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- 'MEPs and the European Parliament are an expensive irrelevancy. All the power lies with the appointed, unelected and unaccountable Commission' (Letter to Sunday Times, October 2005).
- The European Parliament 'was kept well clear of the activities of the Commission. Even its buildings were hundreds of miles away. The chief activity of MEPs seemed to be…rubber-stamping the decisions of the corrupt oligarchy they were meant to regulate' (Paul Johnson in The Guardian, September 2003)
- The European Parliament 'curbs no executive' (Simon Jenkins in The Times, June 2004)
- 'It is not remotely credible that the European Parliament can provide a democratic check upon the doings of the European executive' (Max Hastings in The Guardian, December 2003)
Most of the work of the European Parliament (committee meetings, some full sessions; political group meetings) takes place in Brussels, a few hundred metres (not hundreds of miles) from the European Commission buildings. The European Parliament's investigation of financial mismanagement led directly to the resignation of the European Commission in 1999.
The European Parliament vets the candidates for European Commissioner and Court of Auditor posts. José Manuel Barroso withdrew two proposed Commissioners and was obliged to reshuffle his team in 2004 when the European Parliament threatened not to approve the 25 Commissioners proposed.
Since then, the Commission's accountability to Parliament has been further enhanced with the signing of a formal agreement between the two EU institutions on future ways of working. |