The European Union is primarily a political project that consistently utilizes the benefits and dynamics of economic cooperation to cultivate relationships of interdependence and deep interactions between the involved member states. It started as a response to the concern about Germany’s position and role in the European system of international relations after the end of World War II and is in a dynamic process of constant evolution, as evidenced by efforts to reform the founding Treaties. This quest also shows the efforts of the Union project to adapt to new challenges.
The EU’s political system resembles that of federal states, without this meaning, however, that the EU is a federation, and is characterized by a perpetual struggle between intergovernmental and supranational forces expressed through its institutional bodies. The presence of two equal legislative bodies refers to a system of strong parliament with two chambers, each of which has a different legitimizing basis and represents different interests (national Demos – European Demos).
The traditional separation of powers into executive, legislative and judicial helps to decode the EU’s political governance system, at least in terms of its basic characteristics. Simplifying (but not excessively), the executive power is exercised by the Commission, the legislative power by the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament (EP), while the judicial power by the Court of Justice of the European Union.
European Council
In this political system, the role of the European Council, in which the Heads of State and Government of the member states participate, is special. The role of this body, which acquired official institutional status only with the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007, while in practice it had been operating in an informal form almost from the beginning of the Union process, is strategic.
In other words, the European Council provides the general guidelines for the course of the project and makes the important political decisions that determine its speed and orientation, such as decisions to enlarge the number of member states and admit new countries, decisions to change the Treaties, which constitute the statutory texts of operation of the project, but also decisions to deal with major and existential crises of the EU, such as the financial crisis and the pandemic crisis. In any case, this body is the highest political forum for deliberation and decision-making.
The EU has two legislative bodies, now of equal power, the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. The former expresses the intergovernmental forces of integration while the latter the supranational ones, that is, the whole of the European political Demos.
European Parliament
Starting with the European Parliament, its role is characterized by a diachronic development. Starting in the ECSC from a purely advisory and auxiliary role, it gradually acquired more competencies, evolving to be today a co-legislator in the vast majority of produced legislative acts. The strengthening of the EP’s role is due to the realization by the political elites of the European project, in the 1970s, of the great distance between citizens and the technocratic edifice that had been created.
As long as the edifice functioned efficiently, this gap was not manifested. However, when the – then – EEC entered a phase of intense internal turmoil, intense critical voices began to emerge about the absence of citizens from decisions that affected significant aspects of their lives. Thus, the dynamics of the EP began to strengthen especially after the first European elections and the emergence of the first elected MEPs, directly legitimized by the European Demos, in 1979.
Since then, the process of empowering the EP has been continuous, until its emergence as an equal legislative partner to the Council of Ministers, in the Treaty of Lisbon. This does not mean, of course, that the notorious “democratic deficit” of the Union project has been resolved and that the relevant critical voices characterizing the EU as a qualitatively imperfect democratic entity have disappeared, but certainly the direct representatives of European citizens now have a substantial role in policy-making.
Council of Ministers
The Council of Ministers is the other legislative pole of the EU. It is a body that meets in different compositions each time and depending on the agenda, the member states are represented by their relevant minister. Decisions are generally taken by qualified majority, where both numerical and population criteria are used simultaneously. That is, for a decision to be taken, it must be supported by at least 55% of the member states representing at least 65% of the total EU population. The use of “double majority” ensures a balance between small and large member states, as broad cooperation between countries is needed to make a decision.
In any case, member states may find themselves in the unpleasant position of being forced to adopt policies and comply with decisions with which they disagree, which indicates a significant cession of their state sovereignty. This applies to almost all thematic fields, with exceptions mainly in (certain) foreign policy and security issues, where unanimity continues to be the rule in decision-making.
The two legislative bodies of the EU come into contact with each other in the context of their legislative role in three ways: the consultation procedure, the “consent procedure” and the “ordinary procedure”. In the first two, the role of the EP is more limited. In the first, the Council has the ability to ignore the non-binding opinion of the EP, while in the second case, which is used, for example, in the decision to admit new member states, the EP takes a position for or against at the end of the process, without being involved in it during its evolution.
The “ordinary procedure”, in which the EP is co-legislator and equal partner of the Council, is the most widespread and now widely used for producing legislation in the EU. As shown in the Diagram, it is a process of proposals and counter-proposals on the legislative draft prepared by the Commission. The procedure evolves in two phases, at the end of which, if no agreement has been reached, a conciliation and reconciliation committee is mobilized, with representatives from both legislative bodies, in order to find common ground and successfully complete the process. Otherwise, the procedure fails and the legislative work is discontinued. The “ordinary procedure” is quite complex and time-consuming, however, it remains the one that guarantees the existence of a strong parliamentary system with two chambers.
Politically, each of the two legislative bodies has a different basis of legitimacy and expresses different interests. The Council of Ministers draws its legitimacy from national political constituencies, through the domestic political system and the electoral processes and deliberations that have led to the formation of government. Each Minister, therefore, expresses national-governmental interests, making the Council of Ministers the par excellence intergovernmental legislative body and the main arena for promoting and osmosis of national interests. On the other hand, the MEPs elected to the European Parliament represent the entire European constituency and not necessarily their national governments. Moreover, the organizational form of the EP, the way MEPs are grouped, and the basic dividing lines are not based on national identities but on their ideological beliefs, with the existence of loosely organized federations of parties with specific political leanings.
European Commission
The executive arm of the EU’s political system is the Commission. It is also a purely supranational body, consisting of as many members as there are EU member states. However, the participants in it, although obviously having a national identity, are not representatives of the countries they come from. The Commission’s main concern is to ensure the welfare of all EU citizens, and consequently, there are no national dividing lines.
It is the quintessential technocratic governance body of the EU, responsible for implementing the policies agreed upon by the member states and the EP, and for monitoring the compliance of all national authorities with the agreements. In other words, it is the supervisor of legislative compliance of member states, calling to order state authorities that violate EU operating rules.
However, the Commission’s role is not limited only to the implementation phase of European public policy but extends to the production phase, through its monopoly of legislative initiative. This practically means that the Commission is responsible for drafting the legislative texts that are submitted to the two legislative bodies, as shown in the Diagram. In order for the Commission to be able to draft these preliminary texts, it draws information through multiple sub-committees composed of experts and national representatives for the preferences of member states.
At this stage, other stakeholders from civil society and various organized action and pressure groups are also involved. In other words, the Commission is omnipresent in the EU’s policy production cycle, from the initiation and agenda-setting phase to the implementation phase, without, however, being the one that makes the relevant legislative decisions.
Court of Justice of the European Union
Finally, the Court of Justice of the European Union exercises judicial power, ruling on the compatibility of policies and decisions with the provisions of the Treaties and the compliance of the actors involved with the requirements of Community law. Its decisions and jurisprudence have contributed greatly in the past to the consolidation of the “acquis communautaire”, that is, the totality of public policies and operating rules of the Union structure.
Acting as a quasi-Constitutional Court of the EU, the interpretation of the regulatory framework by the EU Court of Justice has opened avenues for substantial deepening of the integration process. This does not mean, of course, that the Court acts uncontrollably, as it is mainly limited by the inability to take any initiative. It can only rule on cases that come before it and not proactively.
Diagram: “Ordinary Legislative Procedure”, Treaty of Lisbon
