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Member states of the European Union use various forms of democracy. The European Union (EU) is a sui generis supranational union of states. At a European Council Summit held in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 21 June and 22 June 1993, [2] the European Union defined the Copenhagen criteria regarding the conditions a candidate country has to fulfill to be considered eligible for accession to the European Union:
Membership criteria require that the candidate country must have achieved:
- stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities;
- the existence of a functioning market economy as well as the capacity to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the Union;
- the ability to take on the obligations of membership including adherence to the aims of political, economic and monetary union. [3] [4]
Consequently, all member states have direct elections, nominally democratic states that are considered to be "free" or "partly free" according to the criteria of Freedom House. As of 2020, there is no expert consensus on how to classify Hungary's regime type; Freedom House considers it a hybrid regime. [5] [6] [7] As of 2015, all European Union member states are representative democracies; however, they do not all have the same political system, with most of the differences arising from different historical backgrounds.
Many of the states in the neighbourhood of the European Union are not considered to be "free" by the same criteria. [1] Most European states neighbouring the European Union are considered to be "free" or "partly free" by Freedom House, with the exceptions of Azerbaijan, Belarus and Russia. On the other hand, almost all of the states in North Africa and Southwest Asia that neighbour the European Union are not considered to be "free", with the exceptions of Israel and Tunisia. [1]
At present, there are twelve monarchies in Europe, of which six are members of the European Union: Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden, and six are not: Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Norway, the United Kingdom and the Vatican City. All six monarchies in the European Union are constitutional monarchies. In all six monarchies that are in the EU, the monarch is legally not vested with political power, or the monarch does not utilise the political powers vested in the office by convention. At the dawn of the 20th century, France was the only republic among the future members states of the European Union; the ascent of republicanism to the political mainstream only started at the beginning of the 20th century. In Belgium, the monarchy enjoys a lower degree of support than in other European monarchies, and is often questioned. [8] Popular support for the monarchy has historically been higher in Flanders and lower in Wallonia; however, in recent decades these roles have reversed. [9]
There are three types of government systems in European politics: in a presidential system, the president is the head of state and the head of government; in a semi-presidential system, the president and the prime minister share a number of competences; finally, in a parliamentary republic, the president is a ceremonial figurehead who has few political competences. As with the definition of constitutional monarchies, sometimes the president does have non-ceremonial competences, but does not use them by constitutional convention; this is the case in Austria, for instance.
By definition, modern democratic constitutional monarchies are parliamentary, as there is no elected head of state who could assume non-ceremonial competences; of the twenty one republican member states of the European Union, only one is a presidential republic (Cyprus) and four are semi-presidential republics (France, Lithuania, Portugal and Romania). These four (semi-)presidential republics elect their president by direct popular vote. Among the sixteen parliamentary republics, nine do the same (namely Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia), whereas in the remaining seven (Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia and Malta), the president is elected by parliament or other special representative body such as the German Bundesversammlung .
Most of the European Union's member states are unitary states, which means that most of the competences lie with the central government and only minor or local issues are within the authority of regional governments. However, three states are federations (Austria, Belgium and Germany) of states or regions with equal competences, and six other states have either devolved certain powers to special regions or are federacies (or both):
A further distinction is the number of chambers in the national legislature; unicameral systems with one chamber or bicameral ones with a lower house and an upper house. Federations and countries with strong regional differences or regional identities are normally bicameral, to reflect the regions' interests in national bills. The states with the larger populations, from the Netherlands upwards, all have a bicameral system. Although there is a greater mix among the smaller states (some influenced by their federalist structure), the smallest states are on the whole unicameral.
While there had been legislatures with more than two chambers (tricameral and tetracameral ones), nowadays there are only unicameral and bicameral ones. Additionally, there are also differences in the degree of bicameralism. Whereas Italy is considered as having "perfect bicameralism", with both chambers being equal, most other bicameral systems restrict the upper house's powers to a certain extent. There is a slight trend towards unicameralism; some upper houses have seen their powers reduced or proposals to that end. Belgium's system has been reduced from a perfectly bicameral one to a nowadays de facto unicameral system. In 2009, Romania voted in favour of unicameralism, on a plebiscite, however the country still has a bicameral system, as of 2023. On the other hand, Ireland narrowly voted against abolishing their upper house in 2013, and Italy voted not to reduce its Senate's powers in 2016.
In the member states of the European Union, if the parliament has only one chamber, it is wholly directly elected in all cases. If there are two chambers, the lower house is directly elected in all cases, while the upper house can be directly elected (e.g. the Senate of Poland); or indirectly elected, for example, by regional legislatures (e.g. the Federal Council of Austria); or non-elected, but representing certain interest groups (e.g. the National Council of Slovenia).
President is a common title for the head of state in most republics. The president of a nation is, generally speaking, the head of the government and the fundamental leader of the country or the ceremonial head of state.
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members often have a different title. The terms congressman/congresswoman or deputy are equivalent terms used in other jurisdictions. The term parliamentarian is also sometimes used for members of parliament, but this may also be used to refer to unelected government officials with specific roles in a parliament and other expert advisers on parliamentary procedure such as the Senate parliamentarian in the United States. The term is also used to the characteristic of performing the duties of a member of a legislature, for example: "The two party leaders often disagreed on issues, but both were excellent parliamentarians and cooperated to get many good things done."
Bicameralism is a type of legislature that is divided into two separate assemblies, chambers, or houses, known as a bicameral legislature. Bicameralism is distinguished from unicameralism, in which all members deliberate and vote as a single group. As of 2022, roughly 40% of world's national legislatures are bicameral, while unicameralism represents 60% nationally and much more at the subnational level.
The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Government is made up of three branches: the executive, the legislative, and the judicial.
Age of candidacy is the minimum age at which a person can legally hold certain elected government offices. In many cases, it also determines the age at which a person may be eligible to stand for an election or be granted ballot access.
The Federal Assembly, also known as the Swiss parliament, is Switzerland's federal legislature. It meets in Bern in the Federal Palace.
The Constitution of Haiti was modeled after the constitutions of the United States, Poland and France. The latest version of the document was approved by Parliament in March 2011 and came into effect on June 20, 2012.
The National Assembly consisted of the bicameral legislature of the Republic of Haiti, consisting of the upper house as the Senate and the lower house as the Chamber of Deputies. Both assemblies conduct legislative sessions at the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.
The Federal Parliament of Nepal is the bicameral federal and supreme legislature of Nepal established in 2018. It consists of the National Assembly and the House of Representatives as parallel houses.
A senator for life is a member of the senate or equivalent upper chamber of a legislature who has life tenure. As of 2021, six Italian senators out of 206, two out of the 41 Burundian senators, one Congolese senator out of 109, and all members of the British House of Lords have lifetime tenure. Several South American countries once granted lifetime membership to former presidents but have since abolished the practice.
The ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon was officially completed by all member states of the European Union on 13 November 2009 when the Czech Republic deposited its instrument of ratification with the Italian government. The Lisbon Treaty came into force on the first day of the month following the deposition of the last instrument of ratification with the government of Italy, which was 1 December 2009.
The Council of the Republic was the upper house of the French parliament under the Fourth Republic, with the National Assembly being the lower house. It was established by the Constitution of 1946, dissolved by the Constitution of 1958 and replaced with the Senate.
The Treaty of Accession 2011 is an agreement between the member states of the European Union and Croatia concerning Croatia's accession to the EU. It was signed on 9 December 2011 in Brussels by the heads of state or government of the 27 member states and by the president of Croatia, Ivo Josipović, and Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor.
The Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union; also referred to as TSCG, or more plainly the Fiscal Stability Treaty is an intergovernmental treaty introduced as a new stricter version of the Stability and Growth Pact, signed on 2 March 2012 by all member states of the European Union (EU), except the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom. The treaty entered into force on 1 January 2013 for the 16 states which completed ratification prior to this date. As of 3 April 2019, it had been ratified and entered into force for all 25 signatories plus Croatia, which acceded to the EU in July 2013, and the Czech Republic.
The Socialist group in the Senate is a parliamentary group in the Senate including representatives of the Socialist Party (PS).
The Federal Parliament of Somalia is the national parliament of Somalia. Formed in August 2012, it is based in the capital Mogadishu and is bicameral, consisting of an Upper House (Senate) and a Lower House.
The French constitution of 4 October 1958 was revised many times in its early years. Changes to this fundamental law have become more frequent since the 1990s, for two major reasons:
This national electoral calendar for 2018 lists the national/federal elections held in 2018 in all sovereign states and their dependent territories. By-elections are excluded, though national referendums are included.
The accession of Moldova to the European Union (EU) is on the current agenda for future enlargement of the EU.
This colourful and wide picture of labelling shows not only the inventive imagination of scholars, but also the lack of scholarly consensus on how to characterise the contemporary regime that has emerged in Hungary
Political scientists call the Hungarian political system a hybrid regime, standing between democracy and authoritarianism, a diffusely defective democracy, and a plebiscitary leader democracy. Lately, Freedom House has labelled Hungary as a transitional or hybrid regime (based on its democracy score).
By now there is widespread agreement on the fact that Hungary is not a democracy anymore (as reflected in the conclusions of V-Dem, Freedom House and a range of global democracy barometers).