The European Parliament: the Significance of Direct Election

THE POSSIBILITY THAT THE PARLIAMENT OF THE ENLARGED EUROPEAN Community may, wholly or in part, be elected directly within the next few years must excite both advocates of European unification and students of that curious political phenomenon, the European Community. The event is still exceedingly problematical; no attempt is made here to assess just how much so. But the demand for direct election, and specific proposals to that end, have been actual for just over a decade and are worth analysing both as they relate to the possible future event and as they relate to other known factors – the existing state of organized political forces in Western Europe and the role of elections in the political life of member-states.