🚨 Publication alert! Very happy to share my latest #EPRS briefing. It is the last in a series on the #1979 #elections and lessons for today. This briefing focuses on the relation between the election of and the powers attributed to the #EP. It shows that well into the 1970s, MEPs tried to de-couple organising direct elections from expanding EP powers. Their main fear was that demanding both simultaneously would be too much for Member States to swallow. Pursuing them separately was the thought the better strategy. Yet, by the end of the 1970s, MEPs increasingly pushed the idea of a virtuous circle of empowerment and elections. They developed this further after the 1979 elections, when a low(er than expected) voter turnout dictated a re-coupling of the issues in order to maintain momentum. The briefing concludes by connecting this historical debate to contemporary issues, highlighting how the question of Parliament's powers has become intimately connected with questions of democracy, representation and elections. Two other EPRS briefings on the 1979 elections include: - Political parties, voter mobilisation and the 1979 European elections - https://lnkd.in/evrkx5s2 - The European Parliament and the European citizen as voter - https://lnkd.in/eSPt5rXX
Pavel Černoch
8mo
Dear Gilles, congratulations on this well researched briefing! It is always enlightening to revisit the difficult early times of the EP when it was fighting for its voice and its place at the table, in order to understand (and appreciate!) the powers we have now. Well done!
JD Candidate | Aspiring Attorney | PhD Candidate | Scholar | Parliamentarian | Kentucky Colonel
8moThis will likely change if the proposed changes from the Conference on the Future of Europe are implemented. It will also be interesting to see how the European Parliament changes after those reforms are implemented. Could the EP not only elect the European Commission, but elect them from their membership like most EU member states? Making it more of a federal Europe.