: A blocking minority requires—in addition to not meeting one of the two conditions above—that at least 4 countries (or, if not all countries participate in
369-609: The conciliation committee . The vice-presidents are elected following the election of the president, which takes place every two and a half years or when necessary if positions become vacant. Elected (unopposed) in order of precedence; Elected (unopposed) in order of precedence: Elected in order of precedence: Elected in order of precedence: Elected in order of precedence: Elected in order of precedence; Elected in order of precedence: Elected in order of precedence: Elected in order of precedence: Qualified majority vote The procedures for voting in
410-584: The president in presiding over the plenary of the European Parliament . Vice-presidents are members of the Bureau and chair the plenary when the president is not in the chair. The president may also delegate any duty, task or power to one of the vice-presidents. Three vice-presidents, designated by the Conference of Presidents, traditionally have more power than the others; the right to be on
451-559: The 21 other members. Note that the Commission could make a proposal in a way that removed the requirement for a qualified majority. For example, the Anti-Dumping Advisory Committee (ADAC) could approve a proposal to impose tariffs based on a simple, unweighted majority, but overturning it would have required a qualified majority because this meant voting against a Commission proposal. This greatly increased
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#1732780691468492-652: The Commission nor the High Representative , effective since 1 November 2014: In practice, the Council targeted unanimous decisions, and qualified majority voting was often simply used as a means to pressure compromises for consensus. For example, in 2008, 128 out of 147 Council decisions were unanimous. Within the remaining decisions, there was a total of 32 abstentions and 8 votes against the respective decision. These opposing votes were cast twice by Luxembourg and once by each of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Netherlands, and Portugal. The Council, jointly with
533-402: The Council as defined in the Treaty of Nice was supposed to enter into force on 1 January 2005. However, the voting system was changed before that date by the Treaty of Accession 2003 , which entered into force on 1 May 2004. During a temporary period that extended to 1 November 2004, the old pre-Nice voting system was kept, but adapted to the new number of member states. From 1 November 2004,
574-616: The Council now required for their adoption: The votes allocated previously to the EU-9 did not change. Greece was allocated 5 votes. Article 148 of the EEC Treaty, specifying the qualified majority voting system of the Council, was amended by Article 14 of the Accession Treaty regulating the enlargement of the community by Portugal and Spain. Acts of the Council now required for their adoption: The votes allocated previously to
615-480: The Council of the European Union are described in the treaties of the European Union . The Council of the European Union (or simply "Council" or "Council of Ministers") has had its voting procedure amended by subsequent treaties and currently operates on the system set forth in the Treaty of Lisbon . The system is known as qualified majority voting is a type of consociational democracy . Article 16 of
656-452: The Council required for their adoption: The values above are related to the EU-6, the founding member states. The treaty allocated the votes as follows: Under this system, Luxembourg had no voting power for acts proposed by the Commission. Article 148 of the EEC Treaty, specifying the qualified majority voting system of the Council, was amended by Article 8 of the Accession Treaty regulating
697-508: The EC Treaty, specifying the qualified majority voting system of the Council, was amended by Article 8 of the Accession Treaty regulating the enlargement of the community by Austria, Finland, and Sweden. Acts of the Council now required for their adoption: The votes allocated previously to the EU-12 did not change. To the new members, the following votes were allocated: The voting system of
738-735: The EU and the third country . The composition of the rest of Secretariat is appointed by the Parliament Bureau, headed by the Secretary General. Other services that assist the Secretariat: The 2019 European Parliament election took place from 23 to 26 May 2019. = Vice-President of the European Parliament#9th Parliament There are fourteen vice-presidents of the European Parliament who sit in for
779-591: The EU-10 did not change. To the new members, the following votes were allocated: The Treaty of Maastricht established the European Community Treaty (EC Treaty) where the qualified majority voting system was detailed in Article 148. While this treaty transferred some policy areas subject to unanimity to qualified majority, it neither changed the voting weights nor the thresholds. Article 148 of
820-570: The European Parliament, has policy-making, legislative and budgetary functions. The Council is composed of the ministers of member states responsible for a specific area of policy. The ministers or their representative will commit the government of the member state in questions of policy and cast the member state vote. The Lisbon Treaty specifies in Article 16 that the Council shall act by a qualified majority voting (QMV) in areas of competence with certain exceptions. Qualified majority voting now extends to policy areas that required unanimity according to
861-474: The MEPs held position before, but not between 2014 and 2019. Most bureau positions is held by Germany, while on the other side Slovenia is the only member state that has no bureau positions. With 5, Germany has most Committee Chairmen, followed by France with 4. Finland (with 7 women out of 13 MEPs) and Sweden (with 11 out of 20) are the only member states with more women MEPS than men. Austria, Latvia, Luxembourg,
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#1732780691468902-480: The Netherlands and Slovenia have a gender parity. Cyprus is the only member state without any women. Slovakia has the highest percent of newly elected MEPs at 85%, while Malta only has 33% of newly elected MEPs. With 60 years of age Lithuania has the oldest national delegation, while Malta has the youngest at 44. Sweden has the youngest "oldest" MEP at the age of 58 and Lithuania has the oldest "youngest" MEP at
943-508: The Nice Treaty. The new areas of QMV are: This section presents the former qualified majority voting systems employed in the Council of the European Union , and its predecessor institutions. While some policy areas require unanimity among Council members, for selected policy areas qualified majority voting has existed right from the start. All major treaties have shifted some policy areas from unanimity to qualified majority voting. Whenever
984-582: The age of 54. Delegations are established to maintain and develop relations with entities the European Parliament has an interest to cooperate with. Among these are countries that EU has close (especially trade) relations or countries applying expected to join the EU. The EP also cooperates with the parliamentary bodies of other international organisations, such as NATO. Delegations have full and substitute members, and elects its own chair. They can be divided in two groups, standing delegations and ad hoc delegations. JPCs are created with bilateral agreement between
1025-416: The appointment of: There were 266 women MEPs, 37.7% of the whole Parliament. Kira Peter-Hansen of Denmark was the youngest MEP at 21, while Silvio Berlusconi (former Prime Minister of Italy), was the oldest at the age of 82. The average age of all MEPs was 50. 387 of the MEPs were newly elected and weren't members of European Parliament before. 295 MEPs were also members of the previous Parliament. 16 of
1066-626: The committee. Committee chairs are members of the Conference of Committee Chairs, which coordinates the work of all the committees. On 2 July 2019 European Council finished a three-day-long summit with a decision to propose the following for approval by the Parliament: European Parliament confirmed Ursula von Der Leyen as President of the European Commission on 16 July 2019. On the same summit Charles Michel (ALDE) , incumbent Prime Minister of Belgium
1107-472: The community was enlarged, voting weights for new members were defined and thresholds re-adjusted by accession treaties. After its inception in 1958, the most notable changes to the voting system occurred: All systems prescribed higher thresholds for passing acts that were not proposed by the Commission . Member states have to cast their votes en bloc (i.e., a member state may not split its votes). Hence,
1148-430: The enlargement of the community by Denmark, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. Acts of the Council now required for their adoption: These values were now related to the EU-9. The treaty allocated the votes as follows: Article 148 of the EEC Treaty, specifying the qualified majority voting system of the Council, was amended by Article 14 of the Accession Treaty regulating the enlargement of the community by Greece. Acts of
1189-642: The issue, the German government agreed to include it for discussion at the June council. The given percentage is the game theoretical optimal threshold, and is known as the " Jagiellonian Compromise ". The Penrose method voting weights allocated to the states are shown in the adjacent table. According to the proposal, the requirement for an act to pass in the Council was: Certain policy fields remain subject to unanimity in whole or in part, such as: Article 311 shall be repealed. A new Article 311a shall be inserted, with
1230-707: The number of votes rather describes the weight of a member's single vote. The analysis of the distribution of voting power under different voting rules in the EU Council often requires the use of complex computational methods that go beyond a mere calculation of vote share, such as the Shapley-Shubik index or the Banzhaf measure . According to Article 148 of the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (EEC Treaty), acts of
1271-619: The ordinary legislative procedure. The Council consists of ministerial representatives from member states' national governments. Votes are decided by qualified majority (55% of member states and 65% of EU population). Every six months, a new EU member state takes over the presidency of the council. As presiding country, it organises Council meetings (with the help of Secretariat General) and decides on their agendas. These agendas are prepared in cooperation with other two member states that are part of each trio, which form common policy agendas over their 18-month period. European Parliament has role in
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1312-476: The pass condition translated into: Poland proposed the Penrose method (also known as the "square root method"), which would narrow the weighting of votes between the largest and smallest countries in terms of population. The Czech Republic supported this method to some extent, but has warned it would not back a Polish veto on this matter. All the other states remained opposed. After previously refusing to discuss
1353-417: The power of small member states in such circumstances. The declarations of the conference that adopted the Treaty of Nice contained contradictory statements concerning qualified majority voting after the enlargement of the European Union to 25 and 27 members: one declaration specified that the qualifying majority of votes would increase to a maximum of 73.4%, contradicting another declaration which specified
1394-410: The president encompass a diverse array of functions, including presiding over debates and representing the European Parliament in its interactions with other institutions within the European Union . Fourteen Vice Presidents are elected through a single ballot process, requiring an absolute majority of cast votes for their selection. In situations where the number of successful candidates falls below 14,
1435-761: The total positions to be filled. President: David Sassoli Vice Presidents: President: Roberta Metsola Vice Presidents The five Quaestors were chosen by acclamation. Four Quaestors were elected on the first round of voting, with the fifth being elected on the second round of voting. There were 7 political groups in the parliament, one fewer than the previous parliament. Each MEP could belong to only one group. Political groups could be founded by at least 25 MEPs which came from at least one quarter of all EU member states (namely seven). MEPs that previously served as president or Prime Minister: MEPs that previously served as European Commissioner: MEPs that previously served as presiding officer of
1476-530: The use of "artificial" voting weights. This move, first proposed in the Constitution , is based on the size of populations and, at the same time, acknowledges the smaller member states' fears of being overruled by the larger countries. Article 238 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union states the conditions for a reinforced qualified majority , when acting on a proposal from neither
1517-402: The vote, the minimum number of countries representing more than 35% of the population of the participating countries, plus one country) vote against the proposal. Thus, there may be cases where an act is passed, even though the population condition is not met. This precludes scenarios where 3 populous countries could block a decision favored by the other 24 countries. The Lisbon rules eradicated
1558-664: The wording of Article 299(2), first subparagraph, and Article 299(3) to (6); the text shall be amended as follows: [...] (e) the following new paragraph shall be added at the end of the Article: "6. The European Council may, on the initiative of the Member State concerned, adopt a decision amending the status, with regard to the Union, of a Danish, French or Netherlands country or territory referred to in paragraphs 1 and 2. The European Council shall act unanimously after consulting
1599-543: Was elected a new President of the European Council and President of Euro Summit for a 2.5 years term. Secret paper ballot took place on 16 July 2019. Following the election of the new President of the commission, President-elect called upon member states to propose candidates for European Commissioners. The President-elect, in agreement with the European Council , assigned to each proposed candidate
1640-521: Was the Council's key way of decision-making. In terms of the statistics before Croatia became a member of the EU (1 July 2013), the pass condition translated into: The last requirement was almost always already implied by the condition on the number of voting weights. The rare exceptions to this could occur in certain cases when a proposal was backed by exactly three of the six most populous member states but not including Germany, that is, three of France, UK, Italy, Spain and Poland, and by all or nearly all of
1681-485: Was then officially appointed by the European Council using qualified majority . Commissioners took the oath of office before the Court of Justice of the EU before officially taking office. The Council of the European Union (Council) is one of three EU institutions involved in the EU lawmaking process. It is the de facto upper house of the EU legislature, the European Parliament being the lower house, with an equal role in