Don’t look now, but the European Parliament has something of a spring in its step.

Once a mere consultative body, the much-mocked, often-forgotten sibling of the European family has spent the last five years flexing newly discovered muscles.

On a range of portfolios — from trade to copyright reforms to emission standards for vehicles to the respect for the rule of law in EU countries — the Parliament has emerged as an unexpected check on the powers and ambitions of the European Commission and national governments.

The question now is: What happens next? The European Parliament election in May is expected to be transformative, ushering a new class of MEPs who as a group will be younger and more likely to be Euroskeptic than their predecessors. The new chamber will also almost certainly be the most politically fragmented in the institution’s history.

Will this wave of disruption produce a Parliament that is more confrontational and even more ready to exercise its powers, providing the Council and Commission with even bigger headaches? Or will the institution be rent asunder by its divisions and disagreements and allow its new-found influence to leak away?

We’ll soon find out.

Warning shot

From the buzzy, wall-free TV studios to the visitor groups and advisers marching with purpose in all directions, there’s a feeling in the Parliament’s corridors that the institution has come into its own.

Like legislative bodies everywhere, the Parliament has no shortage of crooks and clowns, but as an organ it also has started to provide deeper scrutiny of the Commission’s proposals than most national parliaments do of their governments.

Take the controversial copyright reform still winding its way through Brussels. The Parliament’s decision to reject a draft of the bill in July served as a warning shot that the institution can no longer be expected to serve as a rubber stamp.

And while it was national governments that ultimately had the most influence over the final version of the reform, their positions were in no small part influenced by members of the European Parliament, like the German Pirate Party’s Julia Reda, using their office as a platform to shape the public discourse back home.

The Parliament has also set itself up for an institutional showdown with the European Council over the selection of the next Commission president.

Few in the Brussels old guard are ready to embrace the Parliament. Commission officials dismiss MEPs as egotistical blowhards. Diplomats gripe about the institution’s free-spending ways. But it’s becoming increasing clear it can’t be ignored.

Among those who take it seriously is Michel Barnier. The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator visits the institution nearly every week with updates on his talks with the U.K.

Though the Parliament has had no formal role in the negotiations — which have been led by the Commission under a mandate from the Council — it will get a vote on the final agreement.

The Commission’s trade mavens are no doubt also watching the chamber closely. Parliament is expected to vote in March on whether the EU should start trade talks with the U.S. While the resolution is non-binding, a resounding “no” would be a bad sign, as any free-trade deal would ultimately need the institution’s blessing.

The Parliament is also wading into the affairs of national governments. A report by the Dutch Green MEP Judith Sargentini alleging abuses by the Hungarian government ratcheted up pressure on Budapest and the center-right European People’s Party to which Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán belongs.

A vote in September based on the report declared that Hungary is at risk of breaching the EU’s core values and put the country on a collision course with Brussels.

The Parliament has also set itself up for an institutional showdown with the European Council over the selection of the next Commission president. In February 2018, it declared it is ready to reject any nominee not selected through the so-called Spitzenkandidat system, in which Europe’s political parties pit “lead candidates” against each other ahead of the European Parliament election.

Within weeks EU leaders rejected the Parliament's position: They reserved the right to nominate a Spitzenkandidat, but refused to be limited to choosing from only Spitzenkandidaten.

Growing Euroskepticism

The coming election — and the five-year term that follows it — will test the Parliament’s ability to maintain its newfound influence.

The institution’s powers have been built up under a series of EU treaty revisions since 1970. MEPs now have the power to reject the appointment of European commissioners, block trade deals and influence tens of billions in spending each year — but only if they manage to work together to form majorities.

The 150 million Europeans likely to cast a vote in the European Parliament election from May 23-26 are set to elect a group of MEPs so fragmented that few of the traditional ways the chamber has operated can be expected to apply.

In a typical election year, close to half of the Parliament is thrown out by their parties or voters. That’s likely to be the case again in May. Two months before election registration deadlines in many countries, POLITICO has confirmed 190 MEPs are voluntarily retiring. It would be no surprise if 400 new parliamentarians descend on Brussels in June.

Sabine Thillaye, of the French parliament’s EU affairs committee, typifies the mood among many of the newer parties vying to make an impact in Parliament: “We want young MEPs that come from civil society,” she said of her La République En Marche party’s plans.

But the new crop of EU legislators will be different from their predecessors in other ways too. Most notably, a large number are likely to belong to populist parties that have been traditionally hostile to the EU.

Broadly, Euroskeptic parties are on track to win 250 of the Parliament’s 705 seats. The fastest-growing European group is the far-right Europe of Nations and Freedoms, which includes the Italian League and French National Rally.

League leader and Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini — recognizing that Parliament is where Euroskeptics have the strongest voice among the EU’s institutions — has said he wants to “give more powers to the only institution that is democratically elected.”

If Salvini succeeds, he will have gathered a force capable of blocking appointments and taking charge of up to six of Parliament’s 20

committees.

He has also declared his desire to unite the EU’s usually fractious Euroskeptics. Currently, most of the current Euroskeptic MEPs are split into four separate political groups in the Parliament, diluting their influence.

In the unlikely case that they are able to work together as a bloc, Euroskeptics would be become the Parliament’s largest political group.

Were Salvini to succeed, he will have gathered a force capable of blocking appointments and taking charge of up to six of Parliament’s 20 committees.

Even uncoordinated, the influx of Euroskeptics will be disruptive. Its members will use the chamber floor to rail against the EU, and their sheer numbers will force traditional, pro-EU parties into uncomfortable alliances if they are to adopt measures that might otherwise have been waved through.

Jan Zahradil, a European Conservatives and Reformists MEP running for European Commission president, says the price of his party’s support will be the pursuit of “less one-size-fits-all and ever-closer union and more decentralized, flexible — multispeed, if you wish — European integration instead.”

Fabio Massimo Castaldo, a Parliament vice president and the most senior MEP of Italy’s anti-establishment 5Star Movement, insisted that the major pro-EU parties will “be forced to negotiate with us on every single file, every single amendment.”

For the first time since the European Parliament was first directly elected in 1979, Europe’s two largest parties — the center-right European Peoples Party and center-left Socialists — are expected to get less than 50 percent of the vote between them.

This will force the parties’ leaders to bring in other partners, such as the ALDE liberal group or the European Greens. “This majority with four parties will be much more difficult to sustain and make work,” said Alain Lamassoure, the longest-serving French MEP.

On some files, Europe’s mainstream conservatives might decide it’s easier to reach out to Euroskeptics to push through legislation.

“The EPP will need to discuss with us to avoid delays and slow speed in the adoption of legislation,” said Jörg Meuthen, a German MEP and the lead candidate for the Euroskeptic Alternative for Germany.

A different beast

The nature of the new Parliament will depend on the exact outcome at the ballot boxes, as well as post-election deal-making. But one thing is clear: It won’t make things easier for the Europhiles who have typically been in charge of the Council and Commission.

To begin with, appointments will likely be pushed through with the slimmest of majorities, with the composition of the Commission shaped by horse-trading among ideological opponents. The selection of the Parliament’s leadership too is likely to be a heated affair, as new forces and old scramble for choice committees.

As loud and potentially organized Euroskeptics drag EU political debate onto new terrain, fragmentation will likely sap Parliament’s ability to assert the sort of united front needed to do battle with the Council and Commission on legislative issues.

Were Euroskeptics to actually engage in European politics, their role in Parliament could give them a real say over the future of the EU.

Work on some files could get bogged down altogether, if the institution is unable to come up with a position a majority can agree on.

Maintaining the institution’s roles as a regulatory innovator and political provocateur will require the Parliament’s leaders to work together, said Fredrick Federley, a prominent young Swedish liberal MEP. “In order to get leverage with the Council, we need to stop in-house fighting between committees,” he said.

If the Euroskeptics are able to band together — or if some Euroskeptic parties are able to strike deals with mainstream conservatives — the Council and Commission might find themselves dealing with an entirely different type of beast.

Indeed, they might discover that the Parliament’s power has been trained against them.

Because of Brexit, few Euroskeptic groups are openly advocating leaving the EU, and so some have set their sights on upending politics in Brussels instead.

Given their light presence in the Council and the antipathy of most civil servants in the Commission, the Parliament will provide Euroskeptics with the best opportunity to make their voices heard.

Simply forming a blocking minority would be enough to gum up the works — stopping the next version of the Sargentini report on rule of law in Hungary, for example.

Were Euroskeptics to actually engage in European politics, their role in Parliament could give them a real say over the future of the EU.