Photo Journal: Inside Europe's parliament

No-one can deny that the European Parliament does very important work. On the environment, for example, we have the power to set standards across the EU.

We do this together with the Council of Ministers (government ministers from the member states). But parliament has mostly been more radical than the council - and it has usually won the argument for stronger regulation, resulting in higher standards.

Parliament's powers have been steadily increasing, and are set to grow even further under the new constitution.