The European Parliament On The European Union's Foreign Policy Analysis

Since1979when direct election was officially operated, the EuropeanParliament began to act as the leading representative of European DemocracySystem. The paper is trying to make points in the role played by the EuropeanParliament during the progress of Europe Foreign Policy Integration, with temporalbasis of EC period and EU period. The foundation of analysis lies in the historyconcerning important conventions of inside the region and the expansions of powerof the European Parliament.It is the key argument of the thesis that the role of European Parliament hasbeen expanding in the foreign policy of European Union. First, in self-constructionof European Parliament, the mechanism of the production of members of theParliament has developed from the dispatchment from EU members to generalelections, thus European Parliament has gained the legitimacy of the participation inforeign policy decision making. Meanwhile, according to the demand ofdevelopment, European Parliament has gradually set up a completed system ofcommittees and it has guaranteed European Parliament exercising its role. Second,the function of European Parliament has developed to be more and more powerful.The legislative function of European Parliament has developed from consultingprocedure into approval procedure and even common decision making proceduretoday. With the growing of the power and area of decision making, EuropeanParliament becomes one of the ’two humps’ in the legislative area of EU. Moreover,starting with the right of partial budget in1970s, European Parliament, which hascontinuously grown its rights and functions, now becomes a budget decision makerin most of the policy areas of EU as some other EU bodies do. Third, EuropeanParliament set a clear goal for its development that it firmly supports the integrationprocess of EU and seeks positively to expand its impact in various ways with theexpectation of acquisition of the equivalent right and function of the parliaments ofEU members.