Parliamentary committees

There are 20 standing committees (and two sub-committees) in the EP, each covering a different policy area. They
draw up reports for consideration in the plenary – on both legislative and non-legislative matters – and hold the
executive to account. The chart below lists the committees of the EP, ordered by the number of MEPs who sit on
them. It shows the chairs, elected by the members of each committee, together with their political group and
nationality. The chairs of the committees meet together in the Conference of Committee Chairs, and have elected
Cecilia Wikström, Chair of the Petitions (PETI) Committee, as their president for the second half of the current
parliamentary term. The pie chart shows the distribution of committee chairs between the political groups, using
the same colour code as before.
In addition, there are currently three special committees – normally with a term of office of up to twelve months –
on Terrorism (TERR), on the EU authorisation procedure for pesticides (PEST), and on Financial Crimes, Tax Evasion
and Tax Avoidance (TAX3). The first two comprise 30 members each, and the third has 45 members.