Parliament and the Commission ran a wide-ranging information campaign , not only on radio and television , but also in local communities and schools . This interinstitutional collaboration , which was not repeated in subsequent campaigns , aimed to compensate for the difficulty in discussing European issues that was experienced by national political parties , which were subject to purely national voting rules . This was clearly shown by the election manifestos and the substantial absence of European election programmes , owing to the embryonic nature of supranational parties .
The first elected European Parliament had a mandate that was both national and European . Its intake of 410 MEPs was enriched by the active presence of national leaders , including Willy Brandt and Otto von Habsburg in Germany , Leo Tindemans in Belgium , Jacques Delors and George Marchais in France , Enrico Berlinguer and Benigno Zaccagnini in Italy , alongside the charismatic Altiero Spinelli , who had already entered the unelected Parliament in October 1976 .
Contrary to widespread opinion among scholars of the European institutions who argue that those elections , and the parliament that emerged from them , were to be regarded as a second-rate political phenomenon , Parliament was able , from the outset , to assert its role as the representative of the European people . It has continued to do so , step by step , throughout successive European parliamentary terms .
The new policies to cope with the effects of high inflation and structural unemployment led to conflict over the 1980 budget . The newly elected Parliament opposed the national governments ’ calculations , while the Commission , chaired by Luxembourger Gaston Thorn , quickly fell into line behind the Council .
With democratic pride and in a peaceful act of ‘ institutional in-
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