With a newly elected President, at the helm of the second-largest democratic electorate (after India) and the largest trans-national democratic electorate in the world, European Parliament has gone over a plethora of changes before coming to its present constitution and structure.

TRACING THE ORIGINS:

Initially, European Parliament was known as the Common Assembly of the "European Coal and Steel Community"(ECSC).

Assembly met for the first time in Sept 1952 with 78 representatives from the original six Member States (France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg).

At that time the Assembly had no legislative powers; it was simply used as a place for consultation and discussions.

Assembly expanded to 142 members in 1978 to include representatives from the ECSC and the two newly established communities (European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom).

The Assembly was also rechristened as ‘European Parliamentary Assembly’. Its name was thereafter, unofficially, changed to EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT on 30 March 1962, which was finally sanctioned by the 1987 Single European Act.

In 1970, the European Parliament was granted some "Community Budget powers", and five years later the Parliament was granted powers over the entire budget through the reformed treaties (the Treaty of Luxembourg and the Treaty of Brussels).

The first directly elected members took the seats of the parliament in 1979, with Simone Veil being the first member to be elected as the President of Parliament.

The evolution of the Parliament culminated with the Lisbon Treaty (2007) that governs the present procedures and structure of Parliament.

PRESENT COMPOSITION, ELECTIONS & STRUCTURE:

Presently, European Parliament consists of 705 Members(MEP) elected in the 27 Member States of the enlarged European Union. Since 1979, MEPs have been elected by direct universal suffrage for 5 years.

Each country decides on the form of the election, but EU elections are by proportional representation only. The voting age is 18, aside from Austria, where it is 16. Seats are allotted based on the member's state population.

MEPs functions with a political affinity, not nationality.

The president, elected by members of Parliament for a two-and-a-half-year term presides over the body and is the final authority in sanctioning EU budgets!