The European Parliament: On the Politics of Naming

In this article, I discuss the early history of the expression of the European Parliament and analyse the political points of its different rhetorical nuances and connotations. I shall use as the background a wider discussion on the politics of naming, indebted to the rhetorical work of Quentin Skinner as well as to the historical repertoire of alternative titles for parliamentary assemblies. The expression “European Parliament” had already been in use in the post-war years, first among the pro-federalist wing of the European movement. In the initial sitting of the ECSC Common Assembly on 13 September 1952, Théodore Lefevre spoke of the Assembly as “la première à mériter le nom de ‘Parlement européen’” in the sense of both describing and legitimising the political novelty of that Assembly. In the Ad Hoc Assembly’s debates on the constitutional draft for the European Political Community in 1952/1953, which proposed a supranational parliamentary government, the expression—first in French and then in English—became a colloquial title for the two chambers of the Parliament of the European Political Community. The European Parliamentary Assembly of the EEC changed its name to the European Parliament on 30 March 1962. The title European Parliament has been used both for an existing assembly with a low “parliamentarity” and for a future assembly with full parliamentary powers.