Where is eu parliament located

The Conciliation Committee meets when the European Parliament and the Council cannot decide on the wording of the legislation. In response to pressing political issues, special Committees are set-up McCormick, B, p. The policy-specialised Committees examine proposals and amend them, if needed, before the plenary meeting, where the Parliament will sit to vote on the legislation.

All the meetings of the European Parliament are held in public and are attended by those who want to influence the legislation — lobbyists, officials from the Council, members of national governments Shackleton, , p. The Secretariat is the internal administration of the European Parliament.

As you remember, it sits in Luxembourg. From there, it organises plenary meetings, co-ordinates the legislative work, and offers technical and expert assistance to the Parliament. It employs:. Others Monuments and places. Monuments and places National Library. Monuments and places Philharmonie Luxembourg. Monuments and places Luxembourgish Chamber of Commerce. Monuments and places European Court of Auditors. Monuments and places Luxexpo The Box.

One week each month is set aside for meetings of the political groups, which are usually held in Brussels. MEPs must have offices and lodgings in both cities. Simultaneous interpretation of all parliamentary and committee debates is provided in the EU's 24 official languages. All parliamentary documents are translated into 22 of these languages Irish and Maltese are sometimes excepted , and some documents must be translated into all Such extensive translation and publication services represent significant administrative costs.

However, many EU and EP officials consider such costs to be a price worth paying, both on democratic grounds—to enable MEPs to scrutinize and vote on draft EU laws in the languages they understand best—and on grounds of cultural and linguistic diversity within the Union. As noted previously, EP advocates assert that "co-decision" and its institutional supervisory roles have substantially enhanced the Parliament's influence.

In addition, the Lisbon Treaty gives the EP the right to approve or reject all international agreements by a simple majority and expands the EP's decision-making authority over trade-related issues. Analysts observe that the EP has not been shy about exerting its new powers under the Lisbon Treaty.

Over the last two years, for example, the annual budget negotiations between the EP and the Council of Ministers have gone down to the wire and MEPs are increasingly and successfully demanding greater input during the drafting and negotiation stages of the EU legislative process. Supporters also claim that the EP's influence has been growing even in consultative areas, such as the EU's common foreign policy, where the "co-decision procedure" does not apply and where decisions rest largely with the member states.

They maintain that the EP has become a forum for debate on international issues, and uses its power of consent on cooperation accords with third parties and Parliamentary resolutions to promote its views and highlight issues such as human rights. For example, many observers credit the EP's opposition in to ending the EU's arms embargo on China on both human rights and strategic grounds as one factor that eventually dissuaded member states from lifting the embargo.

The EP fought for and largely won considerable oversight of the EEAS by demanding scrutiny over its political appointments, staffing, and budget.

At the same time, a number of analysts suggest that the enhanced powers granted to the EP by the Lisbon Treaty, and the EP's resulting newfound assertiveness, could lead to greater interinstitutional rivalry. This could make the EU's legislative and decision-making processes even more complex as the EP, the European Commission, and the Council of Ministers all vie to protect their own institutional turf.

Others counter that a main aim of the Lisbon Treaty was to improve democratic accountability within the EU, and that the EP is merely seeking to defend its parliamentary prerogatives and the interests of EU citizens. As such, they view the debate among the various EU institutions over the establishment of the EEAS as part of the democratic process. Despite the EP's new powers and growing influence following the Lisbon Treaty, the EP still faces several challenges of public perception.

They argue that the EU's legislative process is overly complex and often focused on highly technical issues, leading to a lack of public understanding about the role of the EP. Limited public awareness of the EP's activities, they maintain, is reflected in the consistently declining turnout in European Parliament elections.

And while studies on voting behavior in the EP show that ideology holds greater influence than nationality with MEPs voting with their party groups the vast majority of the time , many MEPs campaign for the European Parliament on national rather than European issues. Many voters also tend to view EP elections as national mid-term elections—an indication of voter opinion on the performance of the national government—rather than as a vote on Europe-wide issues.

Another major concern is costs, which the EP has long been under public pressure to reduce. The French city of Strasbourg, which is close to the German border, was originally chosen as the seat of the EP to serve as a symbol of peace and reconciliation between the two countries, and both argue it should continue to do so. Construction of multi-million-dollar buildings in Brussels and Strasbourg in the late s to accommodate the growth in MEPs following the addition of 10 new members in also stirred public controversy.

In addition, the EP continues to battle against a "gravy train" image and charges that it lacks transparency. Until , for example, the EP had a flat-rate expense regime and MEPs did not have to submit for reimbursement for business and travel expenses.

Recently, the EP has been beset by a "cash-for-amendments" scandal, in which several MEPs have been accused of accepting money in exchange for introducing amendments on legislation pending in the EP. In response, the EP approved a new code of conduct in December aimed at tightening rules on MEPs' financial declarations and on their contacts with lobbyists.

Critics contend, however, that the new code of conduct contains a number of loopholes, with MEPs still able to engage in some paid outside activities and permitted to accept certain gifts of hospitality without having to disclose them.

Policy makers and analysts on both sides of the Atlantic assert that the European Parliament's enhanced powers following the entrance into force of the Lisbon Treaty in December has made the EP an increasingly important actor in the conduct of U.

As noted previously, the EP has been keen to exert its new powers under the Lisbon Treaty, and this has had implications for U. In February , for example, by a vote of to with 31 abstentions , the EP rejected a U. Prior to the Lisbon Treaty, the EP did not have the authority to veto such an accord. Observers attribute the EP's rejection of the U.

Many MEPs had long claimed that the U. In addition, however, some MEPs reportedly sought to send a message to the Commission and Council, conveying that the EP's position—in light of the changes brought about by the Lisbon Treaty—must now be taken into account during and not after the negotiation of international agreements or the drafting of new legislative proposals.

Although the EP eventually approved a revised U. Some experts also worried that another U. Since , the United States and the EU had concluded several agreements permitting airlines operating flights between Europe and the United States to provide U. These PNR accords were controversial in Europe, and especially in the EP, because of privacy and data protection concerns. Until the Lisbon Treaty, however, the EP did not have a role in approving these accords.

After the Lisbon Treaty, it became evident that a PNR agreement dating from , which had been provisionally in force, required EP approval by majority vote in order for it to remain in force. In December , the Obama Administration agreed to renegotiate some elements of the PNR accord, largely in recognition of the fact that the EP was unlikely to approve the existing agreement.

After some contentious debates, the EP approved the revised U. EP concerns about data privacy have been heightened further in the wake of the June disclosures of U. National Security Agency surveillance programs, press reports suggesting that U. Consequently, many analysts worry that future U. The U. EP approval will also be required for any eventual U. In response to the NSA programs and other spying allegations, the EP established a special working group within the EP's civil liberties committee to conduct an in-depth investigation into U.

In March , the full Parliament adopted the so-called "Moraes report" with votes in favor, 78 opposed, and 60 abstentions , concluding the EP's inquiry into the alleged surveillance activities. The "Moraes report" is deeply critical of the NSA's alleged mass surveillance programs, as well as those purportedly carried out by the UK's signals intelligence agency, and asserts that such mass surveillance activities could have potentially severe implications on fundamental freedoms and the privacy rights of EU citizens.

The report also contains a long list of recommendations, some of which pertain to U. In particular, the report urges the United States to revise its legislation to recognize the privacy rights of EU citizens and to provide judicial redress; reiterates previous EP calls for the immediate suspension of the U. The resolution approving the "Moraes report" is not binding on the European Commission or the member states, which do not appear inclined at present to take action against SWIFT; similarly, the Commission has rejected suspending Safe Harbor because, in its view, doing so could adversely affect EU and U.

Nevertheless, the "Moraes report" does express the "sense" of the Parliament on these issues, and thus carries a degree of political weight. The alleged U. In March , the Parliament approved several changes to the Commission's proposal on data protection reforms that would essentially require U. The EP's version of the proposed data protection reforms, however, must still be approved by the EU member states. Meanwhile, a key U. The EP's rejection of ACTA prevents the EU and its member states from joining the agreement in its current form, and the accord's future prospects are unclear.

In addition, EP approval will ultimately be required to allow a future U. The EP has strongly supported the TTIP concept as a way to boost economic growth and stimulate job creation on both sides of the Atlantic. However, following the disclosures of the NSA surveillance programs and the other allegations of U.

Ties between the European Parliament and the U. The top of the building, which has a look of the unfinished about it, illustrates the ongoing nature of the European project. It contains office areas and communication and social facilities. The interior is based on three internal thoroughfares, the main one decorated as a winter garden, with a forest of philodendrons.