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The European Council essentially consists of the heads of state of the EU governments, which may or may not be members of their respective national parliament.
by morsch 3y ago
The European Council essentially consists of the heads of state of the EU governments, which may or may not be members of their respective national parliament. I guess it's a minor nitpick. But it directly represents the national executive and not the legislative bodies.
- toyg 3y agoYeah, my main point is that saying "the EU" when talking about the Council can be disingenuous - technically it's more like "national governments of member countries" rather than the institution. Both Commission and Parliament are technically closer to expressing the will of "the EU" as a body than the Council.
- somewhereoutth 3y agoThough sovereignty and final power flows from the Council. Compare with the US system where sovereignty comes from the US as a whole and is delegated down to the States.
- toyg 3y ago> Though sovereignty and final power flows from the Council. Eeehh... This is an open point of law, technically. Per Maastricht treaty, the European Parliament has co-decision powers, and its consistent electoral system arguably makes it more directly representative of European people than national governments. Parliament "stared down" the Council on occasions. The Council/Commission/Parliament setup is really not the finished article, I expect things will change again before the end of the century.