Whom does the European Parliament represent: the distinct peoples of the Member States, Union citizens, or both combined? This highly controversial question reflects disagreement on the EU’s constituent power: Is it with the Member States, a transnational European people, or a pouvoir constituant mixte? The unresolved issue of the EP’s political subject is predominantly addressed in purely normative terms. Crucial legal and empirical arguments are neglected. My contribution will step in here, and, in doing so, connect the perspectives of constituent power and partisanship in the EU context. For, more precisely, the question is this: To which political subject can the politics of the EP be attributed? On that question, I will, firstly, present an argument based on the substantive political alignments that shape the EP’s representative function: I will show that – both legally and empirically – cross-border partisanship, which transcends the national affiliation of voters and parliamentarians alike, characterizes EP legislative will-formation. I will then, secondly, explain this transnational dynamic from the normative perspective of the structure of the political subject. Here, I will counter the idea that the EP is a forum of the Member States’ peoples, and present an innovative, transnationalist reconstruction: The EP’s complex representative structure transcends the fact that the Union citizenry is organizationally divided in national EP constituencies. It is designed so that the EU citizenry can, given its fragmentation in – disparately sized – national electorates, through transnational partisanship and in a pluralistic, fair and open parliamentary process, articulate itself as one integrated political subject.
