So often the poor relations of the EU family, the European Parliament has proved unusually resolute in taking on the might of Europe's governments in threatening to veto the bloc's new executive arm.
For its members, exultant at calling the bluff of incoming European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso, the dramatic events of this week are no less than a coming-of-age for their unloved institution.
"Today this house on the River Rhine grows in stature. Its will was tested: its will prevailed," Liberal leader Graham Watson told deputies to wild applause after Barroso backed away from certain defeat in a make-or-break vote.
"At every stage, our willingness to stand by that judgement was doubted, and mistrusted and tested: tested to the edge of political crisis," Watson said.
Barroso was widely accused of misjudging the mood of the parliament in sticking by his controversial pick for EU justice commissioner, Rocco Buttiglione, despite the conservative Catholic's avowed belief that homosexuality is a "sin" and that women should stay at home to make babies.
But in a frantic morning of meetings Wednesday just before the parliament was due to deliver its judgement on whether the new commission should take office on Nov. 1, Barroso realized the game was up.
A "no" vote would have been unprecedented in EU annals. Never before has the parliament rejected a commission before it even takes charge.
In 1999, Jacques Santer's commission resigned over a corruption scandal before the parliament got a chance to deliver a widely expected no-confidence vote. Right up until Tuesday night, few were betting that the parliament would actually carry through on its threats against the Barroso commission.
But after a majority of Liberals joined the Socialists, other left-wingers and eurosceptic groups in vowing to vote "no" to the team, defeat loomed for the Portuguese president-designate.
The vote was dramatically postponed with Barroso pleading that he needed more time to consult with European governments -- the real powerbrokers in EU affairs -- before re-submitting his team for approval. For many members of the European Parliament, the denouement was as much a rebuke to the member states as to Barroso himself.
"There are two categories of decision-maker. It's no longer only about the governments. It's also the parliament. The European Parliament was born today," French conservative Alain Lamassoure said.
The parliament started life in 1952 as a consultative body of worthies with no power to block EU legislation. But since the first European elections in 1979, it has served as the EU's only directly elected body.
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