The EU Parliament is celebrating its anniversary: ​​70 years and not a bit quiet

The EU parliamentarians started small 70 years ago, and not only in terms of numbers: the EU Parliament had hardly any powers at the beginning. Only over time did it gain more power.

In the beginning there was the Montanunion, the joint supervision of coal and steel. France wanted to keep Germany’s heavy industry under control. A parliament was initially not planned, at least not on the French side. Konrad Adenauer pushed through: “Europe must be created. And we want to create Europe.”

In the autumn of 1952, seventy years ago, 78 MPs from the six founding countries – France, Germany, Italy and the three Benelux countries – met for the first time. None of the deputies are directly elected, all are seconded by their government. And the people’s representatives are not allowed to have a say in decisions either – they are only supposed to advise.

Confident from the start

But that was quickly too little for most. Italian MP Altiero Spinelli, a man of the communist opposition to Mussolini, summed up what most of his colleagues in the first Parliamentary Assembly were hoping for: “It is impossible to think that an elected parliament will be satisfied with the powers it has now .”

The MPs are supported by Walter Hallstein, the first President of the Brussels Commission – at that time still the Commission of the European Economic Community EEC: “The fact that our community is a new entity, a new unit in the life of the peoples, is more evident everything in the existence of this House and in the role that is assigned to it.”

First success: budget law

The House is fighting for rights – one by one. A milestone is budgetary law: since 1975, members of parliament have been able to reject the multi-billion euro community budget – this means that their approval is indispensable for the Commission and also for the member states.

Another milestone four years later: direct elections. In 1979, for the first time, the citizens of Europe were able to directly and freely elect their representatives. The parliament is growing, with each round of enlargement, new MPs are added. And with it the criticism of the “Strasbourg circus,” the agreement of the founding fathers, according to which the entire European Parliament must meet twelve times a year and then for one week in Strasbourg.

Commuting to Strasbourg – expensive fun

“With Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg, the European Parliament has three seats,” said Nicole Fontaine, French and President of the European Parliament around twenty years ago. .

The Europeans spend a lot of money on esprit and memories. The traveling circus is expensive, the regular commuting of MPs including employees adds up to more than 100 million euros every year. The dispute over this has become an evergreen in parliamentary debates, and it is regularly re-debated. The outcome of the controversy is as certain as it will return: Strasbourg will remain the seat of parliament, and France would never agree to its abolition.

Today, EU parliamentarians have a say

70 years after the first parliamentary steps, the European Parliament is today the only supranational and directly elected representative body in the world. “If you have a grandfather, send him to Europe” – this saying, which was often used in the past, is heard less often today. The now 705 MPs from 27 member countries are power-conscious. They can and do fail commission candidates – the governments in the capitals then have to send new candidates to the Brussels commission.

MEPs have long been involved in shaping the conditions for global trade. Angela Merkel felt this when her pet project of an investment deal with China in 2021 was shelved by parliament – the majority of MPs found Beijing’s ongoing human rights violations simply unacceptable.

The parliament also shows self-confidence towards the national parliaments. The Bundestag, for example, has not been able to do what it wants for a long time. More and more often he has to implement guidelines that his colleagues in the European Parliament have initiated.

More freedom for MPs

“As an MEP, you have a lot of freedom,” says Moritz Körner, FDP MEP from Düsseldorf. “Because there is no coalition agreement or faction discipline that binds you like that. Instead, you can look for different majorities on different issues, work across faction boundaries.”

The FDP politician has had good experiences with alliances across faction boundaries. As a Liberal, together with the Green politician Daniel Freund, he pushed what is probably the most important piece of legislation in recent years: the rule of law mechanism, which criminalizes the misappropriation of EU funds by member states.

“The rule of law mechanism that we have now only came about as a result of pressure from the EU Parliament, too. Members of parliament have repeatedly put pressure across factions together. And made sure that the Commission is finally applying it,” says Körner.

Ultimately, however, the decision still lies with the heads of state and government of the member countries. The MPs are reaching their limits, says Körner, and there is still a lot to do. Even after 70 years.