Parliamentary Rules of Procedure - European Parliament - Europa

Rule 56. Amendments shall be debated and put
to the vote before the main subject of the debate
is voted upon, while sub-amendments shall be
debated and put to the vote before amendments.
The order in which amendments must be put
to the vote is proposed by the President and in
case of any objection the decision shall rest with
the House.
as regards the proceedings of the house, the rules
usually provide for points of order and procedural
motions. The two are quite distinct:
• Points of order enable any member to draw attention
of the Presiding Officer to a breach of the
rules or, at least, to question whether the Rules
of Procedure are being correctly applied in a particular
instance.
• Procedural motions refer to the right to call for
the closure of a debate (to move to the next
business), to refer a matter back to committee,
to proceed to a vote, to postpone a debate or a
vote, and such like.
Both points of order and procedural motions are
interruptive – they allow individual members to
intervene with such proposals in the middle of a
debate or even a vote. The abuse of interruptive
motions is a potential hazard to the smooth running
of business. However, they are essential safeguards
for minority opinions. Rules of Procedure normally
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only enable the Presiding Officer to ignore them
in cases of urgency and when it is clear that successive
interruptive motions are being carried out
with the deliberate aim of disrupting the proceedings
of the House.
in this regard, it is instructive to look at Rule 20(1)
of the European Parliament’s Rules of Procedure,
which states:
The President shall direct all the activities of Parliament
and its bodies under the conditions laid down
in these Rules and shall enjoy all the powers necessary
to preside over the proceedings of Parliament
and to ensure that they are properly conducted.
Interpretation: This provision can be interpreted as
meaning that the powers conferred by it include
the power to call an end to the excessive use
of motions such as points of order, procedural
motions, explanations of vote and requests for
separate, split or roll-call votes where the President
is convinced that these are manifestly indented to
cause and will result in a prolonged and serious
obstruction of the procedures of the House or the
rights of other Members.
apart from legislation, many parliaments may adopt
general resolutions on policy matters or on specific
issues. if such matters are not regulated by the constitution,
then the rules of procedure generally lay
down who is entitled to table a motion for resolu-