ABSTRACT
Members of the Assembly, now Parliament, were initially delegates designated by the parliaments of Member States. In constitutional terms, the delegates had a dual mandate: that of membership of both the domestic and European Parliaments. The Treaty, however, envisaged that the Assembly should draw up proposals for direct elections and that the Council would lay down the appropriate provisions, which it would recommend to Member States for adoption. It was to be in 1976 that agreement could be reached on the proposals drawn up in 1960, and only in 1979 did direct election take place in the United Kingdom. The Council Decision and Act of September 1976 on Direct Elections simply stated that the representatives in the European Parliament of the peoples of the states brought together in the Community shall be elected by direct universal suffrage.60 The European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999 regulates elections to the European Parliament in the United Kingdom.
