MEPs and voting
Pre-Brexit, the UK had 73 MEPs and influence. The Parliament now has 720 MEPs based on adult population.
To be passed by Council, proposed EU laws require a majority not only of member countries (55%) but also of EU population (65%). At least four member states representing at least 35% of the EU population can block a decision. The Council must then do everything in its power to reach a satisfactory solution within a reasonable time period.
See the section on sovereignty and law for details of the areas affected by EU law.
MEPs and political groupings
MEPs for 2024 – 2029 have joined these eight political groupings (ordered from left-wing to right-wing). The political groupings bring together MEPs with a common ideological outlook. Table 1.2 summarises the numbers of MEPs by country and political grouping (also ordered from left-wing to right-wing).
- GUE/NGL: Left Group is the Confederal Group of the European United Left – Nordic Green Left (46 MEPs).
- Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D Group) is centre-left, pro-EU, social democrat. Iratxe García Pérez (Spain) is the president. The UK Labour Party aligns with the S&D group (136 MEPs)
- Greens-EFA (European Free Alliance) are left/centre-left and regional (53 MEPs).
- Renew Europe is the successor to the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe group (ALDE) which existed from 2004 to 2019. In May 2019, ALDE dissolved and the new group announced the adoption of its name on 12 June 2019 after it formed an alliance with La République En Marche!. The UK’s Liberal Democrat MEPs align with this group. (77 MEPs)
- European People’s Party (EPP) is the most powerful political grouping in the European Parliament. The UK Conservative Party used to be aligned with the EPP, but in 2009 aligned itself with the ECR, which was supportive of the EU but wished to see it reform (188 MEPs).
- European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR Group) is centre-right to right-wing and eurosceptic (78 MEPs).
- PfE: Patriots for Europe (84) MEPs.
- ESN: European of Sovereign Nations Group – no website as yet – far right led by AfD (25 MEPs).
There are also 32 unattached MEPs. Sometimes referred to as ‘SI’ – Sans Inscrit.
The above list adds up to 719 because one Spanish MEP has yet to take their seat.
Table 1.2: MEPs by country and political grouping
| Country | Total | GUE/NGL | S&D | Greens/EFA | Renew Europe | EPP | ECR | PfE | ESN | Non-attached |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Austria | 20 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 6 | ||||
| Belgium | 22 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | ||
| Bulgaria | 17 | 2 | 5 | 6 | 1 | 3 | ||||
| Croatia | 12 | 4 | 1 | 6 | 1 | |||||
| Cyprus | 6 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Czechia | 21 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 9 | 1 | 2 | |||
| Denmark | 15 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Germany | 96 | 4 | 14 | 15 | 8 | 31 | 14 | 10 | ||
| Estonia | 7 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | |||||
| Finland | 15 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 1 | |||
| France | 81 | 9 | 13 | 5 | 13 | 6 | 4 | 30 | 1 | |
| Greece | 21 | 4 | 3 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 4 | |||
| Hungary | 21 | 2 | 7 | 11 | 1 | |||||
| Ireland | 14 | 3 | 1 | 6 | 4 | |||||
| Italy | 76 | 10 | 21 | 4 | 9 | 24 | 8 | |||
| Latvia | 9 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | |||
| Lithuania | 11 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | |||
| Luxembourg | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | ||||
| Malta | 6 | 3 | 3 | |||||||
| Netherlands | 31 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 7 | 6 | 1 | 6 | ||
| Poland | 53 | 3 | 1 | 23 | 20 | 3 | 3 | |||
| Portugal | 21 | 2 | 8 | 2 | 7 | 2 | ||||
| Romania | 33 | 11 | 1 | 3 | 10 | 6 | 2 | |||
| Slovakia | 15 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 7 | |||||
| Slovenia | 9 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 | |||||
| Spain | 60 | 4 | 20 | 4 | 1 | 22 | 6 | 3 | ||
| Sweden | 21 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 3 | |||
| EU | 719 | 46 | 136 | 53 | 77 | 188 | 78 | 84 | 25 | 32 |
Source: Europa, The political groups of the European Parliament
Influence and Commission proposals
The European Commission is the body of civil servants that serves the Parliament and the Council. The overall process for setting priorities and creating proposals for legislation follows three main steps.
1. Objectives are set for each five-year mandate
- European Commission drafts a work plan – set at a high level
- Seeks agreement from the European Council (the leaders of all Member States) and the European Parliament (EP).
- Normally not amended once agreed but there can be changes to reflect unexpected issues (e.g. financial crisis),
- Work plan predominantly reflects views of Member States.
2. Commission prepares proposals
- Operates to ‘better regulation’ principles
- Principles of subsidiarity and proportionality
- Runs public consultations on its proposals and/or seeks views on what proposals should be
- Uses range of tools – non-legislative (recommendations and decisions) and legislative (directives and regulations).
3. Draft proposals are debated, refined and approved
- Proposals are subject to co-decision process of Council of Ministers and the EP
- Each institution has separate committees to consider certain themes e.g. agriculture or economic matters.
- Commission
- is party to deliberations and can try to influence discussions.
- cannot force its view on Council of Ministers or EP.
- Commission’s only power is to withdraw proposal.
- Formal mechanism for discussion between both sides to agree text (can be an extended process)
- Final, agreed proposals approved by vote in (i) full European Council, and (ii) EP plenary session.
UK influence (pre-referendum)
[Warning! – opinions as well as facts! From here to the end of this section is based on the views of a senior Brussels-based British civil servant who no longer works for the civil service].
The description of how the EU works can be brought to life by looking at the UK’s influence within the EU.
“The UK has always been successful in seeking beneficial changes to EU proposals/legislation when it has sought it. However the UK’s influence has been decreasing over time” …… senior Brussels-based UK civil servant (retired) – 2016 pre-referendum
The UK’s influence could be seen in:
- language – English is currently the main language of the EU;
- form of legislation – drafting of EU legislation follows pattern found in UK legislation;
- form of deliberation – use of committees and negotiation between opposing political views is as in the UK;
- ‘Anglo Saxon’ economic model – used by many EU states with the UK seen as creator/developer of model;
- UK financial services – UK viewed as EU financial regulatory centre and global hub for EU.
UK opt-outs
Where the UK felt strongly that it did not want to follow EU law (and had not been able to address that concern during negotiation on the text) it had previously sought and found compromise via ‘opt outs’.
The UK had the greatest number of ‘opt outs’ of any Member State, including:
- Working Time Directive where the UK had a number of opt outs;
- rebate on UK contribution to the EU budget;
- non-inclusion in the Eurozone;
- non-inclusion in the Schengen area (UK retained passport checks on its borders);
- David Cameron’s negotiation with the EU had secured an important UK opt-out on closer political union. Cameron’s agreement also included increased UK veto powers on Commission proposals.
Civil service influence
The UK Civil Service influenced the EU legislative process because UK civil servants dealt with Commission at a number of levels:
- Via secondment where they had significant control over the drafting of proposals;
- Engagement with Commission Officials during drafting stage (this was viewed as the most productive time for seeking changes);
- Once a proposal had been made, UK civil servants, who specialised on that topic, attended working group meetings with representatives of other member states to consider detail and suggest amendments to the text (a lot of the real work on this was done in the margins and before meetings).
NB: when downsizing of Civil Service put pressure on officials’ ability to go to Brussels, much of this work was routed through UK Permanent Representation staff in Brussels who were not technical experts.
To ensure that civil servants were pursuing the correct policy path, they:
- Sought ministerial agreement and agreement of European Scrutiny committees of Parliament and Lords
- Updated the minister and parliamentary committees as discussions continue.
- Prior to UK agreeing text at EU level, sought agreement from parliament – albeit UK’s power to change EU legislation at that point was very limited, This element was an area of concern that the UK sought to address with the inclusion of a ‘red card’ in Cameron’s negotiation.
The other area where the UK could modify EU legislation was via the implementation of an EU Directive when ‘woolly language’ often allows for flexibility of approach. Some notable examples: bank bonuses and Audit Directive that had over 20 Member State options.
Ironically, the UK had a reputation for ‘gold plating’ EU law, i.e. going further than EU regulation required. This conflicted with the view that UK ‘had to do what Brussels said’ – it did more.
UK placements
The UK had also succeeded in placing UK people, or people favourable to the UK, in key positions, for example:
- The UK’s Jonathon Hill was Commissioner for Financial Services until he resigned in 2016, after the referendum.
- Economic and Monetary Committee in last EP was chaired by Sharon Bowles (previously MEP for SE England) – now Baroness Bowles
- Committee for Internal Market and Consumer Protection chaired by Vicky Ford (MEP, East of England)
- UK MEPs often acted as rapporteurs (who write reports for EP and committees and influence content).
Pre-Brexit decline
Whilst still strong (because of the reasons outlined above, the size of the UK economy and strengths in areas like financial services and security), the UK’s influence had been declining over recent years before 2016. The UK had 73 MEPs, but 29 (over one third) represented the Brexit Party (previously 24 with UKIP). These MEPs played no constructive role in EP. Even without Brexit, the Brexit Party and UKIP had significantly weakened UK influence within the European Parliament and the Commission.