"Between a Rock and a Hard Place”: a posição do Parlamento Europeu no Sistema Institucional da União Europeia

Low turnout in the European Parliament (EP) elections raises two questions: (i) is the EP a fragile institution? (ii) Do competences assigned to the EP reinforce that perception? National parliaments are the benchmark to examine whether the position and the powers of the EP fall behind national parliaments’ standards, adding to the understanding that European elections have a “second-order” nature. Despite some reservations to the comparative method are pointed out based on the non state-centric nature of the European Union, the EP ranks well in comparison with national parliaments: both the competences (legislative, budgetary and political control) and the institutional position (focus of representativeness, democratic legitimacy and source of the government) show how similar the EP is to national parliaments.