Europees Parlement richt zich volledig op de aanstaande verkiezingen (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – The European Parliament finished its last legislative session on Thursday as campaigning begins for the June European elections, with politicians once again battling the downward trend in voter turnout.

Marking the end of his term as parliament president, Hans-Gert Poettering i noted that the institution had become the "decisive seat of political compromise" in the European Union.

"Today very few decisions are taken without the explicit consent of the parliament," said the German centre-right politician.

Since the beginning of the current legislature, in 2004, the parliament has passed a myriad of laws. They range from food labelling to banning mercury in thermometers, from regulating pay for temp workers to outlining how much advertising is allowed on TV.

Among the most far-reaching legislative proposals passed by MEPs were those concerning the EU's climate change targets, requiring certain dangerous chemical substances to be registered and on liberalising the services and energy markets.

Euro-deputies have also sent the European Commission back to the drawing board on several issues. They outright rejected both an attempt to liberalise ports in the EU and the software patents directive, which would have allowed patenting of computer-implemented inventions.

More recently, they held tough on proposals to overhaul a law on regulating the number of hours worked a week and refused to endorse a proposal to the internet access of illegal downloaders, a move that will potentially delay the overall telecoms package for months.

New MEPs

Internally, the parliament's biggest change over the past five years was the welcoming of politicians from 12 new member states, overwhelmingly from central and eastern Europe.

Their integration, deemed one of the biggest successes of this parliament by Mr Poettering, changed the focus of the assembly in areas such as foreign policy.

The foreign affairs committee, headed by centre-right Polish MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, has put a far stronger - and generally tougher - emphasis on tackling EU relations with Russia and on energy security. It has also increased parliament's activity towards countries such as Ukraine and Georgia, with eastern deputies largely more sympathetic to their EU membership aspirations.

Culturally, the new batch of euro-deputies have brought their history to an assembly filled largely with western European politicians. A recent resolution against totalitarianism that the parliament produced earlier this year was agreed only after much debate about the legacies of Hitler and Stalin.

Looking ahead

The new parliament (2009-2014) will have a series of new challenges to tackle once it starts work in September.

Among the most pressing areas will be improving financial regulation in the aftermath of the current economic crisis and dealing with the bloc's ageing population. Further enlargement of the EU will also be up for consideration as well as how to tackle the urgent problems posed by climate change.

But one of its first tasks will be agreeing the new European Commission president and the college of commissioners.

How the parliament manoeuvres on this will be closely watched. In October 2004, it put itself on the power map by rejecting Italy's proposal for an EU commissioner on the grounds that the candidate was too socially conservative for the post of justice and home affairs commissioner.

Italy withdrew the nominee after it became clear that the parliament was gearing itself up to reject the entire commission on the back of the dispute.

Since then, the commission has been much more careful to court the parliament's opinion and consent across the board.

Getting to the next legislature

The inaugural session of the next parliament will take place mid July, following elections on 4-7 June.

Fear of an apparent rise in euroscepticism, the founding of anti-Lisbon treaty party Libertas, as well as the fact that election turnout has fallen every year since 1979 have meant that MEPs have been approaching this election with more of a sense of urgency than in the past.

Last month, the European Parliament launched a multi-million dollar publicity campaign to remind the EU's 375 million voters that its decisions affect almost every facet of their lives and that they should use their vote.