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The committees of the European Parliament are designed to aid the European Commission in initiating legislation.
Standing committees are made up of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), who are directly elected to the seats in the European Parliament by the electorate. Each committee has a chair and four vice-chairs, along with numerous committee members. Each committee also has substitute members.
Reports are usually compiled by a rapporteur, who is appointed by the chair of the committee, selected from amongst the members or permanent substitutes.
The established system for the appointment of committee chairs follows the D'Hondt method. [1]
In the process of proposing and drafting legislation, the European Commission will consult the various standing committees during the codecision procedure, and these committees will advise the commission by producing reports, proposing amendments to the draft legislation, and providing, if necessary, a drafted legislative resolution.
In the event of at least one-tenth of the members objecting to any particular amendment, the amendment will be put to a vote at the committee's next meeting.
Similarly, unless at least one-tenth of committee members object, committees can also pass legislation back to the commission without amendments.
Committees are also able to produce non-legislative reports. The appointed rapporteur is responsible for preparing the report, and presenting it to Parliament on the committee's behalf. These reports must include a motion for a resolution, an explanatory statement, and must also outline financial implications.
Committees can also produce reports relevant to their competence, without having to be consulted. These are called "Own-Initiative Reports", and are used to submit a motion for a resolution.
Before drawing up any such report, a committee must obtain the permission of the Conference of Presidents. The Conference of Presidents has two months to make a decision, and any reasons for withholding permission must always be stated.
When drawing up a report, a committee may ask the opinion of another committee on the matter, particularly if it is felt that a proposed amendment would fall into the interests of another committee. The committee asked for an opinion will be named as such in the final report. The chair and drafter of the secondary committee may be invited to take part in any committee discussions held by the primary committee, where the meeting deals with the matter that the secondary committee is advising on.
Amendments that are proposed by the secondary committee will be voted on by the committee responsible for producing the report.
If the Conference of Presidents decides that a requested report falls equally to two committees, both committees will agree upon a joint timetable, and shall work together in producing the report.
This is a list of standing committees along with the respective chairperson as of January 2022. [2]
Under Rules 175 and 176 the European Parliament may at any time set up temporary committees for specific reports for an initial period of no longer than 12 months. Examples of such temporary committees have been:
On 25 April 2007 MEPs voted to set up a temporary committee on climate change. The committee will have a year to come up with proposals on the EU's future integrated climate-change policy, to co-ordinate the EP's position in this field, to assess the latest evidence on climate change and to evaluate the cost of action. [7]
Following the 2009 elections, in light of the Late 2000s recession, Parliament set up a Special Committee on the Financial, Economic and Social Crisis.
MEPs also compose delegations to various Parliaments outside of the European Union. Joint parliamentary committees are set up with candidate countries. There are also delegations to the ACP–EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly [8] the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly and the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly. [9]
Two major bodies in the Parliament are the Conference of Committee Chairs (CCC) and the Conference of Delegation Chairs (CDC). The Conference of Committee Chairs is the political body in Parliament that works for better cooperation between the committees and consists of the chairs of all the standing and special committees. The Conference of Delegation Chairs is the political body in Parliament that periodically considers all matters concerning the smooth running of interparliamentary delegations and delegations to the joint parliamentary committees. They may make recommendations to the Conference of Presidents and can be instructed to carry out particular tasks by the Bureau or Conference of Presidents. [10] [11]
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union, it adopts European legislation, following a proposal by the European Commission. The Parliament is composed of 705 members (MEPs). It represents the second-largest democratic electorate in the world, with an electorate of 375 million eligible voters in 2009.
Linda McAvan is a British Labour Party politician, who was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Yorkshire and the Humber from 1998, when she was first elected in a by-election following the resignation of Norman West. She served until her resignation on 19 April 2019.
Karl-Heinz Florenz is a German politician who served as Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 1999 until 2012. He is a member of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), part of the European People's Party.
Michael Gahler is a German diplomat and politician who has been serving as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) since 1999. He is a member of the Christian Democratic Union, part of the European People's Party.
Peter Liese is a German physician and politician who has been serving as a Member of the European Parliament since 1994. He is a member of the Christian Democratic Union, part of the European People's Party.
Rodi Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou is a Greek politician who served as a Member of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2014, and served as First Vice-President of the European Parliament from 2007 to 2009. She is the current Regional Governor of the Ionian Islands.
Robert Goebbels is a former politician in Luxembourg, and a former Member of the European Parliament for the Luxembourg Socialist Workers' Party, part of the Party of European Socialists.
Anja Weisgerber is a German lawyer and politician. She currently is a member of the German Bundestag representing Schweinfurt for the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU), part of the European People's Party (EPP). She previously served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Bavaria. In addition to her political work, she serves as of counsel at the Frankfurt office of German law firm GSK Stockmann & Kollegen.
José Ignacio Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra is a Spanish politician and diplomat who currently serves as a Member of the European Parliament integrated within the European People's Party political group. He was previously the Head of the EU Delegation to Argentina between 2015 and 2017.
Seán Kelly is an Irish politician who has been a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Ireland for the South constituency since July 2009. He is a member of Fine Gael, part of the European People's Party.
Tonino Picula is a Croatian politician currently serving his third term as a Member of the European Parliament for Croatia, having successfully run in 2013, 2014, and 2019 European elections. He got involved in politics in the early 1990s and had served four consecutive terms as a member of the Croatian Parliament, having been elected in 2000, 2003, 2007, and 2011 parliamentary elections as a member of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SDP). He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2000 to 2003 under prime minister Ivica Račan, and as mayor of Velika Gorica from 2005 to 2009.
Jacqueline Kay Swinburne, Baroness Swinburne, is a British politician and life peer. She was a member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Wales between 2009 and 2019, representing the Conservative Party, and became a member of the House of Lords in 2023.
Indrek Tarand is an Estonian politician and Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Estonia. He is an independent politician, but a member of the European Green Party.
Esther M. R. de Lange is a Dutch politician serving as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) since 2007. A member of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), part of the European People's Party (EPP), she was elected as delegation leader in the European Parliament at a party conference on 2 November 2013 in Leeuwarden, a position she assumed the following year. In July 2014 she was elected as Vice President of the EPP Group in the European Parliament and in June 2018 as Vice President of the EPP Party.
Ingeborg Helen Gräßle is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been serving as a member of the German Bundestag since the 2021 elections, representing the Backnang – Schwäbisch Gmünd district. She previously served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2004 until 2019, where chaired of the Budgetary Control Committee.
Siegfried Mureșan is a Romanian economist and politician, vice-president of the European People's Party (EPP) since November 2019, vice-president of the European People's Party Group in the European Parliament and member of the National Liberal Party (PNL). He was elected as Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Romania in 2014 and 2019. Previously, he was a member of the People's Movement Party (PMP) between 2014 and 2018 and the Democratic Liberal Party (PDL) before 2014.
Andrey Grishev Novakov, Bulgarian: Андрей Гришев Новаков is a Bulgarian politician who is currently serving as a Member of the European Parliament. A member of the GERB party, which is affiliated with the European People’s Party on a European level, he was previously a leader of a youth wing of his party.
Norbert Lins is a German politician who has served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) since 2014. Since 2019, he has chaired the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. He is a member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), part of the European People's Party (EPP).
Marc Angel is a Luxembourgish politician of the Luxembourg Socialist Workers' Party (LSAP) who has been serving as Vice-President of the European Parliament since 18 January 2023, and a Member of the European Parliament since 10 December 2019. In the European Parliament he is known for being a 'Champion of Equality'.
José Manuel Fernandes is a Portuguese politician of the Social Democratic Party who has been serving as a Member of the European Parliament since the 2009 elections. Earlier in his career, he was Mayor of Vila Verde in northern Portugal.
The appointment of committee chairs follows the D'Hondt system – named after the Belgian mathematician who designed the method – which allocates positions on the basis of political groups' size. However, the precise allocation of seats may shift until the last minute, as political horse-trading continues between the main political groups.