Visit to the European Parliament

On November 11th, the European Commission Trainees had the opportunity to visit the European Parliament in Luxembourg, their “home” for the past two months.

We were received by Mr. Schroeder, from the Information Office, who had prepared a very interesting presentation about the most important aspects of this European institution.

After the presentation, we had the opportunity to make some photos in the plenary meeting room where some of the plenary sessions of the Parliament take place.

A few curiosities about the Parliament:

• It's the only directly-elected European Union institution. The Members of Parliament are elected by the European citizens for a 5-year period. The last European elections took place in May 2014.
• The European Parliament has 3 official headquarters: Strasbourg, Brussels and Luxembourg. We are very lucky because we will visit the 3 headquarters during our traineeship.
• The current President of this institution is Mr Martin Schulz, from Germany and he was elected last July. In fact, Mr Schulz is the first President in the history of the European Parliament to be re-elected for a second two and a half year term.
• The European Parliament has been steadily gaining power over recent decades and now acts as a co-legislator for nearly all EU law. Together with the Council, the Parliament adopts or amends proposals from the Commission. Parliament also supervises the work of the Commission and adopts the European Union's budget.
• The ordinary legislative procedure is the main legislative procedure by which directives and regulations are adopted. It involves the cooperation of the institutional triangle (Commission, Council and Parliament).
• The number of MPEs during the legislature 2014-2019 is 751. Germany is the country with the largest numbers of MPEs (96), and Estonia, Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta, the countries with the smallest number of MPEs (6 each one).
• The members of the European Parliament sit in political groups, including the group of non-inscrits.
• Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats)
• Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament
• Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe
• European Conservatives and Reformists Group
• Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left
• Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
• Europe of freedom and direct democracy Group (which include UKIP and Five Star Mouvement)
• Non-inscrits (which include the MPEs of Front National)
• 25 Members of at least of 7 different countries are needed to form a political group. Having a political group have some advantages as more budget or more time to speak during the plenary sessions.

We enjoyed the visit a lot and we are looking forward to visiting the others European institutions and to getting to know more about the European Union!