European parliament

Direct elections may be a crucial crossroads in the short life of the European Community. They offer a choice and, almost for the first time, an open and democratic choice to be reached, it is to be hoped, after a full public debate..

Direct elections are though elections to the European Parliament. This central fact should not be lost sight of in considering the novel phenomenon of European elections. The Parliament is itself central to the debate. One can after all hardly be against elections; one can only be against direct elections to the European Parliament, because of what the European Parliament is, is not, or might become, could or could not do to the Community as a whole. Indeed, as we shall see, these are the very issues which recur in debate in every member state.

The present part time, 198 member nominated Parliament is one of the four institutions of the Community together with the Commission, the Council of Ministers and the Court of Justice. The first three are the executive or policy making institutions. The decision making process, which many observers in the 1960s described as a dialogue à deux has now become much more a triangular dialogue, with Parliament. acting less as a permanent ally of the Commission and more and more as an even handed and independent actor. As yet the weight of the Parliament is by no means equal to that of the other two institutions, but direct elections will reinforce a tendency which is already evident.