ABSTRACT
The European Parliament (EP; Parliament) is now an important and influential European Union (EU) institution with the power to amend legislation, act as joint budgetary authority with the Council of Ministers, grant discharge of the budget, appoint EU actors (including Commissioners and the Ombudsman) and dismiss the Commission (Burns 2001). Successive Treaty changes in recent years have granted the EP increasing formal significance: indeed, Parliament is now empowered by the Codecision procedure to act as co-legislator with the Council of Ministers in most areas of legislation adopted under the first pillar. However, the EP still does not appear to be recognized by member-state citizens and publics as an instrument with which to make EU decision making more democratic. The newly empowered Parliament has so far appeared to be less than worthwhile to EU citizens, at least if turn-out rates at EP elections, which are actually declining, are a valid indicator. Crucially, instead of claiming authority by being the ‘voice of the people(s)’, in fact, much of Parliament's influence to date has depended upon its ability to act entrepreneurially in pursuit of its own interests. These cannot automatically be assumed to be the same as those of EU citizens. As one of us argues elsewhere (Warleigh 2001), in EU politics, as in other systems, institutions are often far from neutral. They seek not only to promote their own interests and condition the world-views of actors within them, but also to impede outsiders’ ability to contribute to policy making. Thus, as the EP's powers and influence have grown, it is not entirely surprising that this has failed to translate into greater legitimacy.
