The Parliament has been the people’s voice at a European level since 1979 but it was only in 1993 that it was recognised as an equal partner by the other EU institutions.

Introduced by the Maastricht Treaty, the co-decision procedure gave the Parliament and the Council of the European Union an equal say on a wide range of issues. Now the vast majority of European laws are adopted this way. On 5 November the EP organised a special conference to mark 20 years of co-decision.

In 1999 the co-decision procedure was extended and made more effective by the Amsterdam Treaty. Under the Lisbon Treaty that took effect on 1 December 2009 it was renamed the ordinary legislative procedure and made into the main way of creating new European laws.

The co-decision procedure entered into force on 1 November 1993. To mark 20 years of co-decision, a conference will be held at the Parliament on 5 November. It will be dedicated to the EP’s increasing powers under the Treaty of Lisbon and what this means for the future. Gianni Pittella and Alejo Vidal-Quadrasand , the vice-presidents responsible for conciliation, were among the speakers of the conference.