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31

Introduction

There is still some work to do on improving the

general understanding of the institutional de-

sign of the European Union’s political frame-

work in view of the many official or unofficial

institutions and the abuse of the intergovern-

mental method over the last few years. Even so,

the Union has a conceptual design comparable

to any national democracy, although it does

have certain differences that warrant an expla-

nation.

The European Parliament, for its part, as the

expression of European popular sovereignty,

performs a central role in the oversight of the

executive branch, as well as in the legislative

process. Even so, the notion of a Parliament

with few duties, limited areas of intervention

and handicapped by the absence of legislative

initiative lives on in the collective imagination.

Yet since the Lisbon Treaty took effect the role

of the Parliament has ranked equally with that

of any national legislative arm, albeit with cer-

tain peculiarities that we will analyse below.

Nonetheless, the Eurozone economic crisis has

driven a substantial part of the integration seen

over the past few years outside the community

method, with an increasingly marked presence

of the European Council and, therefore, of the

Eurogroup. All that has reshaped the institu-

tional framework.

In this article we will first present a brief

summary of the Union’s political and institution-

al framework to provide an accurate picture of

the European Parliament’s role within it and its

relationship with the Commission, but especially

The European Parliament and

its initiative and oversight

capacity. The political agenda

of the European Council and

the Eurogroup

Jonás Fernández Álvarez