The Powers of the European Parliament
Successive European treaties have increased the European Parliament’s power.  Its has power to amend the European budget as well as joint legislative powers and control over all the European institutions.

Parliament has a power of political initiative in that it can call on the Commission to submit a proposal to the Council of the European Union. It regularly invites the Commission and the Council of the European Union to develop existing policies or initiate new ones.

Budgetary power
The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union together decide on an annual budget each year. 

The procedure of examining, expenditure and revenue and agreeing the budget takes place between June and December.    

The Commission prepares a draft budget which it submits to the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament for approval. 

Parliament has the power to amend the draft budget and if it wishes to make changes then it will return the budget to the Council for redrafting.  The Council must then revise the budget before returning it to the European Parliament.

The European Parliament considers the revised budget and will agree it on the basis of a recommendation by its Committee on Budgetary Control. Parliament adopts or rejects the amended budget at a second reading.

Parliament and the European Council
The European Parliament shares legislative power equally with the Council of the European Union. The European Council is made up of the Heads of State meets a maximum of four times a year.    
Under a rotating system, the presidency of the European Council is held by each member state in turn for a six month period.

The European Council sets out general guidelines and political priorities in line with European Parliament’s recommendations.

Each European summit starts with the President of the European Parliament setting out parliament’s position on the subjects to be addressed by the heads of state and government. At the end of the  summit the President of the European Council responds by presenting a report on outcomes and progress to Parliament. 

Oversight over the Commission and Council
The European Parliament exercises democratic control over the Commission and oversight over the activities of the Council.

While the President of the Commission is appointed by a majority vote in the Council, The European Parliament has the power to approve or reject the proposed appointment.

After the President has been appointed and member states appoint the Commissioners, the College of Commissioners must then be endorsed as a whole by Parliament.

In order to ensure democratic control within the Union, Members of the European Parliament have the power to censure the Commission. In an extreme case this could force the College of Commissioners as a whole to resign.

Joint legislative power       
While only the European Commission can initiate legislation, a parliamentary committee has the power to amend the legislation. This procedure of shared power is called co-decision.

Co-decision
The co-decision procedure reinforces the European Parliament’s legislative role, and has shifted the balance of power away from the Commission.    

Codecision gives the same weight to the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union on a wide range of areas - transport, the environment and consumer protection, for example.

Co-decision was introduced by the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. Subsequently, the Amsterdam and Nice Treaties (1999 and 200?) extended this principle and co-decision now applies to around 80 per cent of Community legislation.

Conciliation
If the Commission, the Council and Parliament fail to agree on a piece of proposed legislation there is a procedure in place for resolving the impasse.

The Commission sends its proposal to Parliament and the Council.
They consider it, and discuss it on two successive occasions.
After two readings, if they cannot agree, the proposal is brought before a Conciliation Committee made up of an equal number of representatives of the Council and Parliament.

Representatives of the Commission are able to attend the meetings of the Conciliation Committee and contribute to discussions.
When the Conciliation Committee has reached agreement, the text agreed upon is sent to Parliament and the Council for a third reading, so that they can finally adopt it as a legislative text.
The final agreement of the two institutions is essential if the text is to be adopted as a law.

Even if a joint text is agreed by the Conciliation Committee, Parliament can still reject the proposed law by an absolute majority of its members.

Consultation Procedure
Parliament is restricted to an advisory or consultative role in the case of sensitive areas such as taxation, industrial and agricultural policy.

This is known as the consultation procedure. In some cases the Treaty imposes a legal obligation to consult with the European Parliament. The proposal cannot acquire the force of law unless Parliament has delivered an opinion.

Democratic controls
The European Parliament has major supervisory powers and democratic controls over the activities of the European Union.

These include:

The power of political initiative.
The European Parliament plays a role in creating new laws, since it examines the Commission’s annual programme of work and says which laws it would like to see introduced. It can ask the Commission to present legislative proposals for laws to the Council.

Citizens’ right of petition
Every European citizen has the right to petition Parliament to ask for problems to be remedied in areas within the sphere of activity of the European Union. The European Parliament’s Ombudsman deals with complaints by individuals against Community institutions or bodies and has the power to broker an acceptable solution.

Inquiries
The European Parliament has the power to set up committees of inquiry to look into violations or the misapplication of Community law by member states.

The European Court of Justice
The European Court of Justice is responsible for interpreting community law and adjudicating on disputes arising from interpretation of the treaties and any concomitant legislation. The court makes judgements on cases referred to it by EU institutions, national governments and courts, corporations and individuals.

An action for failure to act can be brought against the Commission or the Council of the European Union if they fail to fulfil their obligations.

Financial control
The European Parliament has powers of control in the economic and monetary domain.  The President, the Vice-President and the members of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank cannot be appointed by the Council until the European Parliament has given its assent.