The European Parliament’s legislative activity

The most important work of the European Parliament lies in amending and passing EU legislation. Three procedures are used, with the most common now being the ordinary legislative procedure (formerly co-decision). Parliament may also be required to give (or withhold) its consent to certain Council decisions, or may simply be consulted on certain Commission proposals. (A fourth procedure, cooperation, is no longer in use.) The two graphs above together show the rise in the use of co-decision, reflecting greater EP power from successive Treaty changes, and the growing trend for the EP and Council to agree on legislative texts at the first reading of that process.
The bar chart shows all legislative resolutions adopted in plenary by parliamentary term – that is, including all readings for co-decision and the cooperation procedure. The graph shows the stage of the co-decision procedure at which the EP and Council reached agreement on each legislative text.