do you know how the EU is govern what
are the important institutions how do
they work together you probably only
have a vague idea of how it works and
probably know more about the u.s.
politics than about European politics do
you know who the European president is
trick question there are around a dozen
this episode will look at how the
European government works but also show
many of its flaws this is not to say
that the EU is necessarily a real poorly
but I will address many of the concerns
average citizens have anything we can
all agree that governments could be run
more efficiently in general all right so
let's start at the top the European
Council it is comprised of the 28
Chancellor's presidents and prime
ministers who are the heads of state of
their own European country at the
council the European leaders meet four
times per year to define the EU s policy
to push forward European integration and
to serve as an emergency break or I can
cancel any EU plan if it can convince
half the EU leaders to vote against that
plan so to whom does the European
Council give direction to the European
Commission the Commission is responsible
for drafting all the laws of the
European Union it is comprised of 28
commissioners one from each country who
are each in charge of one aspect of
European law there is a commissioner of
transport a commissioner of regional
policy a commissioner of research
science and innovation and so forth this
way the Commission acts like a cabinet
it's led by a president who is nominated
by the European Council and approved by
the European Parliament the other 27
commissioners are chosen by each member
country this way every member state has
128 say in creating the laws of the
European Union ok so what happens after
the Commission proposes a law there are
two options first if it concerns mostly
policy within the European Union going
to get sent to the European Parliament
to vote on it the majority votes in
favor the laws adopted the European
Parliament functions much like a
national parliament there are political
parties the people vote for them and
they passed laws so how are the seats in
parliament determined well every member
state gets an amount of seats depending
on the population of that country but
each country receives at least six seats
out of the total of 751 seats so when
there are elections each country is
assigned six seats the remaining 583 are
then divided depending
population Latvia for example has two
million people out of a total European
population of 508 million
Latvia does has 0.4% of the European
population meaning it gets 0.4% of the
remaining European Parliament seats
which results in two extra seats on top
of the guaranteed six seats
this is done for every country and a
lift is here so you can see how many
seats each country currently holds
during elections you vote for your
national party so let's say a Latvian
party receives 50% of the votes then
they get four out of the eight seats in
the European Parliament those four don't
sit alone however or they form a group
with like-minded parties from other
countries I will leave this here if
you're interested in a different you
bodies and what they generally stand for
but what does the EU Parliament do the
Parliament sets a budget for the EU
institutions every year overseas the
other EU institutions and votes are law
but there is a catch so the Commission
proposes a law it sends that law to the
Parliament and Parliament decides to
either pass it or send it back to the
Commission with the adjustments they'd
like to see this creates a strange
distribution of power the Commission is
the one who creates the law and
Parliament is the one who debates the
laws and votes on laws this is different
from US or British politics yeah you
make a law to defend your own law in
Parliament and convince other
parliamentarians to vote on your law
this is one of the main reasons why the
EU is thought of as undemocratic the
Commission is selected by member
countries not by voters there are 28
commissioners so if you're a Slovak that
you didn't get a say in the creation of
27 out of the 28 fields of law in the
European Union this is not to mention
that 28 commissioners are simply too
many to be effective on top of that
Parliament continuously fails in
bringing the Europeans closer to the
European projects and out in the
European elections is low and falling
voters tend to decide on national not on
European issues far from acting as a
parliament that controls spending
it is often behaved more as a lobby
group whose main aim seems to be to
spend more and augment its own powers
but it's not all bad
for example the Commission is quite an
efficient institution employing only
around 30,000 people about the same
amount as a largest local council
one of the member states and under the
recent leadership of jean-claude Juncker
it is sharply reduced the amounts of law
and proposes and the EU parliamentarians
are impressively well qualified for
improving legislation and questioning
the EU Commission it has passed many
groundbreaking laws in the past such as
reducing roaming charges sourcing
legislation that sets the EU up as a
global power and taking step towards
more gender equality in the EU
okay so internal European matters get
sent to Parliament what if it's not an
internal matter well if it concerns
Foreign Affairs or requires cooperation
between the countries then it gets sent
to the Council of Ministers
the Council of Ministers is comprised of
one minister from each country depending
on what they vote on there are different
ministers present if you vote on an
agricultural law there will only be
agricultural ministers if you vote on
matters of Finance there will be 28
finance ministers and so forth the
Council of Ministers acts as a balance
with the European Parliament where
Parliament is purely a European
institution with European goals the
Council of Ministers is comprised of
people who have the best interest of
their country in mind together with
Parliament they get to decide on the EU
budget then there is the European Court
of Auditors
which she steward that the taxpayers
money is spent efficiently in the EU
there is the European Court of Justice
which is the judicial arm of the
European Union it is comprised of judges
from all over the EU its role is to see
to it that you laws are applied in all
Member States and to settle legal
matters between institutions and
countries it is the highest court in the
European Union the last institutions to
mention are the European Central Bank
and the Euro group we will get into
their next episode when we talk about
the euro and the euro crisis then there
are the major inefficiencies in the
European Union for example the European
Parliament moves between Brussels and
Strasbourg every month costing 114
million euros every year there's also
the Economic and Social Committee and
the Committee of Regents they bring
together trade unions and civil
representatives for monthly meetings to
advise the Council of Ministers they
cost about 200 million euro every year
but nobody would miss them if they were
to disappear tomorrow lastly all the
institutions just mentioned are spread
over Brussels Luxembourg Strasbourg and
Frankfurt as well as several other
European cities this was done too
that not one country can lead the EU by
having all the European institutions in
their country but as a result it means
that you can't communicate properly so
EU officials have to move between cities
a lot and this explains how the European
Union works within itself there are also
countries outside the EU who want access
to the vast European market but don't
want to adhere to all the EU legislation
notably fishing regulations for Norway
and Iceland and banking regulations for
Switzerland they are part of the
European Economic Area and Schengen
meaning that they can trade freely with
EU countries and you can move between
them never realizing you left the
European Union but these countries don't
have any say in their rules meaning that
if the Schengen or EEA treaties have
changed they can either sign the treaty
or leave so here you have it a complete
broad overview of the important
institutions and how they work next week
we'll delve into the euro and the euro
crisis if you liked this episode press
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