The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union, it adopts European legislation, following a proposal by the European Commission. The Parliament is composed of 720 members (MEPs), after the June 2024 European elections, from a previous 705 MEPs. It represents the second-largest democratic electorate in the world, with an electorate of around 375 million eligible voters in 2024.
The European People's Party Group is a political group of the European Parliament consisting of deputies (MEPs) from the member parties of the European People's Party (EPP). Sometimes it also includes independent MEPs and/or deputies from unaffiliated national parties. The EPP Group comprises politicians of Christian democratic, conservative and liberal-conservative orientation.
The president of the European Commission, also known as president of the College of Commissioners or prime commissioner, is the head of the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union (EU). The president of the commission leads a cabinet of commissioners, referred to as the college. The president is empowered to allocate portfolios among, reshuffle, or dismiss commissioners as necessary. The college directs the commission's civil service, sets the policy agenda and determines the legislative proposals it produces. The commission is the only body that can propose, or draft, bills to become EU laws.
The president of the European Parliament presides over the debates and activities of the European Parliament. They also represent the Parliament within the European Union (EU) and internationally. The president's signature is required for laws initiated under co-decision and the EU budget.
Manfred Weber is a German politician who has been serving as President of the European People's Party (EPP) since 2022 and as Leader of the EPP Group in the European Parliament since 2014. He has been a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Germany since 2004. He is a member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), part of the European People's Party.
The official title President of the European Union does not exist, but there are a number of presidents of European Union institutions, including:
The committees of the European Parliament are designed to aid the European Commission in initiating legislation.
Adina-Ioana Vălean is a Romanian politician who has been serving as European Commissioner for Transport under the leadership of President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen from 2019 until June 2024. She served as a Member of the European Parliament from 2007 until 2019, where she chaired of the European Parliament Committee on Industry, Research and Energy in 2019. In the 2024 European elections she was again elected and became a member of the European Parliament.
Dubravka Šuica is a Croatian politician of the centre-right Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) who has been Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Democracy and Demography since 2019. She previously served as a member of the European Parliament from 2013 to 2019.
Roberta Metsola is a Maltese politician who has served as the president of the European Parliament since January 2022. She is a member of Malta's Nationalist Party (PN) and the European People's Party (EPP).
Esther M. R. de Lange is a Dutch politician who served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) between 2007 and 2024. A member of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), part of the European People's Party (EPP), she was elected as delegation leader in the European Parliament at a party conference on 2 November 2013 in Leeuwarden, a position she assumed the following year. In July 2014 she was elected as Vice President of the EPP Group in the European Parliament and in June 2018 as Vice President of the EPP Party. De Lange stepped down as MEP in February 2024.
Gunnar Beck is a German academic, lawyer and sometime politician. He served as deputy legal adviser (EU) at the House of Commons in London from 2002 to 2010 and as legal adviser to the UK parliamentary delegation to the Convention on the Future of Europe from 2002 to 2004. From 2014 to 2019 he was a part-time legal and EU affairs adviser to the Alternative for Germany from 2014 to 2019 and then a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2019 and 2024. From 2022 to May 2024 he held the position of vice-president of the Identity & Democracy Group. He has been a reader in EU law at the SOAS, University of London since 2005 and a door tenant and practicing barrister at 1EC Chambers from 2013. Beck has both won wider public and academic acclaim, and provoked fierce criticism in response to, his work on the legal reasoning of the European Court of Justice, the legal and political aspects of the euro and migration crises and on 18th/19th century German moral and legal philosophy, especially the works of Immanuel Kant and Johann Gottlieb Fichte.
The Spitzenkandidat process is the method of linking the choice of President of the Commission to the outcome of the European Parliament elections, with each major European political party nominating their candidate for Commission President prior to the Parliamentary elections. The Spitzenkandidat of the largest party would then be proposed by the European Council to the European Parliament for election to the Commission Presidency.
The ninth European Parliament was elected during the 2019 elections and sat until the tenth European Parliament was sworn in on 16 July 2024.
The von der Leyen Commission was the European Commission in office from 1 December 2019 to 30 November 2024. It consisted of one commissioner from each of the member states of the European Union – including Ursula von der Leyen, its president, who is from Germany.
The 2024 European Parliament election was held in the European Union (EU) between 6 and 9 June 2024. It was the tenth parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979, and the first European Parliament election after Brexit. A total of 720 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) were elected to represent more than 450 million people from 27 member states. This election also coincided with a number of other elections in some European Union member states.
Sofagate is a diplomatic protocol incident that happened during the visit of President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and President of the European Council Charles Michel to Turkey in April 2021. When Michel and von der Leyen were to meet with the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, there were only two chairs and two sofas in the room in which they were received. Michel then seated himself in the chair beside Erdoğan while von der Leyen was offered to take a seat on a sofa in the same room across the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu. Michel as a man took the more prominent position than von der Leyen as a woman, despite both having the title President. Many commentators described the incident as sexist, as did von der Leyen herself. Later on, Çavuşoğlu called the accusations against Turkey "unfair", saying that the seating arrangement was made in accordance with the requests of the European side and added protocol officials always "meet and discuss the arrangement before each visit."
The Bureau of the European Parliament election was held on 16 and 17 July 2024, where members of the European Parliament, elected in the 2024 election, voted to elect its Bureau for the 2.5 years term during the Tenth European Parliament. On 16 July, Roberta Metsola was elected president of the European Parliament together with 14 vice-presidents. On 17 July, 5 quaestors were elected.
The Second von der Leyen Commission is the current European Commission, in office since 1 December 2024. It consists of one commissioner from each of the member states of the European Union – including Ursula von der Leyen, its president, who is from Germany.
Roberta Metsola (EPP, ML)
