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The European Parliament is set to test new rules in its upcoming June plenary session to avoid empty seats during debates and improve engagement between lawmakers and EU Commissioners.
The decision was taken on Wednesday by the chairs of the Parliament’s political groups. President Roberta Metsola asked them last year to come up with proposals to make Parliament’s debates shorter and more meaningful.
The next session will see a clear start and end time for each debate. Under the current rules, debates often drag on beyond schedule, sometimes delaying an entire day’s programme. The upshot is that long discussions stretch into the late evening with very few MEPs present – often only the ones with allotted speaking time.
In the session from 15-18 June, sittings will have deadlines: 8.30pm on Monday, 7pm on Tuesday and Wednesday, and 4pm on Thursday.
Another new measure to improve MEPs’ participation is to move other parliamentary activities, such as political meetings or negotiations with member states, until after the plenary’s debates, which many MEPs regularly miss due to scheduling conflicts.
Lawmakers will be allowed to make a short personal statement immediately when one of their colleagues makes remarks directly relevant to them personally, and “blue cards”, a system allowing MEPs to ask a question to a colleague on stage, will be encouraged.
The Parliament will also maintain a special format used in the last few months for key debates, under which MEPs on the speaker’s list are not informed of its order in advance, giving them an incentive to follow the entire debate.
MEPs have also made clear they want more discussion with EU Commissioners, who already take part in the plenary’s debates with an initial statement and a closing remark. Under the new rules, they will also have the floor during the debates to reply to each lawmaker’s interventions.
The upcoming plenary will feature a specific debate to scrutinise the European Commission, with a “question time” similar to the ones held in some national parliaments. Next week, it will be held on 16 June at 3pm after the Commission’s college meeting, and will focus on the reporting burden for small and medium enterprises across Europe.