Day 15: European Parliament and the Committee of the Regions

Today we walked over to the European Parliament. That's kind of weird to say, actually. "Oh, I just walked over to European Parliament today. No big deal." The European Parliament said they would send out their PowerPoint lecture, but they didn't. Oops. I did take some notes, though.

Parliament was first established in the 1950s. It is the only parliament in the world directly elected on the international level. There are European-wide political parties, but no group has the majority. There are currently 20 parliamentary committees, and the committee and political group meetings are considered the most important. In 2004, there was the integration of eastern Europe in the EU. There are five candidate countries who want to join, but that doesn't mean they necessarily will. There are regulations within the political and economic sectors, and the country must be able to quickly follow EU rules.

The first elections were held in 1979, but numbers have been going down since. Why don't people vote? Part of it is that they're not used to the degree of distance or the numbers involved. National governments also tend to take the credit for good things that happen, while blaming the EU for the bad things. There is also the fact that the media tends to only be interested when scandals and other bad things happen within the Parliament. They did say that students here don't get all that much information on the European Union in schools. I definitely think that something of this caliber should be included in the educational system. Have they ever considered that some people are apathetic and/or don't feel that they're educated enough on political policy, so they just don't vote? I mean, that's kind of the reason why I have yet to vote (as horrible a citizen I feel like for saying that). :/

We then got to visit the Committee of the Regions, one of the institution that helps deal with issues of the EU on the federal level. This is managed by the Treaty of the EU (aka the Lisbon Treaty). The system implemented here is not based on checks and balances like the US: there is more overlap between powers. There are seven institutions, but the main ones our representative talked about are listed below:

• The European Commission: This is an executive branch assuring the realization of EU policies. They also have legislative initiative, and they prepare the first legislative proposal each year.
• European Parliament: Seriously? Scroll up a bit and read.
• Council of EU: This is a meeting of the ministers of specific areas. I think I may have discussed this in my EU post earlier.

The Committee of Regions can make suggestions to these three parts, as they are the people representing the subnational level of all governments. It is a part time job, with six plenary sessions. There is a five year term, but if you lose your primary position in the town, you'll lose your position in the Committee of the Regions as well. The Committee of the Regions deals with the daily problems of the people of states and regions. There is lobbying for interest of regions, and the general idea is to push the institution on the European and national government level to consider the subnational level in their policies. A subsidiary is a basis of solutions on the level of the people, and this is what they try to attain.

There are 344 members divided into delegations and by political parties/affiliations. It is a heterogenous political environment, with different member states having a different number of members based on region population. The goal is a platform of cooperation for the different regions on many levels, such as cross border cooperation.

I think I learned a lot today. It makes me think that there is probably a lot of intricacy in the US government system as well, and that kind of makes me feel a bit less informed than before. Which kind of sucks.

How are we already more than halfway through this program?!