European Parliament Committee on Constitutional Affairs

The Committee on Constitutional Affairs ( AFCO) is a committee of the European Parliament. Committee Chairman since the European elections of 2009, the Italian Carlo Casini.

The Committee deals with all the issues related to the institutional structure of the European Union, or about the participation of the European Parliament at government conferences and the European Convention, the assessment of the EU Treaty and the institutional consequences of EU enlargement. He also maintains relations of the European Parliament to the other EU institutions and deals with questions of the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament, the European political parties and the electoral process in the European elections.

The Committee was first established in 1982 under the name Committee on Institutional Affairs on the initiative by the Spinelli. His first activity was the drafting of a constitution for the European Union, which was adopted by the European Parliament in 1984, but not ratified by the Member States. Later, the committee was mainly restricted to closely monitoring the EU's institutional development and to make suggestions to recommendations that were adopted by the plenary session of the Parliament. Since the Treaties on which is based the EU's institutional system, but can not be changed by the EU institutions themselves only by the Member States, the influence of the European Parliament on these issues is quite limited.