Unit 2. The inter-institutional relations: how institutions and subsystems interact.

STEP 2. Which elements of the Presidential/separated powers model can be found in the EU?

As said in the previous unit, the European Parliament (EP) and the Council of Ministers are the two main actors making up the EU legislative subsystem. If compared to the Member States’ legislative bodies, the EP and the Council of Ministers can be considered as the two ‘chambers/houses’ making up a bigger and broader legislative body, where the European Parliament stands as the ‘lower house’ directly elected and representing citizens, while the Council of Ministers is the ‘upper house’ indirectly elected and representing Member States’ territorial interests. The European Council and the European Commission, instead, embody what in national systems is the executive power, respectively in terms of governmental direction and bureaucracy. Therefore, we can say that in the EU we have a ‘dual’ legislative body, as well as a ‘dual’ executive. In order to understand whether the EU is more similar to a Parliamentary or Presidential system, let’s first try to assess which elements of the two models can be found in the EU.