El Parlamento Europeo y su nueva circunstancia

Abstract

The Treaty of Rome, which establishes a Constitution for Europe was signed in Rome on October 29th 2004 by the 25 states that are members of the EU. Spain has voted “yes” to the European Constitution on the last Referendum held in our country on February 20th 2005. The article 20 of the 1st Part of the European Constitution states that the European Parliament is one of the European Institutions which now acquires juridical personality (article I-7). The Parliament is, without a doubt, the winner Institution of the present reform. It exercises the legislative and the budget functions, together with the European Council. The members of the European Parliament are numerous (with the Treaty of Nice they were 732, in the future they will be 750 with a mandate of five years). The European Parliament exercises political control and consultative functions and it also chooses the President of the European Commission (institution which represents the interests of the EU). There is an essential difference between the European Parliament and the different national Parliaments of the member states, because the national Parliaments exercise the legislative power, and the European Parliament, which represents the citizens of the EU, shares its ability to elaborate laws with the European Council, which defends the interests of the member states, but the European Parliament does not have the legislative initiative that the European Commission has. By the moment the European Parliament is not going to get any other legislative function: the EU is still formed by different States. The EU is not a State, it is a very special supranational organisation.