How the plenary works
This week MEPs will gather in Strasbourg to debate issues and vote on proposals affecting all Europeans during the plenary session. It is when months of preparatory work by the political groups and parliamentary committees finally come to a head. But how does it actually work? How do they decide on what to debate and vote on and how do they make sure all views are heard when there are more than 750 MEPs? All that and more will be revealed in this five-minute guide to plenary proceedings.
Frequency
The four-day plenary sessions take place in Strasbourg 12 times a year, while there are also two-day sessions held in Brussels. They always take place in public.
Preparation
Parliament boasts a range of committees that do the preparatory work for the plenary sessions. Each committee is dedicated to a certain topic and will deal with legislative proposals that are related to it. So agricultural issues would for example be covered by the Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. But there are many other committees dedicated to anything from consumer issues to foreign affairs.
Committees are the first to look at legislative proposals from the European Commission and are responsible for in-depth examination of the issues and sometimes lengthy negotiations with both the Commission and the Council, as well as between political groups. At the end of the process a committee will submit a report to the plenary as a whole, containing a recommendation and usually proposed amendments to the draft legislation.
Agenda
The plenary agenda, which is prepared in advance by the leaders of the political groups sitting in the "Conference of Presidents", is adopted at the beginning of each session, sometimes with last-minute changes.
Normally the plenary session will be about debating and adopting reports produced by the EP's committees, debating topical issues and questioning the Commission and the Council. If the latter is the case, then representatives from the two institutions will be asked to attend to answer enquiries from MEPs. Debates can end with a vote on a resolution. Any text submitted to plenary for a vote is subject to amendment, with political groups or any grouping of at least 40 members able to table amendments.
Debate
As there are 754 MEPs, it is not possible for every MEP to speak at length about an issue. This is why there are strict rules about who can speak and for how long. Most debates are organised on the basis of an allocation of speaking time to each political group, depending on its size, which the groups divide up between their members as they see fit. This gives rise to a list of current and upcoming speakers which is constantly updated as the debate progresses.
In a typical debate, expect first to hear from the rapporteur (if the debate concerns a report from a committee), from Commission and Council representatives and from a round of representatives from all the political groups (plus a non-attached member). Subsequently, other interested members from across the House will intervene. Part of the debate speakers are selected on the "catch-the-eye" principle, whereby the President selects Members in the Chamber indicating the wish to speak. If this is the case, then the Member will have up to a minute to do a short speech. Normally the agenda sets aside five minutes for catch-the-eye, but President can choose to either shorten or extend this period.
MEPs can hold up a blue card to indicate they would like to ask a question to another MEP holding a speech. If both the speaker and the President agree, then the Member will have half a minute to pose the question.
MEPs who did not have the opportunity to speak during a session can hand in a statement of up to 200 words, which is then appended to the debate's verbatim report.
Voting
Most votes (except on some procedural matters) take place during voting sessions at midday on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays of sitting weeks. Voting is normally by a simple show of hands. If the result is not clear the President can ask for an electronic vote, whereby Members vote using the machines at each desk, thereby giving exact figures. For some votes, normally those judged to be of high political importance, a political group can request a roll call vote, which also involves Members using their voting machines, but with the extra dimension that the vote of each individual member is recorded and published in the minutes.
For most matters a simple majority suffices, but for some purposes (e.g. a censure motion, certain budgetary or legislative votes), higher thresholds can apply, for example a majority of all sitting MEPs, regardless of the number actually voting on the day.
