Editing European Parliament (section)

===Committees and delegations===
[[File:Committee Room of the European Parliament in Brussels.jpg|thumb|A Committee room]]
{{Main|Committees of the European Parliament}}

The Parliament has 20 [[Standing Committee]]s ranging in size from 25 to 88 MEPs (each reflecting the political make-up of the whole Parliament) including a chair, a bureau and secretariat. They meet twice a month in public to draw up, amend to adopt legislative proposals and reports to be presented to the plenary.<ref name="Organised">{{cite web|title=Organisation|publisher=European Parliament|url=http://www.europarl.europa.eu/aboutparliament/en/20150201PVL00010/Organisation|access-date=3 May 2016|quote=In order to do the preparatory work for Parliament's plenary sittings, the Members are divided up among a number of specialised standing committees. There are 20 parliamentary committees. A committee consists of between 25 and 71 MEPs, and has a chair, a bureau and a secretariat. The political make-up of the committees reflects that of the plenary assembly. }}</ref> The [[rapporteur]]s for a committee are supposed to present the view of the committee, although notably this has not always been the case: in the events leading to the resignation of the Santer Commission, the rapporteur went against the [[Committee on Budgetary Control|Budgetary Control Committee's]] narrow vote to discharge the budget, and urged the Parliament to reject it.<ref name="Ringe">{{cite web |last=Ringer |first=Nils F. |title=The Santer Commission Resignation Crisis |publisher=[[University of Pittsburgh]] |date=February 2003 |url=http://aei.pitt.edu/2919/01/156.pdf |access-date=7 October 2007 }}</ref>

The Parliament can also set up sub-committees (e.g. the [[Subcommittee on Human Rights]]) and temporary committees to deal with a specific topic (e.g. the Special Committee on Foreign Interference in Democratic Processes in the European Union, 2020–23). The chairs of the Committees co-ordinate their work through the "[[Committees of the European Parliament#Conference of Committee Chairs|Conference of Committee Chairmen]]".<ref name="Organised"/>

The nature of the committees differ from their national counterparts as, although smaller in comparison to those of the [[United States Congressional committee|United States Congress]], the European Parliament's committees are unusually large by European standards with between eight and twelve dedicated members of staff and three to four support staff. Considerable administration, archives and research resources are also at the disposal of the whole Parliament when needed.<ref name="Kreppel"/>

[[European Parliament Delegations|Delegations of the Parliament]] are formed in a similar manner and are responsible for relations with Parliaments outside the EU. There are 44 delegations, mostly small (around 15 MEPs) but some larger. Chairpersons of the delegations also cooperate in a conference like the committee chairs do. Delegations include "Interparliamentary delegations" (maintain relations with Parliament outside the EU), "joint parliamentary committees" (maintaining relations with parliaments of states which are candidates or associates of the EU), the delegation to the [[ACP EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly]] and the delegation to the [[Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly]].<ref name="Organised"/> MEPs also participate in other international activities such as the [[Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly]], the [[NATO Assembly]], the [[Transatlantic Legislators' Dialogue]] and through [[Election monitoring|election observation]] in third countries.<ref>{{cite web|title=European Parliament: In Detail|url=http://www.europarl.europa.eu/parliament/expert.do?language=EN|publisher=European Parliament|access-date=9 July 2007 }}</ref>