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Todaty Let’s talk about 1979. In 1979 European community was made up of 9 countries: 6 founder countries plus Denmark, Ireland and UK, that joined in 1972. The founder Treaties, the ones signed in Rome in 1957, provided, as well as other ones, for a provision about the European Parliament election with universal suffrage, yet this provision has never been in force for the period of time between 1957 and 1959. It was never in force because the Governments never reached an agreement about the direct elections of European Parliament, so that European deputies, sitting in Strasbourg Assembly, were designed by the national parliaments and they had a double skill: European deputies and national deputies. Finally, thanks to French republic President Valery Giscard D'Estaing, elected in 1974, the Governments reached an agreement, in a first time in Rome, thanks to the Prime Minister Aldo Moro’s initiative as well, about promoting and convoking the direct elections for European Parliament. This elections took place for the first time in June 1979, involving the 9 member countries citizens of EU: France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Luxemburg, Ireland, Uk and Denmark. The elections took place in June 1979, on the bases of different electoral systems. We have an uninominal constituency in England and National Electoral Registerss in most of the other countries, for instance France, or Italy on the bases of Electoral Registerss from united regions ( 5 multi-regional constituencies). European parliament, supported by the democratic legitimacy coming from the vote, sees the light for the first time in 1979, taking competences and powers already belonging to the non-elected parliament. We find great European characters in the first elected parliament: let’s mention Willy Brandt, for Germany, Leo Tindemans, for Belgium, Altiero Spinelli, for Italy. Especially Altiero Spinelli is the protagonist of the European parliament first direct elections, because the idea of a democraticly founded EU is someway attached to the Federalists, and someway Altiero Spinelli is the protagonist of the first European Parliament’s legislature, which started in 1979. European parliament, as you know, is divided into political groups and the whole of the political groups partecipate the elected Parliament’s activity. The first European Parliament elects, for the first time, its President,a French woman, full of history and passion, Simone Veil, deported in the Nazist concentration camps. Simone Veil leads the European Parliament elected by universal suffrage for two years and half. At the end of the year, in 1979, the European Parliament refuses, with an act of revolution and rebellion against the Council, the balance presented which it considered not fitting to European Community needs of that period, especially as far as the poorest areas of the Community itself.
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