The Role of National Parliaments in the Making of European Law

1998 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 217-231
Author(s):  
Timothy Pratt
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
European Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Treaty Of Amsterdam ◽  
First Time

While the Community Treaties provided the institutional framework for the European Community, much of what now makes up the constitution of the European Union was not provided for in those Treaties, but evolved within that framework. This is certainly true of the role of national parliaments. There is nothing about the role of national parliaments in any of the Treaties concluded prior to the Maastricht Treaty, and even then the references appear not in the body of the Treaty, but only in two Declarations annexed to it, one on the role of national parliaments in the European Union and the other on the Conference of the Parliaments. While the former states that it is important to encourage greater involvement of national parliaments in the activities of the European Union, it gives no indication of what that involvement should be. The Treaty of Amsterdam goes a step further. It includes a protocol on the role of national parliaments. This is important in that, for the first time, it gives substantive treaty recognition to their involvement in European Union activities. But, while it is markedly more supportive than the Maastricht Declarations, it does not confer any specific powers on national parliaments, nor does it attempt to define their functions.

11 The Role of National Parliaments in the Making of European Law

1998 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 217-231
Author(s):  
Timothy Pratt
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
European Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Treaty Of Amsterdam ◽  
First Time

While the Community Treaties provided the institutional framework for the European Community, much of what now makes up the constitution of the European Union was not provided for in those Treaties, but evolved within that framework. This is certainly true of the role of national parliaments. There is nothing about the role of national parliaments in any of the Treaties concluded prior to the Maastricht Treaty, and even then the references appear not in the body of the Treaty, but only in two Declarations annexed to it, one on the role of national parliaments in the European Union and the other on the Conference of the Parliaments. While the former states that it is important to encourage greater involvement of national parliaments in the activities of the European Union, it gives no indication of what that involvement should be. The Treaty of Amsterdam goes a step further. It includes a protocol on the role of national parliaments. This is important in that, for the first time, it gives substantive treaty recognition to their involvement in European Union activities. But, while it is markedly more supportive than the Maastricht Declarations, it does not confer any specific powers on national parliaments, nor does it attempt to define their functions.

scholarly journals The Evolution of the Role of the National Parliaments in the Treaties of the Europian Union

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 38
Author(s):  
Pranvera Beqiraj (Mihani)
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
Lisbon Treaty ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Single European Act ◽  
Union Governance ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Treaty Of Amsterdam

This paper elaborates the evolving role of national parliaments in the different stages of the European integration process. The Review begins with the first stage (the foundation of the European Union) where national parliaments showed no or little interest in the matters of Community, and then the impact of Single European Act, following the first changes in the Maastricht Treaty, through the two Declarations attached to it and then the Protocol to the Treaty of Amsterdam. Finally the paper focuses on the changes and innovations presented in the Lisbon Treaty which will enhance the role of national parliaments in the European Union governance. For this purpose, the paper analyzes chronologically the rights that national parliaments had before the Lisbon Treaty and the new role of national parliaments after the Lisbon Treaty came into force.

scholarly journals Strengthening the Role of National Parliaments in the European Union – What for and How?

2019 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maciej Perkowski ◽  
Jakub A. Farhan
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
The Other ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Limited Role ◽  
The Asymmetry

Abstract In the debate on the European Union’s problems, the concept of “democracy deficit” has been present from its very beginning. This term is applied in a quite vast manner and, apart from the asymmetry of the relation between the European Parliament and the Council, it also concerns the overly limited role of national parliaments in the European Union. In this regard, inadequacy in the national position of individual parliaments is observed. On the other hand, it is necessary to emphasise their uneven activity on their European aspirations. At the time when the European dispute on the rule of law in Poland has polarized attitudes and language in statements on both sides – despite irresponsible trends – it is worth to examine the participation of national parliaments (including the Polish parliament) in the European inter-parliamentary dialogue and, consequently, to determine whether and how its constructive impact on the European Union and its law functions.

The Role of National Constitutional Courts in European Democracy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dieter Grimm
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Economic Liberalization ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
European Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Constitutional Courts ◽  
European Court ◽  
European Democracy ◽  
And Function

This chapter examines the role of national constitutional courts in European democracy. It first provides an overview of national constitutional courts in Europe, focusing on the requirements that they impose on national institutions and the consequences of those requirements at the treaty level—i.e., transferring national powers to the European Union and regulating how these powers are exercised; at the level of the EU’s exercise of these powers; and at the level of implementing European law within national legal systems. The chapter also discusses how the European Court of Justice’s jurisprudence enabled the European treaties to function as a constitution; the non-political mechanism of EU decisions and how it promotes economic liberalization; and how the design and function of European primary law undermine democracy. The chapter suggests that the democratic legitimacy imparted to the EU’s decisions by its citizens can only develop within the framework of the European Parliament’s powers.

Neither here, not there: Bulgaria and Romania in current European politics☆

2004 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 509-522 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor D. Bojkov
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Regional Cooperation ◽  
Eu Enlargement ◽  
Political Transition ◽  
The Other ◽  
European Politics ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Southeast Europe ◽  
The Eu

The article analyses the process of EU enlargement with reference to the progress that Bulgaria and Romania have made within it. It is argued that leaving them out of the wave of accession finalised in May 2004 for ten of the candidate states, has placed them in a situation of double exclusion. Firstly, their geographical belonging to the region of Southeast Europe has been rendered non-essential by their advanced position within the EU enlargement process. Secondly, their achievement in economic and political transition has been removed from the progress of the ten states, which joined the EU in May 2004 by delaying the time of their accession. As a result, any efforts in regional cooperation and integration between Bulgaria and Romania on one hand, and other Southeast European states on the other, have been effectively cancelled. Moreover, in current European politics, the two countries have come to serve the unenviable role of exemplifying on the part of the European Union how progress is being awarded and hesitation punished.

2. The constitutional base of the Union

2021 ◽  
pp. 12-41
Author(s):  
Margot Horspool ◽  
Matthew Humphreys ◽  
Michael Wells-Greco
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Treaty Of Lisbon ◽  
Single European Act ◽  
Treaty Of Amsterdam

This chapter discusses the Treaties which together represent the primary law of the European Union; its constitutional base. These include the Single European Act 1986; the Treaty on European Union (the Maastricht Treaty) 1993; the Treaty of Amsterdam (signed June 1997, entered into force 1 May 1999); the Nice Treaty (adopted December 2001, entered into force 1 February 2003); and the Treaty of Lisbon (signed December 2007, entered into force 1 December 2009).

A Permanent Constitutional Assembly

2020 ◽  
pp. 197-214
Author(s):  
Markus Patberg
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Member State ◽  
Dual Role ◽  
The Other ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Constituent Power ◽  
Institutional Solution ◽  
The Eu

This chapter presents an institutional proposal for how citizens could be enabled—in the dual role of European and national citizens—to exercise constituent power in the EU. To explain in abstract terms what an institutional solution would have to involve, it draws on the notion of a sluice system, according to which the particular value of representative bodies consists in their capacity to provide both transmission and filter functions for democratic processes. On this basis, the chapter critically discusses the proposal that the Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs of Parliaments of the European Union (COSAC) should transform itself into an inter-parliamentary constitutional assembly. As this model allows constituted powers to continue to operate as the EU’s de facto constituent powers, it cannot be expected to deliver the functions of a sluice system. The chapter goes on to argue that a more convincing solution would be to turn the Convention of Article 48 of the Treaty on European Union into a permanent constitutional assembly composed of two chambers, one elected by EU citizens and the other by member state citizens. The chapter outlines the desirable features of such an assembly and defends the model against a number of possible objections.

Unmaking Democratic Europe

2020 ◽  
pp. 294-312
Author(s):  
Martin Conway
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
European Union ◽  
Large Degree ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
The Other ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
Post War ◽  
First Time

This concluding chapter describes how the Europe of the 1990s was for the first time in its history both united and democratic. But the sudden turning point of 1989 lacked something of the global significance of the other European post-war moments of the twentieth century in 1918 and 1945. Europe no longer stood at the centre of its own history, as demonstrated by the ineffective response of the European Union to the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia during the 1990s, and by the divisions that emerged among European states during the American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In economic terms, too, the ascendancy of a new global capitalism obliged Europe to accept the economic weather generated by more distant or universal forces. In addition, however, Europe had lost confidence in the democratic model that it had developed and, to a large degree, patented. The more fractured and fluid politics that had emerged in Europe by the end of the twentieth century might be more appropriately described as post-democracy: a politics still conducted through the language and institutional structures of democracy, but which lacked much of the former substance of democratic politics.

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