Political Accountability: Unsteady Parliamentary Involvement

2020 ◽  
pp. 133-176
Author(s):  
Carolyn Moser
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
Final Section ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Political Accountability ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
International Policy ◽  
Policy Field

This chapter takes a look at political accountability for EU peacebuilding activities carried out under the CSDP. It starts with some reflections on parliamentary scrutiny in the domaine réservé, a policy field where parliamentary activity has traditionally been low, but becomes increasingly salient given the growing scope and impact of international policy-making. The chapter then develops a discussion of the fairly limited oversight role of national parliaments regarding EU security and defence. General patterns of parliamentary involvement and particular features of scrutiny related to EU peacebuilding activities are assessed. Afterwards, a thorough analysis of law and practice highlights the enhanced significance of the European Parliament as political forum in the CFSP/CSDP context through a range of formal and informal vehicles which, however, only marginally contribute to parliamentary scrutiny of civilian missions. Lastly, this chapter ascertains the hurdles to interparliamentary cooperation and, in its final section, underscores the significance of effective supranational parliamentary scrutiny of peacebuilding activities in the edifice of Europeanized intergovernmentalism.

11. The European Parliament

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Burns
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Constitutional Change ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Eu Legislation ◽  
Internal Politics ◽  
Decision Making Processes

This chapter examines the role of the European Parliament (EP) within the European Union's system of governance. It also considers the function and operation of the EP by focusing on three key areas of importance: the legislative work of the Parliament, its internal politics, and its representative role as a link between the electorate and EU decision-making processes. The chapter first charts the evolution of the EP before discussing its budgetary and legislative powers, along with its advocacy for constitutional change to bring Europe closer to its citizens. It then discusses the influence and internal politics of the EP as well as elections to the EP, noting that national parliaments are now able to block proposed EU legislation. It also describes the principal challenges facing the EP.

The European Parliament's Role in EU Treaty-Making

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 1009-1039 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Ott
Keyword(s):  
Case Law ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
International Treaties ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
International Treaty ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
European Court ◽  
External Relations

The European Parliament's role in EU external relations and treaty-making has increased over the years through constitutional practice and Treaty amendments. Finally, with the Treaty of Lisbon, the European Parliament's constitutional rights in treaty-making establish – in the words of the European Court of Justice (CJEU) – ‘symmetry between legislation-making and treaty-making in compliance with institutional balance provided for by the Treaties’. In a comparative overview, the European Parliament has ascertained more extensive powers over treaty-making compared to the majority of national parliaments which are only involved in politically important international treaties. This contribution addresses the consequences of this symmetry or parallelism and asks whether it leads to structural symmetry or even procedural symmetry which synchronizes the acts of legislating and treaty-making with each other. This contribution analyses the role of the European Parliament in the different phases of international treaty-making against the backdrop of this constitutional practice. This constitutional practice is shaped by intergovernmental agreements, bilateral arrangements and European Parliament resolutions and is influenced by the mounting case law of the CJEU. It also assesses the European Parliament's role in concluding international administrative agreements concluded by the Commission and Europol and how far the constitutional practice is in line with EU primary law.

9. Legitimate and Democratic? The European Union’s International Role

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Lord
Keyword(s):  
European Parliament ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
European Council ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
International Policy ◽  
Member States ◽  
International Policies ◽  
Democratic Control ◽  
International Role ◽  
The Eu

This chapter examines the legitimacy and democratic control of the European Union's international policies. It first explains why, with whom, and by what standards the EU's international role need to be legitimate before discussing the issue of democratic control involving the European Parliament (EP) and national parliaments. More specifically, it considers the member states' mantra that the legitimacy of EU decisions is ‘founded on the principle of representative democracy’, delivered through the representation of citizens in the EP and national democracies in the European Council, the Councils, and their own national parliaments. It also emphasizes the great variety in the EU's international policy procedures and concludes by assessing how legitimacy might enable or constrain the development of the EU as an international actor.

scholarly journals Who Teams Up with the European Parliament? Examining Multilevel Party Cooperation in the European Union

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Katharina L. Meissner ◽  
Guri Rosén
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Eu Policy ◽  
Trade Politics ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu

Abstract As in nearly all European Union (EU) policy areas, scholars have turned to analysing the role of national parliaments, in addition to that of the European Parliament (EP), in trade politics. Yet, there is limited understanding of how the parliamentarians at the two levels interact. This article fills the gap by conceptualizing these interactions as a continuum ranging between cooperation, coexistence and competition. We use this continuum to explore multilevel party interactions in EU trade talks and show how cooperation compels politicization – national parliamentarians mainly interact with their European colleagues in salient matters. However, we argue that the impact of politicization on multilevel relations between parliamentarians in the EP and national parliaments is conditioned by party-level factors. Hence, we account for how and why politicization triggers multilevel party cooperation across parliaments in the EU through ideological orientation, government position and policy preferences and show how this takes place in the case of trade.

scholarly journals The Conclusions of the ‘Dialogue on the future of Europe: How to build a more effective and genuinely strong Union?’ Conference Organised by the Ferenc Mádl Institute of Comparative Law and the Ministry of Justice

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-223
Author(s):  
Julianna Sára Traser ◽  
Márta Benyusz
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
European Commission ◽  
Comparative Law ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Member States ◽  
International Conference ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Eu

This article concludes the presentations made at and the main lessons drawn from the international conference held on 21 September 2020, within the framework of the pan-European dialogue on the future of Europe, co-organised by the Ferenc Mádl Institute and the Ministry of Justice. It also presents the EU context and background of the debate, the role of the EU institutions, and the evolution of their position. The event was attended by representatives of the EU, Hungarian politicians, and representatives from academia and civil society. With this event, Hungary officially launched a series of conferences on the future of Europe. The presentations in these conferences reflected the crises facing the Union, including the institutional challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the effectiveness of the EU and its Member States' responses to them. The speakers considered the involvement of and consultation with citizens important to the process. In the context of disputes over competences between the EU and the Member States, some speakers drew attention to the spillover effect, and others called for the strengthening of the supervisory role of constitutional courts and the need for more effective involvement of national parliaments in subsidiarity control, with regard to the sovereignty of the Member States and the primacy of EU law. Critical remarks were made on the limited nature of civil society representation at the EU level. The article reflects on the main events on thinking about the future of Europe over the last four years, including the main initiatives and positions expressed by the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Heads of State and Government, citizens' consultations, and institutional competition in relation to the thematic and organisational issues of the EU-level conference. Whereas the European Commission and European Parliament, which has an ambitious position and has already proposed concrete solutions to organisational and governance issues, were the first to formulate their vision, the position of the Council, representing the Member States, will not be established until June 2020. Thus, no joint declaration on part of the institutions has been adopted thus far and no conference has been hosted, either. In view of all this, the organisation of the international conference by the Ferenc Mádl Institute of Comparative Law and the Ministry of Justice can be considered timely and proactive.

scholarly journals Introduction to “Out of the Shadows, Into the Limelight: Parliaments and Politicisation”

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 220-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Neuhold ◽  
Guri Rosén
Keyword(s):  
European Parliament ◽  
Thematic Issue ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
Fisheries Policy ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
The Common ◽  
Policy Fields ◽  
The Eu

The Lisbon Treaty gave the European Parliament extensive new powers and its consent is now required for the vast majority of EU international agreements. At the same time, national parliaments—and even regional ones—are increasingly asserting their powers over areas of European governance that were traditionally dominated by the executive. Exerting influence and conducting oversight is time-consuming, however. Particularly at the EU-level parliaments cannot influence or scrutinise every policy dossier with equal rigour. A key factor directing parliamentary attention seems to be the ‘politicisation’ of an issue. In other words, the amount of contestation and attention given to a particular issue seems to affect parliamentary activity. This thematic issue seeks to assess <em>how</em> politicisation affects the role parliaments play within the system of EU governance. In particular, the contributions aim to answer the over-arching question of whether politicisation has an impact on how parliaments seek to influence policy-making and hold the EU executives to account. Furthermore, we raise the question of whether and how politicisation affects the role of parliaments as arenas for contestation and communication of different political interests. Jointly, the findings provide the empirical foundations for a more comprehensive debate regarding the democratic implications of politicisation. Politicisation puts pressure on parliaments to act, but parliamentarians themselves may also find it in their interest to instigate contestation. This thematic issue addresses these questions by shedding light on both the European Parliament and national parliaments and examines different policy-fields reaching from climate change and trade, to financial affairs and the Common Fisheries Policy.

The European Parliament

2020 ◽  
pp. 208-220
Author(s):  
Vivien A. Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
European Parliament ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
Political Accountability ◽  
Eurozone Crisis ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Input Legitimacy ◽  
Over Time

Chapter 8 discusses the European Parliament’s pathway to legitimacy, and its transition from having “no size at all” in Eurozone governance to increasing influence. The chapter begins with an analysis of the EP’s sources of power—which were initially very few, given its marginalization in Eurozone governance—and of its growing throughput legitimacy. Although the most input legitimate of EU actors in principle, in practice it has had limited relevance to citizens and has been far removed from them as well as from national parliaments—themselves the biggest losers in Eurozone crisis governance. But the EP’s lack of remit did not stop it from using its input legitimacy to enhance its own procedural exercise of “voice,” deployed increasingly critically to demand accountability from other EU actors. The EP also slowly gained influence as the “go-to” body for other EU actors in search of legitimation via a political accountability forum. The chapter follows with a discussion of the Janus-faced public perceptions of the EP’s role in Eurozone governance, moving from views of the European Parliament as a talking shop increasingly toward its being a potential equal partner. The chapter shows that initially the EP was a talking shop that largely went along with Council and Commission initiatives, in keeping with its minimal powers, but that over time the EP gained increasing powers both formally, through legislation, and informally, in particular as other EU actors turned more and more to the EP for legitimation by giving accounts to an input-legitimate accountability body.

The Role of National Parliaments in the European Union

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dieter Grimm
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
National Level ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
The European Union ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Member States ◽  
Legislative Authority ◽  
Legitimacy Crisis ◽  
The Eu

This chapter examines the role of national parliaments in the European Union. It first considers the general trend towards de-parliamentarization in the EU before describing the European situation by distinguishing three separate phases, in which the national parliaments have different functions: the transfer of sovereign rights from the Member States to the EU, the exercise of those transferred rights by the EU, and the implementation of European decisions by the Member States. The chapter then explores the question of whether the European Parliament is capable of compensating at the European level for the erosion of legislative authority at the national level. Finally, it discusses the proposal that the European Parliament be vested with the powers typically possessed by national parliaments as a solution to the EU’s legitimacy crisis and argues that full parliamentarization is not the answer.

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