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.

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.

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.

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).

Principle of Subsidiarity and the EU Environmental Policy

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas de Sadeleer
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Environmental Policy ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Environmental Legislation ◽  
Member States ◽  
Single European Act ◽  
The Eu

The principle of subsidiarity is a fundamental principle of the European Union. It has first been introduced in the field of environmental policy by the Single European Act in 1987 and extended to all fields of shared competencies by the Maastricht treaty in 1992. Since then much has been done to operationalize the principle, and subsidiarity has received increasing attention by the Union’s institutions and Member States. The following contribution provides a brief appraisal of the role of the principle and of how it has influenced environmental legislation, so far.

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.

2. The constitutional base of the Union

2018 ◽  
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).

Negotiating Treaty Reform in the European Union: The Role of the European Commission

1998 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 435-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Maastricht Treaty ◽  
Technical Expertise ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Union ◽  
Close Cooperation ◽  
Treaty Reform ◽  
The Impact ◽  
High Politics

AbstractIn this article we seek to show that treaty reform is best seen as a process, and that we are witnessing a process of constitutionalization. We challenge the distinction between day-to-day politics and the high politics of treaty reform, demonstrating that high politics approaches are unable to take the significant role of non-governmental actors into consideration. While the European Commission's impact on the Maastricht Treaty was fairly limited, particularly concerning Political Union issues, we conclude that the Commission's impact on the Amstrerdam Treaty has been considerable. In fact, such an impact is not surprising given the Commission's technical expertise and its close cooperation with both the Council Secretariat and the Presidency of the Council. It is only if the impact of non-governmental actors, such as the Commission (and the Council Secretariat), is assumed to be negligible and therefore left unexamined that our findings are surprising. In this way, the article contributes to criticism of intergovernmental approaches to European integration.

2. The European Union: Establishment and Development

2019 ◽  
pp. 11-30
Author(s):  
David Phinnemore
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
European Integration ◽  
First Century ◽  
The European Union ◽  
New Era ◽  
Adoption And Implementation ◽  
Single European Act ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Treaty Of Amsterdam

The focus of this chapter is the emergence of the European Communities in the 1950s, their evolution in the three decades thereafter, and the establishment and early development of the European Union (EU) in the 1990s. The chapter explores key developments in the first four decades of European integration and some of the tensions that have shaped them. It considers the ambitions of the architects and supporters of the European Communities and how their hopes and aspirations played out as integration became a reality in the 1950s and 1960s. It looks at how their ambitions grew and how the process then lost momentum in the 1970s before the idea of ‘European union’ was rekindled in the 1980s with the Single European Act (1986) and the Single Market project. These acted as catalysts for a new era of dynamic European integration with the now expanded Communities at its core. The chapter then explores how, through ‘Maastricht’ and the adoption and implementation of the Treaty on European Union (1992), the European Union was established. The chapter assesses the unique and incomplete form of the new ‘union’ and examines the impact on it of reforms introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam (1997) and the Treaty of Nice (2000) as the EU sought to prepare itself for the further enlargement and the challenges of the initial years of the twenty-first century.

9. Democracy and Legitimacy in the European Union

2019 ◽  
pp. 127-140
Author(s):  
Stijn Smismans
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Democratic Deficit ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Constitutional Treaty ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Economic Migration ◽  
Modes Of Governance ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu

This chapter discusses the extent to which decision-making in the European Union can be considered democratic and legitimate. The chapter clarifies the concepts ‘democracy’ and ‘legitimacy’, and describes how, although initially the legitimacy of the European polity was not perceived as a problem, it became more problematic as the EU gained more competences. The European democratic deficit became an important issue of debate only during the 1990s after the Maastricht Treaty had transferred considerable powers to the EU. The main solution to the democratic deficit has been inspired by the parliamentary model of democracy and involves strengthening the European Parliament (EP), while also paying attention to the role of national parliaments and regional and local authorities. The chapter also shows how the governance debate at the start of the twenty-first century broadened the conceptual understanding of democracy in the EU by addressing the complexity of European governance (see also Chapter 7). By looking at different stages of policy-making and different modes of governance, while dealing with issues such as transparency and the role of civil society, the chapter discusses a wider range of issues associated with the democracy and legitimacy of the Union. It assesses the impact on EU democracy of the Constitutional Treaty and the Lisbon Treaty. The chapter concludes by warning that three main crises, namely the economic, migration, and security crises, have revived nationalist and populist movements exacerbating the challenges to the EU’s legitimacy.

INTEGRATING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT INTO EUROPEAN POLICYMAKING: THE ROLE OF IMPACT ASSESSMENTS

2007 ◽  
Vol 09 (02) ◽  
pp. 141-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
JENNIFER FRANZ ◽  
COLIN KIRKPATRICK
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Impact Assessment ◽  
European Commission ◽  
Development Strategy ◽  
Environmental Effects ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Policy Proposals

Since the adoption of the EU's first Sustainable Development Strategy in 2001, the European Commission has been committed to undertaking impact assessments of its major policy proposals, covering the potential positive and negative economic, social and environmental effects both inside and outside the European Union. This paper provides as evaluation of a sample of the Commission's recent EC Impact Assessments, focusing on the extent to which the goal of sustainable development has been integrated into the impact assessment analysis.

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