National Parliaments as Multi-Arena-Players: A New Deliberative Role Within the EU Multilevel System?

2019 ◽  
pp. 117-133
Author(s):  
Katrin Auel
Keyword(s):  
Multilevel System ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
The Eu

Party Politics Triumph over Substantive Scrutiny and Principled Policy: Examining Czech MPs’ Voting Behaviour in Regard to EU Affairs

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-125
Author(s):  
Martin Kuta
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Party System ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Voting Behaviour ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
European Dimension ◽  
The Eu

The paper deals with the European dimension of the competition and contention between Czech political parties and argues that domestic party interests undermine the formal oversight of EU politics by the Czech national parliament. Within the current institutional arrangements, national political parties assume stances – which are expressed through voting – towards the European Union (and European integration as such) as they act in the arena of national parliaments that are supposed to make the EU more accountable in its activities. Based on an analysis of roll-calls, the paper focuses on the ways the political parties assume their stances towards the EU and how the parties check this act by voting on EU affairs. The paper examines factors that should shape parties’ behaviour (programmes, positions in the party system, and public importance of EU/European integration issues). It also focuses on party expertise in EU/European issues and asserts that EU/European integration issues are of greater importance in extra-parliamentary party competition than inside the parliament, suggesting a democratic disconnect between voters and parliamentary behaviour. The study's empirical analysis of the voting behaviour of Czech MPs also shows that the parliamentary scrutiny introduced by the Lisbon Treaty is undermined by party interests within the system.

scholarly journals BRIEF CONSIDERATIONS ON THE EUROPEAN LEGISLATIVE PROCEDURES, WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO PASSERELLE CLAUSES

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-15
Author(s):  
Mihaela Pătrăuș ◽  
Darius-Dennis Pătrăuș
Keyword(s):  
Lisbon Treaty ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Judicial Cooperation ◽  
Legislative Procedures ◽  
The Family ◽  
Defence Policy ◽  
European Policies ◽  
Legislative Procedure ◽  
Ordinary Legislative Procedure ◽  
The Eu

The Lisbon Treaty in order to strengthen the EU's capacity to decide, to act and to ensure the legitimacy of decisions taken at the same time, reformed the decision-making process of the EU, particularly by changing the legislative procedures in force.Among the novelties of the Lisbon Treaty, we must mention the passerelle clauses, which according to the ordinary legislative procedure will be generalized, under certain conditions, in areas which were initially outside its scope.The treaty nominates two types of passerelle clauses: the general passerelle clause which applies to all European policies and the enabling of this clause will be authorized by a decision of the European Council, acting unanimously; the passerelle clauses specific to certain European policies (MFF, Common Security and Defence Policy, judicial cooperation regarding the family rights- this specific clause is the only one explaining which national parliaments keep their right to oppose; cooperation is strengthened in the areas governed by unanimity or by a special legislative procedure, social affairs, environmental ).The flexibility introduced through a significant number of passerelle clauses in the Lisbon Treaty allows adjustment of the EU quickly and efficiently, depending on punctual developments, without neglecting the guarantees on the sovereignty of member states.

scholarly journals Conceptualizing the Parliamentarization and Politicization of European Policies

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niels Gheyle
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Complete Understanding ◽  
Related Literature ◽  
The Past ◽  
Theoretical Assumptions ◽  
European Policies ◽  
Eu Studies ◽  
The Eu

In the past 20 years, two related literature strands have gradually moved centre stage of the attention of EU Studies scholars. The first is preoccupied with the ‘politicization of European integration’, a multi-faceted concept that aims to tie together a multitude of political and societal manifestations underlying an increasing controversiality of the EU. A second concerns the parliamentarization of the EU, referring to the changing (institutional) role and EU-related activities national parliaments engage in. The key point of this contribution is simple, but often overlooked: We can and should be seeing parliamentarization as a necessary, yet insufficient, component of a wider process of politicization. Doing so goes beyond the often ad hoc or pars pro toto theoretical assumptions in both literature strands, sheds new light on the normative consequences attached to these phenomena, and furthers a more complete understanding of how a ‘comprehensive’ politicization of European policies develops.

Democracy, Legitimacy, and Accountability in Euro Crisis Management

2020 ◽  
pp. 105-151
Author(s):  
Menelaos Markakis
Keyword(s):  
Policy Implementation ◽  
Crisis Management ◽  
Euro Crisis ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Social Legitimacy ◽  
Democratic Control ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
Economic Developments ◽  
Horizontal And Vertical Distribution ◽  
The Eu

This chapter looks at democracy, legitimacy, and accountability in Euro crisis management. It looks at the main critiques of the EU’s response to the crisis. It will be shown that scholars in this area castigate the EMU governance framework for its shortcomings in terms of input, output, and social legitimacy. The chapter makes the case for increased democratic controls and intense inter-institutional dialogue in the functioning of the EMU. It demonstrates how the crisis-induced developments have impacted on the horizontal and vertical distribution of power in the EU and the Member States. First, more powers were conferred on the Commission, Council, and Eurogroup in the measures enacted to combat the crisis. Though the European Parliament was heavily involved in norm production and had a pretty good strike rate in getting its amendments included in the final legislation, its role in policy implementation remains minimal. Second, the EU legislature put much of its reforming faith in a new recruit to strengthen democratic control in the EMU—the national parliaments. The crisis-induced legal and economic developments have circumscribed their budgetary sovereignty in many ways, but the newly enacted rules also serve to empower them vis-à-vis the executive. Third, the de facto division between borrower and lender states might have a bearing on the intra-institutional balance of power in the EU, and the emerging patterns of geographical fragmentation threaten the unity of the EU-28. The chapter set outs concrete proposals on how to enhance transparency and accountability in the EMU.

10. EU Legislation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ed Beale ◽  
Libby Kurien ◽  
Eve Samson
Keyword(s):  
Direct Access ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Eu Legislation ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Eu

This chapter examines the ways in which the UK Parliament formally constrains the government and engages with European Union (EU) institutions. The House of Lords and the House of Commons both have processes to ensure that legislation proposed at the EU level has been properly reviewed before it takes effect in UK law. The ‘scrutiny reserve’, which stipulates that ministers should not agree to proposals under scrutiny, is used to elicit information about the government's negotiating position. Parliament also has a role in examining EU legislation and providing direct access to European institutions. The chapter first provides an overview of the EU legislative process, focusing on three principal EU institutions: member states, the European Parliament (EP), and the European Commission. It also considers the formal role of national parliaments in the EU legislative process, the UK Parliament's scrutiny of the EU legislation and its effectiveness, and parliamentary scrutiny after Brexit.

National Parliaments and the European Union

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrin Auel
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Direct Role ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Eu ◽  
The Way

The role and position of national parliaments in European Union (EU) affairs have undergone a long, slow, and sometimes rocky, but overall rather remarkable, development. Long regarded as the victims of the integration process, they have continuously strengthened their institutional prerogatives and have become more actively involved in EU affairs. Since the Lisbon Treaty, national parliaments even have a formal and direct role in the European legislative process, namely, as guardians of the EU’s subsidiarity principle via the so-called early warning system. To what extent institutional provisions at the national or the European level provide national parliaments with effective means of influencing EU politics is still a largely open question. On the one hand, national parliaments still differ with regard to their institutional prerogatives and actual engagement in EU politics. On the other hand, the complex decision-making system of the EU, with its multitude of actors involved, makes it difficult to trace outcomes back to the influence of specific actors. Yet it is precisely this opacity of the EU policymaking process that has led to an emphasis on the parliamentary communication function and the way national parliaments can contribute to the democratic legitimacy of the EU by making EU political decisions and processes more accessible and transparent for the citizens. This deliberative aspect is also often emphasized in approaches to the role of national parliaments in the EU that challenge the territorially defined, standard account of parliamentary representation. Taking the multilevel character of the EU as well as the high degree of political and economic interdependence between the member states into account, parliamentary representation is conceptualized as extending beyond the nation-state and as shared across the EU, with a strong emphasis on the links between parliaments through inter-parliamentary cooperation and communication as well as on the representation of other member states’ citizens interests and concerns in parliamentary debates. Empirical research is still scarce, but existing studies provide evidence for the development of an increasingly dense web of formal and informal interactions between parliaments and for changes in the way national parliamentarians represent citizens in EU affairs.

scholarly journals Multilevel regulatory governance: Establishing bank-regulator relationships at the European Banking Authority

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Coen ◽  
John-Paul Salter
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
European Central Bank ◽  
Regulatory Regime ◽  
Multilevel System ◽  
Regulatory Governance ◽  
European Central ◽  
European Banking Authority ◽  
European Banking ◽  
New System ◽  
The Eu

AbstractFollowing the 2007–9 financial crisis, the EU strengthened its institutional apparatus for bank regulation, creating a trio of sectoral bodies, including the European Banking Authority (EBA). Various aspects of this new system have been studied, but to date, little is known about how banks engage with their new supranational regulator. We argue that such engagement fosters an interdependence between banks and regulators, thus contributing to the efficiency and robustness of the overall regulatory regime; but also that it is contingent on the regulator exhibiting the qualities of credibility, legitimacy, and transparency. These qualities are grounded in the domestic regulatory governance literature, but we suggest that they are rendered problematic by the complexities of the EU's multilevel system and, in particular, the overlap in competences between the EBA and the European Central Bank. We examine the EBA in the light of these criteria and find that banks’ engagement remains pitched towards established national regulators and the EU's legislative arena. This poses concerns for the efficacy of agency governance in the EU's regulatory regime for banking.

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