The European Parliament in the Decision-Making Mechanisms of the European Union: Power at the Cost of Comprehensibility

This paper proposes to analyze the influence of the European Parliament within the European Union. As a first step, the process of parliamentarization must be taken into account since it has influenced this political system since the end of the 1970s. As a second step, the contribution of the Parliament to policy making can be analyzed with a focus on the fate of its amendments. However, this approach has lost relevance since the beginning of the 21st century as a result of the multiplication of early agreements in the process of joint decision making. This is why a broader quantitative approach to the influence of the Parliament is necessary provided it is able to take the gradual pacification of inter-institutional relations into account. This evolution shows a strengthening of the ability of the Parliament to negotiate directly with the European Council and the European Commission, and therefore has an impact on the definition and the implementation of EU policies. However, it poses the problem of the comprehensibility of the Parliament’s activities and of the democratic character of decisions taken behind the scenes.