There are 27 member states in the European union.

Members are elected every five years by direct universal suffrage.

Political groups

MEPs do not sit according to their national delegation but rather they are grouped according to their political allegiances. Today there are seven groups:

1. Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats)
2. Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament
3. Group of the Alliance of Democrats and Liberals for Europe
4. Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
5. Group of the European Conservatives and Reformists
6. Group of European United Left/Nordic Green Left
7. Group of Europe of Freedom and Democracy

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/portal/en

http://ec.europa.eu/ten/index_en.html

-Economic and social integration

-Free movement of people, goods and services

-Development in less favoured regions

-Limiting environmental impacts

-Contacts with neighbouring countries

-Competitive energy production and supply

-Renewable energy production

-Efficient and secure energy supply

- Promoting sustainable energy production, transport and consumption in line with the EU 2020 targets and with a view to the 2050 decarbonisation objective.   

Agriculture has been one of the flagship areas of European collaboration
since the early days of the European Community.

In negotiations on the creation of a Common Market, France insisted on a
system of agricultural subsidies as its price for agreeing to free trade in
industrial goods.

The CAP began operating in 1962, with the Community intervening to buy farm
output when the market price fell below an agreed target level.

This helped reduce Europe's reliance on imported food but led before long to
over-production, and the creation of "mountains" and "lakes" of surplus food and
drink.

The Community also taxed imports and, from the 1970s onward, subsidised
agricultural exports. These policies have been damaging for foreign farmers, and
made Europe's food prices some of the highest in the world.

European leaders were alarmed at the high cost of the CAP as early as 1967,
but radical reform began only in the 1990s.

The aim has been to break the link between subsidies and production, to
diversify the rural economy and to respond to consumer demands for safe food,
and high standards of animal welfare and environmental protection.

One of there main aims is to ensure that there are limits. We need to make sure that fishing practices do not harm the ability of fish populations to reproduce. The current policy stipulates that between 2015 and 2020 catch limits should be set that are sustainable and maintain fish stocks in the long term.