Members and Parties of the European Parliament

At first, some General information about the European Parliament: It is situated in Strasbourg, but it also has functions in Brussels and Luxembourg. The citizens of the EU select the members of the European Parliament every five years. There is no real difference between government members and opposition members, because the European Parliament doesn´t elect a government in the traditional sense. That`s the reason why the European Parliament hasn`t got as many rights as other national parliaments.

Members of the European Parliament

Since the election in July 2009 there were only 736 members but after the “Treaty of Lisbon” the number was extended to 754 members. The new 18 members will start their office on 13th of December 2011. After the coming election in 2014 there will be 750 members and further the parliament president, who is not allowed to vote. The current president of the European Parliament is Jerzy Buzek (EVP), who officially is in office from 2009 to 2014. Finally it is important to mention that the work of parliament members has been despatched from countries all over the world.

Parties and fractions of the European Parliament

Today the Parliament is devided in 7 fractions: The first is called EVP ( which stands for The Christian Democrates) and it contains 264 members. The second fraction is the S&D (The Social Democrates) which counts 185 members. The next one is the ALDE which is the fraction of The Liberals and there are 85 members. Furthermore there also exist the EFA (The Greens) and the ECR (The Conservatives) which both count 56 official members. Additionally there is the NGL (The Left Party) which counts 34 people and the last one is called the EFD (The Euopean Union sceptic people) with 27 members. At last there are 29 members who do not have any party affiliation. Since the elections in 2009, there have been at least 25 members of not less than one quarter of all member states required to build a fraction. In June 2014 there is going to be the next election for the European Parliament and an important point in the future is that as many people as possible attend it.

Img.: Artshot – Fotolia.com

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