Parliamentary Rules of Procedure - European Parliament - Europa

Principal acts
Convening and constitution of parliament
if they are not laid down in a country’s constitution,
the initial convening of parliament after an
election and the internal procedures for starting
its work may be incorporated in the rules of procedure.
an automatic date for members to assemble,
without needing to be convened, is often included.
This underlines the parliament’s autonomy and its
ability to meet without the executive’s permission.
For example, the Finnish Parliament’s Rules state
in article 1:
The Parliament shall convene in session every year
on the first day of February, at noon (unless it agrees
to another date beforehand).
The European Parliament has two such dates specified
in Rule 134: an annual date and a date for convening
after an election:
1. Parliament shall meet, without requiring to be
convened, on the second Tuesday in March each
year and shall itself determine the duration of
adjournments of the session.
2. Parliament shall in addition meet, without
requiring to be convened on the first Tuesday after
expiry of an interval of one month from [the elections].
10
President and supreme bodies
When parliament assembles after an election (in
addition to meeting at predetermined mid-term
intervals), in what many parliaments refer to as a
“constitutive session”, the first item on the agenda
is typically the election of a presiding officer (president
or speaker).
But who should chair the session in the meantime?
There is a tradition in many countries for the oldest
member to take the chair to conduct the election
of the president. Other parliaments provide for the
outgoing president to chair (if still a member, or, if
not, an outgoing vice president).
an example of the first approach is found in Rule
1 of the French national assembly:
At the first sitting of each new term the chair shall
be taken by the oldest member of the National
Assembly, until the President has been elected.
an example of the second approach is found in
the European Parliament’s Rule 12(1) which states:
...the outgoing President or, failing him or her, one
of the outgoing Vice-Presidents in order of precedence
or, in the absence of any of them, the Member
having held office for the longest period shall take
the chair until the President has been elected.