Is the EU democratic? Part 3 - Representation in the European Parliament | #EUDemocracyExplained
Summary
TLDRCette vidéo explore la démocratie européenne, en se concentrant sur le Parlement européen. Elle explique comment le Parlement, représentant les citoyens des 27 États membres de l'UE, a évolué au fil du temps, gagnant plus de pouvoirs législatifs. Elle aborde également des concepts clés comme la représentation, la proportionnalité dégressive et le processus électoral. Le débat sur la nomination du président de la Commission européenne et le droit d'initiative parlementaire est aussi discuté. La vidéo invite les spectateurs à réfléchir à la question de la démocratie dans l'UE et à partager leurs avis.
Takeaways
- 📜 Le Parlement européen joue un rôle crucial dans la démocratie de l'UE, mais il ne peut pas être directement comparé aux parlements nationaux.
- 🏛️ L'UE repose sur deux fondements de légitimité : celle des 27 gouvernements élus démocratiquement et celle des citoyens européens représentés au Parlement.
- 🗳️ Le Parlement européen, avec plus de 700 membres, représente 450 millions d'Européens et a vu ses pouvoirs législatifs augmenter depuis 1979.
- 📆 Les élections européennes ont lieu tous les 5 ans avec une représentation proportionnelle pour assurer un équilibre entre les petits et grands États membres.
- 🔄 La représentation des citoyens européens est basée sur un principe de proportionnalité dégressive, donnant plus de sièges aux petits pays pour assurer une juste représentation.
- 🎓 Le concept de représentation remonte aux premières démocraties modernes où les citoyens élisent des représentants pour prendre des décisions en leur nom.
- 🤝 Depuis le traité de Lisbonne de 2009, le Parlement européen joue un rôle clé dans la nomination du président de la Commission, bien que ce processus reste débattu.
- ⚖️ Le Parlement européen et le Conseil de l'UE partagent aujourd'hui un rôle équivalent dans le processus législatif, mais certaines questions comme la fiscalité échappent à cette procédure.
- 📢 Le Parlement européen a demandé un droit d'initiative législative général, bien que cette demande reste débattue en raison du caractère unique du système de l'UE.
- 🌍 Le Parlement européen est l'une des plus grandes expériences de représentation démocratique au monde, mais la discussion sur la manière d'améliorer sa légitimité démocratique continue.
Q & A
Qu'est-ce que l'Assemblée parlementaire européenne, et quand a-t-elle été créée ?
-L'Assemblée parlementaire européenne a été créée en 1958, en tant qu'assemblée partagée entre la Communauté européenne du charbon et de l'acier, la Communauté économique européenne et l'Euratom. Elle n'avait à l'origine qu'un rôle consultatif.
Pourquoi le Parlement européen est-il important dans la structure de l'Union européenne ?
-Le Parlement européen est crucial car il représente directement les citoyens de l'UE et participe, avec le Conseil de l'Union européenne, à l'adoption des législations européennes. C'est l'une des deux sources de légitimité démocratique au sein de l'UE.
Qu'est-ce que la 'proportionnalité dégressive' dans le système électoral du Parlement européen ?
-La proportionnalité dégressive signifie que les États membres avec une petite population obtiennent plus de sièges que ce que leur taille démographique justifierait, tandis que les grands États en obtiennent moins. Cela garantit une représentation équilibrée des pays de toutes tailles.
Pourquoi les citoyens européens doivent-ils sentir qu'ils ont un rôle dans les décisions du Parlement européen ?
-Les citoyens doivent sentir qu'ils ont un rôle pour garantir la légitimité démocratique du Parlement européen. Sans cette connexion, il devient difficile pour les citoyens de s'identifier au système politique et de participer activement aux processus démocratiques.
Quel est l'impact du Traité de Lisbonne de 2009 sur le Parlement européen ?
-Le Traité de Lisbonne de 2009 a renforcé les pouvoirs du Parlement européen en l'intégrant plus étroitement dans le processus législatif, notamment dans des domaines comme la sécurité, la justice, l'agriculture et la pêche, via la procédure législative ordinaire.
Comment sont élus les membres du Parlement européen (MEPs) ?
-Les membres du Parlement européen sont élus tous les cinq ans par les citoyens de l'Union européenne, dans le cadre d'élections au suffrage universel direct. Chaque État membre organise ses propres élections, mais des règles communes s'appliquent, comme la représentation proportionnelle.
Quel est le débat autour de l'initiative législative au Parlement européen ?
-Le débat sur l'initiative législative concerne le fait que, bien que le Parlement européen représente les citoyens, il n'a pas de droit d'initiative directe pour proposer des lois, ce qui est souvent perçu comme un manque de pouvoir dans un système démocratique.
Qu'est-ce que le processus des 'Spitzenkandidaten', et pourquoi est-il controversé ?
-Le processus des 'Spitzenkandidaten' consiste à nommer le président de la Commission européenne en fonction du candidat principal du groupe politique majoritaire au Parlement européen. Cependant, il est controversé car le Conseil européen estime que cela va à l'encontre des règles du traité.
Quels sont les deux piliers de la légitimité démocratique dans l'Union européenne ?
-Les deux piliers de la légitimité démocratique dans l'UE sont la légitimité accordée par les 27 gouvernements nationaux démocratiquement élus, représentés par le Conseil de l'Union européenne, et celle accordée par les citoyens européens eux-mêmes, représentés par le Parlement européen.
Quel est le rôle du Parlement européen dans la procédure législative ordinaire ?
-Dans la procédure législative ordinaire, le Parlement européen partage le pouvoir législatif avec le Conseil de l'Union européenne. Aucune législation ne peut être adoptée sans l'accord des deux institutions, ce qui place le Parlement sur un pied d'égalité avec le Conseil dans ce processus.
Outlines
📚 Introduction au Parlement européen
Le script commence par une rétrospective sur la démocratie européenne, évoquant les rôles de la Commission européenne et du Conseil de l'Union européenne. Il aborde la complexité de comparer le Parlement européen aux parlements nationaux, en raison de la nature unique de l'UE, composée de 27 États membres. Le Parlement européen représente les citoyens européens, tandis que le Conseil représente les gouvernements nationaux. Cette distinction est essentielle pour comprendre la légitimité démocratique de l'UE.
🗳️ Élections directes et légitimité démocratique
Avant 1979, les membres du Parlement européen étaient nommés par les parlements nationaux, ce qui conférait une légitimité limitée. Avec l'augmentation de l'impact de l'UE sur la vie quotidienne, il est devenu nécessaire d'avoir des représentants directement élus. Les élections européennes ont lieu tous les cinq ans et utilisent le principe de proportionnalité dégressive pour garantir une représentation équitable des citoyens des petits et grands États membres. Le texte souligne l'importance de ce système pour assurer que personne ne soit marginalisé.
🗂️ Le fonctionnement du Parlement européen
Les élections européennes sont organisées par chaque État membre selon des règles communes, garantissant le droit de vote aux citoyens européens résidant dans un autre pays de l'UE. Les députés européens se regroupent en fonction de leurs affinités politiques plutôt que de leur appartenance nationale, simplifiant ainsi le processus législatif. Le texte évoque le débat sur l'introduction de listes transnationales pour renforcer la représentativité. Enfin, il explique comment le Parlement co-légifère avec le Conseil dans de nombreux domaines, bien que son pouvoir reste limité dans certains, comme la politique fiscale.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Démocratie
💡Parlement Européen
💡Conseil de l'Union Européenne
💡Commission Européenne
💡Représentation
💡Procédure législative ordinaire
💡Élection directe
💡Spitzenkandidat
💡Dégressive proportionnalité
💡Légitimité démocratique
Highlights
The European Parliament plays a critical role in representing European citizens and balancing the interests of 27 member states.
The European Parliament’s origins date back to 1958, evolving from a consultative body to one with legislative power.
The modern European Parliament, with over 700 members, represents 450 million citizens in 27 member states.
One key concept discussed is 'representation,' where elected officials act on behalf of citizens, ensuring accountability.
The European Parliament's elections occur every 5 years and involve universal suffrage across member states.
A principle called 'degressive proportionality' is used to allocate seats in the European Parliament, ensuring both large and small member states are fairly represented.
MEPs are organized into political groups based on their political leanings, not just by national party affiliation.
There’s an ongoing debate about 'transnational lists,' where candidates would represent a single pan-European constituency, as opposed to national ones.
The European Parliament is now on equal footing with the Council of the European Union in passing legislation via the 'ordinary legislative procedure.'
The 'spitzenkandidaten' process, introduced in 2014, links the selection of the European Commission president to the largest group in the European Parliament, though this process is debated.
One critique is the lack of a full right of legislative initiative for the European Parliament, as it relies on the European Commission to propose legislation.
The right of initiative remains an open question, with some pushing for the European Parliament to gain this right fully.
Elections for the European Parliament must be based on proportional representation, and citizens residing in other EU countries can vote there.
European Parliament members must dedicate themselves fully to their role, as they cannot simultaneously hold other significant political positions, such as being part of national governments.
The European Parliament remains one of the largest and most significant exercises in democratic representation worldwide, yet its democratic processes continue to evolve.
Transcripts
welcome back to EU democracy explained
in the last two episodes we've followed
the story of European democracy through
the European commission and the Council
of the European Union we've also
discovered some of the most important
Concepts when it comes to democracy in
the EU such as
accountability today we complete the
institutional triangle and Tackle A New
Concept representation by discussing an
institution that you're probably already
familiar with the European
Parliament
[Music]
it might be tempting to look at the
European Parliament through the lens of
what you may already know about National
parliaments but you really can't compare
the EU to any national system it is its
own unique thing and that poses a
problem when it comes to exploring
whether the EU is democratic because
most people's basic understanding of
what democracy is and isn't is rooted in
their understanding of of national
systems where a country's government is
precisely that one country's government
in contrast today's European Union
includes 27 countries and this is why
the modern eu's legitimacy rests on two
foundations that which is granted by the
27 democratically elected governments
themselves which we discovered with the
council last episode and that which is
granted by European citizens so let's
recap the institutional triangle is
where European legislation gets made the
European commission representing the
interests of the EU as a whole proposes
new legislation in most but not all
circumstances that proposal needs to be
approved by the two bodies that
represent the two foundations of
legitimacy the Council of the European
Union representing the 27 governments
and the European Parliament representing
European citizens the parliament has its
Origins at the very beginning of the
European project starting out as the
common assembly of the European coal and
Steel Community when in 1957 the
European economic community and euron
were created the assembly came to be
shared between these three entities the
new European parliamentary assembly met
for the first time in March
1958 but the assembly's Democratic
character was very different to that of
the modern Parliament and this is where
our Story begins deputies were nominated
by each of the national parliaments and
the assembly only had consultative power
throughout the 1970s though the system
was pushed to reform d IR elections took
place for the first time in 1979 and in
subsequent changes to the European
constituent treaties the parliament took
on more and more legislative power
today's European Parliament has over 700
members or MEPS representing 450 million
Europeans in 27 member states it works
in the 24 official languages of the
European Union too so all of the diverse
viewpoints from across the EU can be
heard but why is it so important that
members be direct ly elected to
understand this we need to understand
representation and to understand
representation we have to go back to the
earliest days of modern democracy and
discover something called a
[Music]
polity a pol is a group of people which
can be defined meaning you can tell who
is part of it and who is not it's
capable through the legal rights of its
members of organizing itself and making
internal decisions and Via a system of
governance it does so so you want to
create a democracy you know that this
means you need a polic and that this POC
should be empowered to make decisions
when the first modern democracies arose
States already had set boundaries in the
form of borders for them the logical
step was to limit the policy to those
who are within those borders now these
early democracies were far from perfect
all too often only men who owned land
were considered worthy of having a say
in government thus excluding a great
share of the population but even with a
poity which was so restricted it was
already clear that it would be
unsustainable for all of the policy
members to decide everything their
answer was and in many democracies of
the world still is representation
representation allows you to vote not
for or against specific policy proposals
but for political candidates the
candidate who's eventually elected
whether voted for them or not represents
you they propose amend discuss and vote
on legislation on your behalf and then
they have a duty to report back to you
what they've been doing as your
representatives and if you recall the
concept of vertical accountability when
citizens are unsatisfied with the person
representing them they can vote for
someone different next time around when
representative democracy works well it
incorporates representation
accountability and effective governance
so let's come back to the a question of
representation in the European
Parliament before 1979 members were
nominated at the national level now
there is a kernel of legitimacy there
those nominating the members were
themselves democratically elected and
those with the legislative power in
Europe at the time the ministers in the
council were themselves part of
democratically elected National
governments but as the European project
grew and its impact on people's everyday
lives grew it became clear that a new
layer of democratic legitimacy was
[Music]
needed one of the most important aspects
of representation is that Citizens need
to feel like they have a stake in the
decisions being made by their
governments and if people are unfamiliar
with the system it's difficult for them
to feel like they have a stake because
they don't see it in their day-to-day
interactions with politics so how does
the European Parliament work elections
take place every 5 years under direct
Universal suffering
with 450 million Europeans eligible to
vote this makes them one of the largest
Democratic exercises in the world but
unlike national elections they need to
take into account citizens and 27 member
states of varying sizes without
reasonable safeguards it would be all
too easy for citizens of a country like
Germany with a population of over 80
million to overall the citizens of a
country like Malta with a population of
only half a million clearly to give
citizens of these smaller countries a
fair say on EU legislation you need a
system that accounts for this equally
going too far in the other direction
would mean that votes in a country like
Germany would be devalued as well to
find this careful balanced seats in the
European Parliament are allocated
according to a principle of degressive
proportionality a set number of seats
are allocated to each member State based
on population but smaller countries are
allocated more seats than they otherwise
would be if that allocation was strictly
based on population size as such no
country can be allocated fewer than six
or more than 96 seats in Parliament the
system is designed to make sure everyone
gets their fair share of input and no
one is silenced so we have our seats now
we need to fill them it's up to each
member state to manage its own election
according to a series of common rules
the first is that any EU citizen
resident in another EU country has the
right to vote and stand for election in
that country the second is that European
elections must take place based on
proportional representation and the
third establishes a number of
incompatibilities whereby someone cannot
be a member of the European Parliament
in addition to being for instance a
member of a national government in other
words being an MEP should be your main
job in politics all other arrangements
subject to National Provisions Austria
for instance operates the elections as a
single National constituency rather than
several Regional ones Belgium meanwhile
has extended the voting age for the 2024
elections so that citizens can vote as
of the age of 16 it's all down to the
preference of each individual country
once they arrive in Parliament members
organized themselves into a number of
political groups according to their
leanings from left to right with a union
of so many member states having each
parliamentarian Affiliated to a national
party would create confusion and hinder
the legislative process instead the
political groups simplify things
creating blocks within which members can
negotiate and vote according to a shared
political Outlook now one criticism of
this approach is that it's too much of a
halfway house citizens vote for
candidates who stand in National
constituencies as members of a national
party and then when they go to
Parliament they gain a new affiliation
becoming part of an unfamiliar European
political group to resolve this some
have suggested the use of transnational
lists where the candidates would stand
in a single pan European constituency
but this debate is still very much in
progress ultimately MEPS are citizens
directly elected representatives in
Europe so what do they actually
[Music]
do nowadays the European Parliament is
on a more equal footing with the Council
of the European Union via the ordinary
legislative procedure under this
procedure also known as cision no
legislation can pass without the consent
both of the council and of the
parliament and since 2009 crucial policy
areas such as security and Justice
Agriculture and Fisheries and many more
have come under this procedure so MEPS
have more of an input on more policies
than ever before this being said there
are still areas like taxation policy
where it doesn't apply and in these
cases while the parliament does still
have a consultative role its advice is
not binding and the council decides
another change surrounds the appointment
of the European commission president
which since the 2009 Lisbon treaty is
required to take into account the
European elections you might remember in
episode one where we discussed this
process and touched on the fact that
some find it problematic arguing that
nomination by the European Council and
approval by the parliament was not a
direct enough way of selecting the
commission president and in response to
these concerns in 2014 the parliament
introduced the so-called spits and Candy
Daton process
under this process a candidate nominated
by the Leaning group of the new
Parliament would become president of the
commission and in 2014 jeanclaude junker
the candidate championed by the European
People's Party the largest in the
parliament at the time became president
but the spits and candidas process was
never really accepted by the European
Council which felt it went against the
word and spirit of the rules set out in
the treaty so after the next elections
in 2019 the heads of state or government
nominated Ursula Delan who while a
member of the largest political group
had not been its candidate the question
is where to draw a line in the
interpretation of the treaty what does
it really mean for the appointment of
the commission president to take into
account the European elections while the
parliament argued that the process made
the commission more democratically
legitimate there are two main critiques
the first was that some felt the
parliament was only trying to wrestle
power away from the European Council an
interinstitutional power play the second
was that while such a system might be a
step in the right direction some argued
that the only truly Democratic way would
be to leave the decision to the citizens
in a direct election the experiment only
lasted one term becoming a political tug
of war finally there's the question of
legislative initiative now the right of
initiative is crucial in a
representative democracy because it
allows elected representatives to draft
and vote on proposals on behalf of the
citizens they represent now the EU
system as we discussed earlier is unique
the parliament represents the European
citizens the council represents the
national governments and the commission
represents the interests of the EU as a
whole on that basis the right of
initiative rests with the commission
alone now in a more traditional
interpretation of democracy Theory a
parliament not having a right of
initiative does seem odd and in 2022 the
European Parliament said as much stating
in a June resolution that it should be
granted a general and direct right to
initiate
legislation as always though things
aren't quite that simple the parliament
does have a direct right of initiative
for proposals regarding its own
functioning and it can like the council
ask the commission to submit a proposal
on a given topic and let's return to the
question of decision-making if the
parliament were to gain a full right of
initiatives should the council not gain
it as well after all the ordinary
legislative procedure means both
institutions approve legislation in
co-decision
we have to remember that the EU is a
unique system and therefore imposing
this traditional interpretation of
democracy Theory which is mostly used to
analyze individual countries rather than
something unique like the European Union
might not help us understand it in the
end the right of initiative remains an
open question democracy in the European
Parliament is a complex picture it
develops slowly and it can legitimately
be critiqued but ultimately it remains
one of the world's most significant
exercises in representation but tell us
what you think is the EU Democratic
enough how should the commission
president be appointed after the next
elections and what about the right of
initiative let us know in the comments
[Music]
below hi there I hope you enjoyed that
video to learn more about the history of
the European project check out our EU
history explained video series here and
for the latest analysis of EU current
affairs check out our most recent
episode of Europe Chan here be sure to
like comment and subscribe for more from
TSA
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