BETTER PLENARIES: The European Parliament is mulling measures to make its proceedings more interesting for citizens, more visible in the media and more central to the European debate du jour. The exercise, designed as a “rethink” of “parliamentary democracy,” as President David Sassoli described it at its launch back in April, is now yielding results in the form of recommendations, seen by Playbook, on a post-pandemic Parliament. The proposals came together over the course of five “focus groups,” one of which looked into how to reform the plenary. ‘Prioritize controversy’: The paper suggests reducing “the number of items to be placed on the agenda,” which would give MEPs “more speaking time,” and allow “for a real debate.” There’s also a call to “prioritize controversial legislative files.” Read: The MEPs in the group want Parliament to put on a better show and to ponder technical files less prominently. One proposal is to “hold debates on current urgent affairs with the aim of having up-to-date topics with media relevance on the agenda on primetime slots.”