what do the last Crown Prince of the austr Hungarian Empire melini's granddaughter and Boris Johnson's dad all have in common they were all members of the European Parliament if you did not know that you are not alone most people don't know too much about the European Parliament or what it does in this video we'll try to give you quick guide through it all and answer the questions you or this guy might have is who are you i' never heard who voted for you welcome to chichoni the European Parliament is the eu's first institution it's the world's largest transnational Democratic electorate and the second largest Democratic electorate after India's parliament in this 2024 update we'll give you a quick overview of the European parliament's composition its powers and its way of working first composition the European Parliament consists of elected officials from around the EU the number of members has changed a few times in the past years and from June 2024 onwards there will be 720 members of European Parliament or MEPS these 720 MEPS are headed by a president they elect amongst themselves and a whopping 14 vice presidents the parliament consists of Communists nationalists and everything in between policy nerds Political Animals and even some professional musicians each with different influence a few are really powerful but barely visible and some are great at taking Spotlight it's a colorful Bunch seats within parliament are divided among members M states proportionately to their population with a minimum of six and a current maximum of 96 seats per country large countries therefore have more influence as a whole but counterintuitively the citizens of smaller countries are actually better represented than those of big ones for example a seat from Malta represents around 88,000 maltes while a German seat represents almost 900,000 Germans this is done to make sure the larger countries don't dominate the parliament ing these MEPS is not as simple as you might think though while each EU citizen can cast a vote they have to choose whether they want to vote in the country they live or the country whose nationality they have what is more each country has their own rules of how to elect them for example Italy has Regional constituencies in Ireland you can vote for multiple people by preference and in Belgium it's mandatory to vote the list goes on European groups while elections are held per country and the seats are divided among member states once in Brussels the MPS actually don't sit together based on nationality but rather based on ideology in so-called European groups how much the ideology of the parties within a group match each other can vary greatly this means that parties that are not aligned at all in their home country can sit together in the same group anyway and then they might even sit together with parties from other countries that are even more different these groups which you might have never heard of are actually incredibly important for the workings of the European Parliament first of all they often include some very powerful National parties like the German conservatives the French liberals or the Spanish socialists which come with natural influence besides that all important things within parliament are divided among the groups and based on the number of seats each group has from budget and speaking time down to important positions that actually directly influence legislation this division is done through a kind of game similar to how kids decide on teams for friendly games of football one after the other the groups choose which important positions they want by giving points the largest group first first then the second until the smallest they continue doing this until all points are spent and all positions are divided through this game smaller groups have a fair chance at important positions but the larger ones still have a clear Advantage this also means that if you are not part of a group you basically have no direct influence or impact as an me still there are some nonattached members that are not part of any of the groups they either use different methods to influence politics or in some cases just aren't the most hardworking MEPS while in a group there might be MEPS from a wide range of parties with different policies and national interests they do actually tend to vote along the same lines and follow group discipline partly because the group is in control of many important things and partly because within each group a lot of horse trading takes place in other words if you don't want to support the voting line of the group you can't expect the group to vote for the thing you have been working on for years this is also called the shadow of the future how each group deals with this shadow of the future differs per group some allow a lot of freedom in voting on difficult issues like abortion in euthanasia While others do not now while the politicians are the ones with the formal power a lot of informal power is held by the Secretariat bureaucrats who are not limited by terms and have in many cases been around for decades they fully understand how the system works and decide on rules procedures and even some key appointments these people are so notorious for their behind- to scene influence that the former Secretary General was named The Prince of Darkness Powers now that you have an overview of how the parliament Works let's get into what it actually does the EP has three main tasks or Powers legislative power budgetary power and controlling power in the usual Way new EU laws are made proposals from new EU legislation are first drafted by the European commission and then the Parliament and Council have to agree on the final version usually after long negotiations Parliament can approve amend or reject the commission's proposal in practice they almost always decide to amend it since Parliament cannot suggest laws itself amending proposals by the commission is the main way Parliament can wield power think about it like this the commission proposes for example to ban combustion engine cars by 2035 the Parliament can say it should happen by 2030 or they will not agree to it and there is no law in other words our MEPS can have a lot of influence on shaping important EU laws like climate targets worker protection and social media regulation but sadly the European Parliament as the eu's only directly elected body has some serious limits to its power for example it cannot stop every new law from being implemented strangely it has no say in legislation on some very important subjects like taxation defense or education there only the council so the leaders of the member states can vote on the law and the Parliament is only consulted if at all this means that for some very important areas there is no direct Democratic oversight by your elected European Representatives rather power is wielded by unelected bureaucrats and not those from Brussels but from Paris Berlin and other National capitals additionally Parliament does not have the right of initiative in other words it is the only parliament in Europe that cannot propose new laws itself instead our elected parliamentarians have to ask the unelected commission to start drafting legislation which the commission can ignore and even if they do let by the time the commission is done the law has already taken shape usually 85% of the commission's original draft survives in the final version granting the European Parliament a right of initiative just like every other parliament in Europe has would arguably be the easiest way to make the EU a lot more democratic like new legislation the EU budget must be approved by Parliament before any money can be spent additionally after money has been spent Parliament must officially discharge the budget of the previous this year to confirm the money was spent on the planed purposes this gives Parliament a say in the EU finances both before and after money is spent and we're talking about quite a lot of money more than 2 trillion for 2021 to 2027 without approval from Parliament no money can be spent so this is a very influential power for example for the 50 billion EUR to support Ukraine during the war the European Parliament was able to introduce many conditionalities giving power to Civil Society and local actors in Ukraine the need for Parliament to discharge the budget can also be used as a bargaining chip for example the EP blocked the discharge of the budget in 2024 in order to pressure the member states to send more air defense to Ukraine in line with the idea of separations of power Parliament as a legislative branch makes sure the commission as the executive branch doesn't get too powerful the European Parliament has to vote in favor of the president of the commission after the council proposes a candidate and has serious chats with all the potential commissioners before they are appointed the fact that often candidates have to be withdrawn shows the EP has real influence here the commission presidents however have been somewhat of an exception even when they were proposed in Shady ways and against the wishes of parliament they always have been approved by parliament in the end behind the scenes however the president usually had to promise something big to EP parties to get their support like V liion who announced the ambitious green deal in 2019 to secure the support of the Socialists once office the parliament also has the right to dismiss the commission as a whole while this sounds like a rather strong and influential power it is pretty much the nuclear option and therefore basically never happens although just threatening with this missile probably did lead to the commission stepping down in 1999 when you think of European Parliament you probably think of the plary the huge room with all the MS gathered together to vote on proposals while this is indeed the final official vote most of the work like 95% of it actually gets done beforehand in smaller groups called committees there are 20 permanent or standing committees each with 25 to 73 Ms in it depending on how politically attractive they are to be in the most influential members of these committees are the so-called repur and Shadow reporters these MEPS are responsible for representing the position of their European group in negotiating a common position of the parliament as a whole on a specific piece of legislation these are also the people who will represent the parliament and negotiate with the council and the commission for the final deal on the law in so-called trilogues exhausting Affairs and real survival of the fittest the trialogue for the AI act in 2023 lasted a whopping 38 hours with no time for sleep or meals only Snickers and Red Bull it is Within These committees that most of the writing and negotiation takes place a proposal can be worked on and voted on within the committee for years before it is finally voted on in plenary before this happens MEPS can still introduce amendments to the final report to try and get some changes in the last minute this is why sometimes plan Aries can actually become quite interesting at least for political nerds but most Ms don't have the time to understand every single law so they usually trust and follow their group leader in the final vote with a simple hand gesture as many things EU the place of work of the European Parliament is overly complicated and takes place in three different countries all the administrative work is done in Luxembourg and the work of the MPS takes place in two different locations for 3 weeks every month the MPS are in Brussels here most of the important committee work is done close to the commission and other EU civil servants the remaining week of each month the MEPS are in Strasburg for the official plary and a mostly formal vote as you can imagine it is not super practical that administrative work is done in another country but it does not compare to the impracticality of holding plary meetings in a city more than 400 km away from where they actually work the rest of the month and yes this means all MPS their support staff and documents move back and forth each month many of which by plane so not great for the eu's carbon footprint rather expensive and wasteful as most of the year the building in stasbor is empty so why do we do this well because France the European Parliament has gotten more powerful and effective throughout the years but as you can see there is still plenty to improve we hope this overview gives you good basic understanding of this very complex and important institution of the European Union the more you know the more you can be involved in making the EU better if you want to find out more about other parts of the EU check out our other videos and subscribe to our Channel want to help us make more of these videos please support us on patreon and of course if you have questions please let us know in the comments we'll try to answer them