The European Commission : The State Of The European Council

Three bodies run the European Union. The EU Council represents national governments. The European Parliament is elected by the people. The European Commission ensures that all members act consistently in regional, agricultural, and social procedures. The three bodies maintain the laws governing the Union in these three ways: The European Union Council sets the policies and proposes new legislation. The political leadership, is held by a different head every six months.The European Parliament debates and approves the laws proposed by the Council. Its members are elected every five years. The European Commission staffs and enacts the laws. The European Union has an area called the Schengen Area which covers 26 out of 28 countries of the Union. This warranted movement to those living within its borders. Citizens and visitors can go across borders without showing passports or getting visas. The only time you would get stopped is random checks for drugs or crime. In addition, they won't tax any products manufactured in specific countries that would be sold to another member country. Practitioners can operate in any country of the Union that they

With regards to the claim that the European Parliament is too weak (the second of Weiler's standard version claims), Moravcsik (2002; 2003) emphasises the fact that during the last twenty years, the European Parliament is the institution which have experienced the most reforms, regarding its increase of powers, compare to the Council and the Commission. The latter argument is in fact accurate because ever since the Single European Act (1986), the European Parliament gains more and more power by reforms in every signed Treaty (Moravcsik, 2003, p. 7). Despite that, however, the Parliament is still considered to be weak compared to the other institutions, as it will be analysed later in the essay.

The European Government has legislative, supervisory, and budgetary responsibilities. It has a large impact on European Union citizens and their public services. There are 751 members, who represent 28 member states of the EU. From the UK there are 73 members who represent our country and its ideas. Sharing power with the council, the European government can make and change legislative proposals; they can also decide on the EU’s budget and communicates with the EU countries. The MEP’s are elected by voters from all Member States every five years. The European government effects us as they create laws and policies, such as, The European arrest warrant (EAW) this means that you can be arrested anywhere in the EU for more severe crimes committed, and transferred to another EU country for trial. This increases the speed of the process of the handover of a criminal to another member state. Also, communication between police forces from member states is easier because of the EU, this is important to ensure fair and just treatment as

The Lisbon Treaty brought about many changes within the structure of the European Union. One particular change was that the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) was to be replaced by the Common and Security Defence Policy (CSDP). The Lisbon Treaty emphasized the importance of such a change because

The Constitutionalisation of the Treaties by the European Court of Justice Introduction = == == == ==

As previously discussed, EU accession can be more broadly understood as a uniform membership approval process guided by the Copenhagen criteria for all prospects, applicants, and members. At a deeper level, the EU is dedicated to resolving uncertainties in the relationship between European states that fueled ages of conflict and mistrust in the past through the creation of a supranational European institutions guided by common European norms. Since the dynamics of these institutions are driven by common values and goals as outlined in the Copenhagen criteria above, norms drive contemporary trends in governance and EU integration.

The Council of the EU (the Council of Ministers) is responsible for deciding those legislative measures to be taken at EU level, rather than domestic level, and also for deciding the government ministers of member states. The Council of Ministers consists of ministers from the governments of the member states, each (supposedly*) representing the interests of their own country. The Presidency of the Council is held by each country for six months. July 2005 marked the beginning of the UK’s most recent Presidency.

European Commission: The controlling physique of the EU is the European Commission. The European Commission is fabricated up of alone commissioners, one from anniversary Member State (although this amount may be bargain as of the new Commission to be appointed in 2014),4 and appointed by acceding

A strong emphasis on ballot votes arises out of the traditional Swiss belief that the will of the people is the final national authority. Every constitutional amendment adopted by parliament is automatically brought to the ballot and has to carry a double majority of votes and states in order to become effective.

The European Union’s core foundation began in the 1950’s, when the Treaty of Rome was signed. Decades earlier, right after the Second World War, a movement was created to unite the countries of Germany and France. The EU has, for some time, been a major player in world politics and with twenty-eight member states the EU has had its fair share of complications throughout the years. Foreign policy began to take place early on as the EU was seen as a political system that was making decisions on behalf 28 countries. In the 1970s Henry Kissinger, the United States Secretary of State for President Richard Nixon and President Gerald Ford, brought up the question of “If I want to call Europe, who do I call?” This began a long and stressful debate of who is the official that needs to be called when other foreign actors and institutions want to address a problem or simply ask a question to the European Union. After many years European leaders claimed to have answered Henry Kissinger’s question by creating the European Council President and a European Foreign Minister position. But is it as simple as that? Has this question really been resolved by just creating these positions? We can see that reorganizing the Union’s political structure has strengthened the EU, it has allowed them to show foreign leaders a more united front and show that they, too, have global interests.

However, more recently different voting systems have been used by devolved powers throughout the U.K – like the Scottish parliament -- as well as for other votes such as the European Parliament. (Ministry of Justice, 2008, pp. 24-25) These different voting systems are based on proportional representation, a term which characterises various types of electoral system, but share one main idea – the proportion of votes received correlates directly with the amount of seats a party wins. As democracy has become more widespread, other countries within Europe have naturally developed different electoral systems. Particularly, France is one of the few other countries in Europe who practice a very similar type of electoral system as the United Kingdom. The majority of countries in Europe, such as Germany, favour systems with an element of proportional representation.

In determining whether the adoption of the Directive on the basis of Article 95 EC was justified, it is first necessary to analyze Article 95 EC, as the treaty base is fundamental to the relative powers and ability of the other institutions to influence the content of European Union (EU) law. Additionally, the legal base, or the treaty base, determines the ‘players’ in the procedure and their level of participation. Article 95 EC does provide details of the procedure to be used in paragraph 1: “The European Parliament and the Council shall, acting in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure and after consulting the Economic and

In the aftermath of the 1957 Treaty , the European Economic Community (EEC) was established and customs barriers between the member states have been abolished. Member States throughout the Community, can “promote a harmonious development of economic activities, a continuous and balanced expansion, an increased stability, an accelerated raising of the standard of living and closer relations between them”. Therefore, in order for a common market to be established between Member States, the Community enacted some legislative provisions which aimed to a true harmonization of laws; incorporate different legal systems under a basic legal framework. The main issue arising is whether these legal provisions in accordance with the case law, ensured the free movement of goods within this market.

The role of the European Parliament in the EU decision-making process is to gradually strengthened. Initially it is only entitled to counseling and supervision. Prior to 1986, the maximum power it holds it is only right to decide on the budget, you can modify the non-mandatory budget for mandatory budget for minor changes, and formally adopted budget. 1986 “Single European Act” by the so-called “cooperative program”, making it the right to a preliminary decision of the Council 's proposed amendments and has authority over the second reading of the draft legislation. After the signing, “Maastricht Treaty” has confirmed the above-mentioned system by the “Single European Act” established and further expand it may reject draft legislation for the Council, and to report thereon to veto the proposed legislation. The “Amsterdam Treaty” by introducing a “shared decision making” system, the European Parliament and the EU Council of Ministers placed in the same position on the legislation, the European Parliament finally become a true partnership legislature. National interests between EU member states and the European Union have agreed on the development of supra-national integration, there are also contradictory, divided diversification and various decision-making body of the EU decision-making body can be seen as a search for balance and consensus, resolve conflicts institutional arrangements. This arrangement with Western political separation of powers strong color, also contains

After the Second World War ended, European politicians and citizens had a vision to make Europe’s future certain that a conflict of such magnitude would never arise again in fear of a new extreme nationalistic regime would appear once more. In 1952 progress was made by the establishment of the European coal and steel society and by 1957 the European economic union was created. Foundation for the Europe we live in now came after the treaty of Maastricht which was signed in 1993. Two decades on and the EU has become the largest political and economic union of the modern world, with a total population of over 500 million and is now the second largest economy of the world, behind only the US. First attempt for UK to become a member of the customs union was in 1961 which was unsuccessful and was vetoed, in 1963, by the French president Charles de Gaulle because he argued that the Brits did not share the same vision for European integration as the other member states. However, ten years on in 1973 the UK was successful in becoming a member along with Ireland and Denmark. Nevertheless, ever since the UK became a member, it has been a complicated and intense relationship between the UK government and main European bodies. Eurosceptics argue that things have dramatically changed in the last 40 years and the UK is no longer dependant on Europe to prosper.