[Roark66]

It is important to note acts of EU parliament are just one stage of EU lawmaking and the fact "an act has passed" doesn't make it a law. Once such act has been passed there are many steps EU as well as member states have to take to make it law.

So, this article is very useful, but it really is just an analysis of compliance with _proposed_ law.

For it to become real law EU council has to agree unanimously (made up of prime ministers of all member states). Then each one of 27 countries has to implement the law following it's democratic process (national parliament, president, it has to pass any constitutional challenges if any are made etc). Only then it becomes law.

It is a long tedious process and certain things are apriori excluded from EU's jurisdiction altogether such as state level energy generation, anything that affects security situation and many others. So for decades now EU commission and the Court of justice of EU have been working very hard on "scope creep" of existing laws. It's a bonanza of opportunity for most powerful EU states to squeeze the smaller ones, for powerful external groups to influence whatever they want and so on. Seriously, after the horrible fiasco of Brexit (for EU, as I'm considering it from that perspective), loosing one of the most developed and competitive countries on Earth the EU should really have had a proper reform. There are many reasons why EU couldn't retain UK as a member. Arrogance of the commission, is but one of them. Now from the perspective of many years it is very clear booting UK out (and making it think it was it's own idea) was Franco-German (Russian sponsored) plan from the start.

[IamRam]

This is an Act, it won't be nationally implemented but is applicable directly in EU states.

[Roark66]

There are legislative and non-legislative acts. For the "Acts" that indeed are law the EU council can oppose them and the parliament has no power to override it. Eu Parliament is basically an auxiliary body. This particular "act" is a proposal for a regulation. It's not law itself. If it was going to be EU council would have to be involved and it makes the final decision. EU parliament only "accepts legislative acts" if EU council agrees, also negative results of such vote can be disregarded. It's not a real parliament. It's a place to transfer tens of thousands of Euro per person per month to people that pretend to make law. Funnily enough, EU parliament is the only truly demand cratic body in the EU, but it has the least lawmaking capability.

There is lots of text on sources like "Wikipedia" that make it sound like EU parliament is almost as powerful as national parliaments. This is simply untrue. First and foremost EU parliament hasn't even got the most basic parliamentary perogative of initiating proceedings in a legally binding act. Instead of Wikipedia I suggest this page (EU own) that shows various types of legal documents in EU. https://european-union.europa.eu/institutions-law-budget/law...

Of all these EU parliament can only make on its own "opinions" and "recommendations". Every other type gets initiated (the very first draft of text is written) by another body. Then the parliament votes on the proposal, but get this... The EU council is by no means bound by a result of that vote. So EU parliament can "strike down a proposal" and the EU council can still progress it. All it has to do is "take it under consideration". See a good factual description of the procedure here on a EU page https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-making-process/types-eu...

As for the act in this article it's not even an act that can become law in its current form. That particular act will now enter into a "draft negotiation mandate" phase when all real stakeholders (nation states) get to say if they like it, how they want to change it etc. And maybe then at some point it'll become law, in what capacity? With what wording? Who knows.

[thepangolino]

"Acts" don't exist in EU law. You either have Regulations (which become law after being approved) and Directives (which member states are bound to implement in their own legislation). "EU Acts" are just the new BS PR way to add yet another level of abstraction to European politics.