By In the first of a series of articles entitled ‘EU for Facebook Junkies’, Martina Brinkmann looks at the institutions of the EU and gives us a simple road map to help us understand what is going on.
The European Union is an amazing politico-economic union of 28 member states but it is also a very complex one at times. And one problem that the EU can have is very bad marketing for its Institutions and their achievements.
But it is getting better and nowadays, while you can find a lot of offical Facebook Pages of the European Union, some of it can be a liitle daunting when you try to read through. So every week, I will present you differnt institution and try to explain the how it works. This week, we will start with the European Parliament.
So what is the European Parliament?
The European Parliament (EP) is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union (EU). Together with the Council of the European Union (the Council) and the European Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU. The Parliament is composed of 751 (previously 766) members, who represent the second largest democratic electorate in the world, are elected directly by all EU Citizens every 5 years and represent you.
The European Parliament resides in three venues – Brussels (Belgium),the city of Luxembourg (Luxembourg) and Strasbourg (France). Luxembourg is home to the administrative offices (the General Secretariat). Meetings of the whole Parliament (Plenary Sessions) take place in Strasbourg and in Brussels.
Committee meetings are also held in Brussels.
If you want to know, who are the MEP’s, you can visit the official website and have look or click on the left side of the Facebook Page on MEP ‘s.
Their Facebook page also has press releases, info sheets, video clips , pictures and under the Parlamentarium section, you will find information about the EU visitors centre in Brussels.
You can even chat with the Social Media Team if you like. There are even funny or amusing posts, so just try it yourself and take a look.
Thank you for this clear guide. I already know some of this information but the article fills in some gaps and I would like to learn more.
Thank you Jacqueline. We will be publishing a substantial amount of articles on the forthcoming European Parliamentary elections in May so don’t forget to share please and add Europa United to your favourites so not to miss anything.
Thank you. We sould all have a better understanding. We wouldn’t be in this mess if we did.