Palade Mihaela ,SPE 1 B

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I.What is the European Parliament?

The European Parliament represents the citizens of the EU member states at a EU level,being
the only communitary institution directly elected- procedure established in June,1979- and the
only multinational Parliament elected by universal suffrage. Between 1958 and 1979 the
European MP’s were designated by the national governments and owned a double mandate.
Elections were held every five years.
Since 1958, the European Parliament has considerably changed and because of the succesive
EU extensions,the number of the member states growing from 6 to 27 and the one of the
european deputies from 142 to 736 and at the same time,the number of the official languages
changed from 4 to 23. Moreover,the revision of the treaties offered the European Parliament
more and more capacities ,developing itself from a purely consultative body to an institution that
shares co-decision power with the represantatives of the national governments in most of the
legislative files.
Along with the succesive extensions,the number of the European MP’s grew also.Since the
beginning of 2007 up until the european elections,EP counts 785 members from 27 states.
According to the Nise Treaty,Romania will have 33 european deputies (4.48% of the total
number of seats) and the total number will have to be reduced to 736 deputies.
The deputies constitute themselves in political groups considering their political congeniality
and not nationality. Each political group will be formed of at least 20 members elected from at
least 6 member states (1/5 of the 27 member states). This rule was to be changed after the June
2009 elections ,because the EP decided the growth of a minimum number of deputies necessary
for the making of a political group to 25 members which come from at least 7 member states.

The European Parliament has been increasingly transformed from a purely consultative
assembly into a legislative parliament; exercising powers similar to those of national
parliaments. It has steadily acquired greater influence and power through a series of treaty
changes. Today the European Parliament, as an equal partner with the Council of Ministers,
passes the majority of European laws. Parliament’s powers would be further increased if the new
EU treaty (Lisbon Treaty) came into force (ratification is still underway at the time of writing,
December 2008).

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 The European Parliament e.g. attaches importance to the protection of human rights both inside
and outside the Union and has used its power as one way of promoting respect for fundamental
rights. It has, for example, rejected a series of financial protocols with certain non-member
countries on human rights grounds, demanding that those countries release political prisoners or
subscribe to international undertakings on human rights protection.
Powers
The European Parliament – like national parliaments - has three fundamental powers:
 legislative
 budgetary
 supervisory.
Legislative power
Most European laws are decided in what is called the co-decision procedure between the
Council and the European Parliament. There are only a few areas today in which Parliament is
only consulted. The co-decision procedure puts the European Parliament and the Council on an
equal footing. Together they adopt legislation proposed by the Commission. Co-decision has
enabled the European Parliament to have a major impact on European decision-making and to
push through e.g. much stricter anti-pollution rules for fuel and motor oils, stricter and more
visible health warnings on cigarette packets and the ban of heavy metals in the manufacture of
vehicles. The Parliament has no power to initiate legislation – this power remains with the
European Commission. However, the European Parliament frequently adopts, at the instigation
of one of its committees, reports designed to steer EU policy in a particular direction. They are
called own-initiative reports and are not legally binding, although the European Commission is
required to take a position on such reports.If the Lisbon Treaty comes into force, even more
policy areas would fall under the co-decision procedure (that would be called the “ordinary
legislative procedure”). This would mean that the Parliament would have practically equal
powers to those of the Council.

Budgetary power
Together with the Council, the European Parliament is one of the two heads of the EU
budgetary authority, which decides each year on its expenditure and revenue. It has the final say
on a considerable amount of EU spending. The preliminary work on Parliament’s decision-

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making in this area is done by its Committee on Budgets in cooperation with the other standing
committees. Since 1986 annual expenditure has been part of a multi-annual framework - the
‘financial perspectives’ - adopted jointly by Parliament and the Council. Parliament has the last
word on most expenditure in the annual budget. Parliament and the Council consider the
Commission’s budgetary proposals in two readings (between May and December). Parliament
can reject the budget if it believes that it does not meet the needs of the Union. In that case the
budgetary procedure then starts all over again.With the Lisbon Treaty the Parliament would gain
greater powers over the entirety of the EU budget, not just on parts of the expenditure as today.
Supervisory power
Together with the Council, the European Parliament is one of the two heads of the EU
budgetary authority, which
decides each year on its expenditure and revenue. It has the final say on a considerable amount of
EU spending. The preliminary work on Parliament’s decision-making in this area is done by its
Committee on Budgets in cooperation with the other standing committees. Since 1986 annual
expenditure has been part of a multi-annual framework - the ‘financial perspectives’ - adopted
jointly by Parliament and the Council. Parliament has the last word on most expenditure in the
annual budget. Parliament and the Council consider the Commission’s budgetary proposals in
two readings (between May and December). Parliament can reject the budget if it believes that it
does not meet the needs of the Union. In that case the budgetary procedure then starts all over
again.With the Lisbon Treaty the Parliament would gain greater powers over the entirety of the
EU budget, not just on parts of the expenditure as today.
The Parliament holds its regular plenary sessions in Strasbourg, its official seat, and additional
sessions (called mini-sessions) in Brussels. Parliamentary Committees mostly meet in Brussels,
whereas the Secretariat-General is based in Luxembourg.Every five years, direct elections of the
European Parliament (EP) take place in each Member State.Elections take place over a period of
several days. The electoral system is to chosen by each countr y there are some common rules: 
  The voting method is proportional representation; 
  The vote can be preferential: either electors choose a person from a list, or vote for a list; 
  To win a seat in Parliament the minimum threshold is 5% of votes cast.

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Seats are allocated to Member States according to their population, with a maximum of 99
(Germany) and a minimum of 5 (Malta), in order to maintain proportionality:

Member State Actual number Number of Number of

of deputies deputies after deputies
European according to the
elections Lisbon Treaty
Germany 99 99 96
France 78 72 74
United Kingdom 78 72 73
Italy 78 72 73
Spain 54 50 54
Polland 54 50 51
Romania 35 33 33
Netherlands 27 25 26
Belgium 24 22 22
Greece 24 22 22
Hungary 24 22 22
Czech Republic 24 22 22
Portugal 24 22 22
Sweden 19 18 20
Bulgaria 18 17 18

Austria 18 17 19
Denmark 14 13 13
Slovacia 14 13 13
Finland 14 13 13
Lithuania 13 12 12
Ireland 13 12 12
Letonia 9 8 9
Slovenia 7 7 8
Estonia 6 6 6
Cyprus 6 6 6
Luxemburg 6 6 6
Malta 6 5 6
Total 76 736 751

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II.Social Democrat Party’s possible objectives in an electoral
campaign for the European Parliament

1. Bringing more european funds to Romania

At the moment,the European funds could be the engines of the national development. Barrieres
such as bureaucracy,legislative issues,long term of projects evaluation and selection etc, must be
overcomed.
With the help of its MPs , SDP will promote an attraction and usage policy of the European
money and will help the agricultural field to develop,it will finance profitable activities,will
encourage and reward efficiency in any domain. Nevertheless, the main directions that the
European funds received will be headed to are those of infrastructure,health system,education
and agriculture.
But most important of all,in order to justify their activity and to gain popular support ,total
transparency is needed. The Romanian people is still suffering after the long period of
censorship. So clear numbers and data must be exposed,including programs,achieved and not-
achieved goals. Even though Romania is annually contributing with large sums of money to the
European budget,there has been accesed a very small part of the European funds.And those that
were accesed fell in the hands of large-scale corruption over the years. Therefore,a preparation of
the state institutions is needed. (*We could take as an example Polland,which recorded a 3%
economical growth in 2009,in full crisis period,by the attraction of European funds.)
Another problem that the Romanian economical system is facing at present is that of the low
interest of the banking system,which does not allow co-financing. Business environment should
be friendly,loans should direct to development and working places should be created. Romanian
companies died because they were not supported by the market and the “IMMs” should be
backed up. As solutions to all of that,SDP proposes recessions for the arrears obligations of the
economical agents affected by the economical crisis,the rethinking of the AVT recasting
system,offering governmental guarantees for the beneficiaries of the structural funds financed
projects,unitary salarisation,the implementation of the public-private partnerships law,the
amalgamation of over 300 taxes with non-fiscal characteristics.

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2. Reducing the costs or raising up the incomes
Our party understands the drama that many pensioners go through when not only that the bills
are summing more than they are receiving monthly after a lifetime of hard work but also when
they are facing the need to wait in line in endless queues and pay their own medicins after they
have contributed to the health system over the years through insurances. That is why,our party
wants to :
-sustain in the European Parliament the creation of European budgetary resources that will
supply the growth of small pensions.
-offering financial support to the living husband,free medical care (at home,if needed)
-free medicins to the pensioners with small and very small incomes
-giving care to the homeless elders ,who have no living relatives and giving fines to the children
that abandon them
3.Rebirth of agriculture
The social-democrat offer for agriculture includes 6 major objectives:
-interventions for a faster endorsement of the National Program of Rural Development and
obtainance of the European funds adopted through the Aderation Treaty
-sustaining a 5% quota for a series of basic foods,similar to other European countries.
-raising the subventions for the organisations of producers in the fruit and vegetable
sector,raising the EU funds for ecological agriculture and maintaining the subventions for fruits
and vegetables for a 3 years period.
-the encouragement of the agricultural companies through low taxes,in the case in which they
promote actions in social area.

4.Creating new jobs

-SDP will promote the Romanian business environment,through his represantants in the EP,in
order to attract necessary investments.
-necessary conditions will be created so that in post-aderation step,native IMMs will beneficiate
of the 800 millions EURO the EU has allocated to this IMM system.
-SDP will propose in the EP more rigid reglementations regarding the protection of the
immigrant workers’ rights which come from EU member states.

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-to support the vulnerable consumers,SDp will sustain the reducing of utilities costs,by
recalculating energy cost.

5.Family and raising the children –a priority of the SDP social policy
-SDP will follow the adoption by the Parliament of the “First classed-children!” law, which
supposes the integration in the easy-reachable and qualitative social services system of a number
of over 260.000 children,aged 3, and so creating over 1000 jobs until 2012.
-SDP proposes a social program that will offer shelter,food,specialised help to victims of
domestic violence,nurturing children whose parents are working abroad. We propose over 50
centres of help for all children,mother or families in difficulty.
-the development of modern health care services,both for mothers and child,and indemnities for
children and young mothers.
-SDP supports families with children by offering ,ascendingly,depending of the age of the
child,monthly grants,until the age of 16.

6.Modern and safe schools for all children

SDP initiated and assumed as a major political project The National Pact for Education. The SDP
MPs will sustain the integration of this project in the European problematics of education and
research.
The National Pact for Education will assure the obtaining of an agreement over some measures
that exceed the continuance of a political cycle:the endowment of 7% of the IBP for
education,research and permanent development for the next 10 years.

Bibliography:

Alexandra IONESCU –Du parti-etat a l’etat du partis,Ed.Polirom,2010

www.bec2009pe.ro/legislatie/html

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www.europsd.ro